Part 16 - I used to do it this way… Now how do I do it? Administering Exchange 2003 vs. Exchange 2007

To return to part 1 click here

Administrative Tasks: Resource Scheduling

Resource Scheduling in Exchange 2003

In Exchange 2003, setting up a resource involved many steps:

  • Create a mailbox using ADU&C
  • Give permissions to the mailbox
  • Setup Auto Accept Agent or use Outlook Direct Booking for mailboxes

We will not go into who this done in Exchange 2003, but will instead focus on the changes in Exchange 2007.

Resource Scheduling in Exchange 2007

In Exchange 2007, the management of resource scheduling is much easier and includes creating and managing your conference room and equipment, and scheduling resources.

  • You can now create mailboxes specifically for rooms or equipment like AV equipment
  • You can specify custom properties like TV, Whiteboards, as well as room capacity
  • You can convert former Exchange 2003 Resource mailboxes to a different type
  • You can upgrade former Auto Accept Agent based Resource mailboxes as well

Lets walk through this.

We will create a Room Mailbox.

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Filling out the information.

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Choose the database

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And there is the shell command.

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Now that it is created, we can look at the properties. He we can put the capacity as well.

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But you can also create custom configurations as well. Here we added to the Room schema 16 seats and 8 seats, and added to Equipment Projectors and Whiteboards.

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Now when I click Add, you see custom properties. I choose one.

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Now we have a room with a capacity of 20 and only 16 seats.  I guess 4 people are standing or sitting on the floor.

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Here are the properties of some Equipment. So I added the custom Property – Projector.

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Converting mailboxes in Exchange 2007

To convert a mailbox from Exchange 2003 to Exchange 2007:

  • Move the mailbox from Exchange 2003 to 2007
  • Run the cmdlet Set-Mailbox Alias –Type Room

Other options for types are Regular, Equipment, or Shared.

Enabling Automatic Booking on a Resource Mailbox

If the mailbox was a former Auto Accept Agent Mailbox you must uninstall the agent from the server and then move the mailbox to 2007.  After that you use Set-MailboxCalendarSettings to choose how you want the processing of meeting requests to be handled.

Set-MailboxCalendarSettings <Identity> -AutomateProcessing:AutoAccept

There are a lot of different settings here.  Here is a good starting place to get a better idea of the options:  (Taken from here)

To control who can schedule a resource, use the following parameters with the Set-MailboxCalendarSettings command:

  • AllBookInPolicy
  • AllRequestInPolicy
  • AllRequestOutOfPolicy
  • BookInPolicy
  • RequestInPolicy
  • RequestOutOfPolicy
  • ForwardRequestsToDelegates
  • TentativePendingApproval
  • ResourceDelegates

To control when a resource can be scheduled, use the following parameters with the Set-MailboxCalendarSettings command:

  • AllowConflicts
  • BookingWindowInDays
  • EnforceSchedulingHorizon
  • MaximumDurationInMinutes
  • AllowRecurringMeetings
  • ScheduleOnlyDuringWorkingHours
  • ConflictPercentageAllowed
  • MaximumConflictInstances

To control what meeting information will be visible on the resource's calendar, use the following parameters with the Set-MailboxCalendarSettings command:

  • DeleteAttachments
  • DeleteComments
  • RemovePrivateProperty
  • DeleteSubject
  • DisableReminders
  • AddOrganizerToSubject
  • DeleteNonCalendarItems
  • OrganizerInfo

To customize the response message that meeting organizers will receive, use the following parameters in the Set-MailboxCalendarSettings command:

  • AddAdditionalResponse
  • AdditionalResponse

Next: Part 17 – Managing Client Access