Parker's Mailbox
~~Parker Renaud, IT Manager, Colliers Keenan, Inc.

Working Offline in Outlook 

What happens to your Outlook information if you are using a portable computer outside the office or if your Exchange Server is down? Well, if you are like most Outlook users in an Exchange Environment, your data is totally inaccessible. 

However, there is a way to make your information accessible, whatever your circumstances. To take advantage of the benefits of working with an exchange server, you can set up and configure Offline Folders. Offline Folders are similar to Personal Folders in that they are used to store Outlook items on your hard drive, but Personal Folders are independent of Exchange Server or any other Outlook folders. 

Your Offline Folders file contains a copy of your data in the Exchange Store. (The Exchange Store is where Exchange Server keeps your Outlook information.) When you are connected to your network you can synchronize the data in your Offline Folders file with the Exchange Store. You can then disconnect from the network and work with Outlook while off the network. When you next connect to the network and synchronize, any changes you made while offline are copied to the Exchange Store. 

In order to do this you must first create a profile for offline use. To create a new profile:

1.     Click Start>Settings>Control Panel, then double click the Mail (or Mail and Fax) icon to display the Properties dialog box.

2.      Click on Show Profiles to display the Mail dialog box.

3.     Click on Add to add an offline profile and the Inbox Setup Wizard will appear.

4.     Check Microsoft Exchange Server and click next.

5.     The wizard will then suggest the name MS Exchange Settings for your new profile. Change the name to something meaningful, such as your initials and Offline. Click next.

6.     The next window asks the name of your Exchange Server and your user name. If you don’t know the name of your Exchange Server, you can view the properties of your current profile or ask your administrator. Enter the information and click next.

7.     The next window asks whether you travel with this computer. If you are setting up an Offline profile, click Yes, even if the profile is for a desktop that you don’t plan to take anywhere.

8.     The final window says you are done and shows the services that you have set up. Click finish and the Mail dialog box will reappear with the new profile in addition to any other profiles set up previously.

9.     Now that you have created an offline profile, you need to create an Offline Folders File. Highlight the new profile, click Properties and the Properties dialog box will open.

10.  Highlight Microsoft Exchange Server, and click Properties.

11.  When the Microsoft Exchange Server window opens click on the Advanced tab, then on the Offline Folder File Settings button.

12.   Again, Microsoft suggests a meaningless name for the Offline Folder File. Rename it something meaningful to you such as your initials or user name and offline. Do not change the .ost extension, however.

13.  If you want to change the encryption setting, do so now, then click OK until you return to the Outlook desktop.

14.  Now you need to synchronize your offline folder file to copy your current Outlook information into it.

15.  Click on Tools>Synchronize>All Folders. The first time you synchronize can take anywhere from 5 to 30 minutes, depending on how much information you have in your information store. Subsequent synchronizations should take less than a minute.

16.  To keep your offline folder synchronized, go to Tools>Options>Mail Services, and check the box “When Online, synchronize all folders upon exiting.” If you never turn off your PC, however, this will not do you much good. If that is the case, check the box “When online, automatically synchronize all offline folders every 60 minutes.” You can change the interval to whatever you wish. 

Now that you have set up your offline folders and synchronized your folders, you need to test it. In order to test it, simply sign off your network and open Outlook using your offline profile. If Outlook opens and you can still access your data, you did it correctly. Now you can work in Outlook whether or not you are connected to the network.

Parker Renaud is the one-man IT department at Colliers Keenan where he manages 90 PCs on 5 servers.