Public folders are storage areas on public information stores where information can be grouped according to subject or some other criterion for sharing among users. You can store many kinds of information in public folders, from e-mail messages to graphics and sound bites. Public folders also can contain custom forms that serve as a base for creating custom applications such as bulletin boards, discussion forums, or customer tracking. In addition, a public folder can be used as an application, such as a bulletin board service (BBS), customer tracking application, electronic Help desk, or an Internet newsgroup, enabling you to define the type of information you want to display and organize that information.
Public folders are stored on a Microsoft Exchange Server computer in the public information store (Exchsrvr\Mdbdata\Pub.edb). If you have more than one server, you can replicate public folders among servers so that users have access to them on different servers.
Public folders provide a permanent storage place for information and allow the owners of the public folders to maintain the information.
You can set up public folders to track customers and include notes from meetings with them, Microsoft PowerPoint® presentations, links to the customers' Web sites, or feedback surveys in the folders. You can update information quickly and easily, and then after you update it, post it immediately to a public folder where users can access it. You can also restrict user access to a public folder and generate automatic replies to contributors on the basis of characteristics of the information they post.
In addition, users can organize public folders in ways that are appropriate for their individual needs by using different views. By sorting specific characteristics of the information, users have direct access to the specific types of information they need without going through a hierarchy of choices. They can also add the public folders they use most frequently to their list of public folder favorites.