Making Things Better
Some of the traps I've described are remedied only through training or Outlook updates. The people who will be reserving resources must understand direct booking's limitations (e.g., only 12 months of free/busy data) and work within those limits. Other traps, such as clients configured to publish fewer than 12 months of free/busy data and mistakenly designating a resource as an attendee, have fairly simple solutions.
To ensure that each client publishes 12 months of free/busy data, open a registry editor and navigate to the HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\<version>\Outlook\Preferences\FBPublishRange registry subkey, where <version> is 10.0 for Outlook XP and 9.0 for Outlook 2000. This subkey holds a hexadecimal value, so to publish 12 months of data, set the subkey to a value of c. Table 1 shows the hex equivalents for the number of months of data you want to publish. The easiest way to ensure that all clients publish the maximum amount of free/busy data is to use a system policy or logon script to make sure this key's value is set correctly. For more information, see the Microsoft article "XCLN: How to Configure Default Free/Busy Options" (http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;q197712).
If you want to alert people that they've mistakenly designated a resource as an attendee, you can create a server-side rule that sends an email message back to the meeting organizer informing him or her of the mistake. To configure this functionality, open the resource mailbox by using the Outlook profile you used to create the initial three-step direct-booking configuration. Select the Inbox folder and select Rules Wizard from Outlook's Tools menu. Click New to create a rule. Select Check messages when they arrive and click Next to display the conditions that trigger the rule. (If you're using Outlook 2002, the default mode for a new rule is Start creating a rule from a template; you need to select the Start from a blank rule option to see the Check messages when they arrive condition.) Select Uses the form name form. In the wizard's rule description section, click form name to display the Choose Forms dialog box. Change the drop-down list from Personal Forms to Application Forms, then select the Meeting Request form from the list and click Add, as Figure 6 shows.
Click Close on the Choose Forms dialog box, then click Next in the Rules Wizard to define an action. Select the move it to the specified folder action and the have server reply using a specific message action. In the rule description section, click the underlined word specified, select the Deleted Items Folder from the folder list, and click OK. Also in the rule description section, click a specific message to display a new message composition window. Enter a subject line such as You incorrectly attempted to reserve a resource, change the message importance to High, and enter text in the message body explaining that the meeting organizer is receiving this message because he or she incorrectly specified the resource, as an attendee. Explain that the organizer doesn't have a confirmed reservation to use the resource, and outline the steps to correct the error (i.e., put the resource in the Resources field). After you compose the message, click Save, then click Close. When you return to the Rules Wizard, click the Next button twice to display the last page in the Rules Wizard. On this page, specify a name for the rule and select Turn on this rule. Click Finish. You should see a rule definition that looks like the one that Figure 7 shows. If a meeting organizer accidentally designates a resource as an attendee, he or she will receive an email message informing him or her of the error.
Do-It-Yourself Booking
Outlook direct booking might have a few limitations, but overall, the feature is easy to understand and implement. I've found that organizations are reluctant to adopt other solutions, such as those that rely on scripts or event code, because they often don't have staff with the expertise to maintain and troubleshoot these solutions. By eliminating the need for a person to approve or reject a resource, Outlook direct booking lets staff members reserve resources quickly and efficiently.