[apang]

I am using MS-Office XP in a Peer-to-peer workgroup network environment, Email being handled by my ISP (meaning I have no email server in-house), currently the 5 people office is using Outlook Express6, planning to switch to Outlook because of the other great features such as creating Reminders, appointment/events using the Outlook Calendar.

Question is: is there anyway we can share a global Calender/Appointment database by all 5 people? Currently we are treating the Receptionist PC as a File Sharing central computer, we have individual user file folder reside in that PC, plus other commonly shared folders in that PC for everyone to share, then at night the central PC folders are backup onto CDRW - works great. However I am not sure whether a centralized address book or calendar database in Outlook is a possible solution - can someone shed some idea here for me? Many many thks!

Andy

 

[sle]

Hi, apang. Are you running Exchange Server? What version?

 

[apang]

No, We are not running Exchange at all. If we do switch from OLexp6 to OL, the mail is still comming from my ISP and NOT handled internally (Because we do not have a dedicated server (just workgroup).

thks

 

[sle]

Ok. Unfortunately, that nixes the ability to use Public Folders as Calendars, Contacts, etc, which is a great feature. See the first few paragraphs here: http://www.slipstick.com/outlook/share.htm.

However, there do seem to be a fair amount of third party software utilities that work with non-Exhange Outlook to provide the functionality you are looking for. Here is one listing I got by googling for "outlook utilities contacts calendars": http://www.outlook4team.com/download.asp?catID=3.

Hope that gives you a starting point. Maybe someone else can give more specifics.