Traveling Laptops, Exchange 2000, and Multiple Profiles?

PDiddy asks: "Working for a corporation which uses Exchange 2000, I have run into countless traveling users with laptops that have complaints about how their mail is received from the outside vs. inside. Most of these users have a 56k or less dialup when on the road, so having them connect with an Exchange profile is incredibly slow, even with 'Offline Folders' enabled. The second option is to have two profiles. One for Exchange (Inside), and have it default to delivering to a PST. The second profile (Outside) be setup for POP and set it to the same PST. On the surface, this solution looks great to the user, but the ability to nightly backup the mail on the exchange server is removed. The third option would be to have a combination of the two approaches, the difference being the exchange profile (Inside), would leave the mail on the server, but then you have users complaining about having to sort through their new mail twice. What I need is a good, all around solution. Perhaps their are some third-party plugins for outlook I am unaware of to create a new solution? Also, are their any recommended methods for accessing an Exchange global address book over a very slow connection, or, perhaps syncing updates to laptop while connected so it can be used on the road? Currently, if you export that address book, it will set the email addresses to X.400, which will not work from a POP profile."

Comments

Since you're in bed with MS already...

[seanmeister]

... try Outlook Web Access, or maybe just have them use Outlook in a Terminal Services session. Either way is a hell of a lot faster than accessing the mailbox directly over dialup.

Outlook Needs to be Setup to 'Work Offline'

[Mad Browser]

In addition to setting up offline folders, you need to force Outlook to 'Work Offline' or present the user with a choice between 'Connect' and 'Work Offline' when Outlook starts.

If Outlook sees any kind of network connection, it will default to 'Connect' if not told otherwise, no matter if the link is 56k or 100Mbps...

So, combine that with properly sync'd offline folders (sync when logging off when connected), you'll have none of this trouble.