I have two CAS Exchange 2010 servers at two separate sites. Each Exchange server has a public folder database that we use primarily to store public calendars. Our customer service department will take calls and make appointments on specific calendars based on the location of the appointment. Recently it was brought to my attention that when looking at the same calendar from each site, the appointments did not always match. This has become a huge problem because we rely so heavily on the calendars for communicating to our service department where to be each day. Here is where I think the problem is, but I am unsure about the correct configuration. I have these multiple appointment calendars (about 10 of them) set to replicate between the two sites. The replication is currently set to use the Public Folder Database replication schedule (not sure what that is), but this appears to be somewhat working. Should I not replicate the public folder calendars between the two sites so that there is only one copy of it, or should I simply change the replication schedule? Keep in mind that there are users at each site and they connect to the local Exchange server, if I were to stop the replication of the calendars would this still leave a copy of the calendar on each server and cause even more confusion? If I were to remove the public folder calendar from one site and only have it reside on one of the servers, will all users have access to it? My goal here is to have a public folder calendars that are accessible by all Exchange users and reflect appointment changes almost immediately to all. Please help clear this up... Thanks in advance!

Hello, Check the application log and see if there are any error about the replication. By the way, it is not recommended to use public folder to store calendar items. In Exchange 2010 and Outlook 2007, we can use the autodsicover and EWS to publish and retrieve Free/busy information. It is more reliable. Understanding the Availability Service http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb232134.aspx Simon Wu Exchange Forum Support Please remember to mark the replies as answers if they help and unmark them if they provide no help. If you have feedback for TechNet Subscriber Support, contact tnmff@microsoft.com.

I realize is is not recommended, but we do not have a better solution right now. Let me explain the scenario a little bit further. We have these public calendars (one for each person) that is used for their appointments. Each user with a calendar creates on that public calendar pre-configured appointments at specific times. Our customer service employees make appointments on a users folder by viewing the person's calendar and finding a preconfigured appointment that has not yet been assigned to a customer. They open the appointment and edit the information and save it. This process works fine when there is only one server in the mix, but the problem is that we have two CAS Exchange servers across a WAN link. If the customer service employee's Outlook is connected to the local server, they only see the calendars that are located in the public folder store on that server. For some reason they cannot see the public folder calendars that are local on the other Exchange server. I am not sure if this is by design or not. I thought that the solution to the problem was simply to set the public folder calendars to replicate between the two servers. This make a duplicate of the calendar available on both servers. The problem I am having now is that the replication is either too slow or not happening immediately. The customer service employees at the two sights are trying to make appointment updates on entries that already have an appointment on the other server. This is causing conflicts and confusion on appointments. Ideally what I would like to see happen is for there to be one calendar and do away with the replication. If you can help me to understand how to allow users on one CAS to see a public folder on another CAS, that would resolve the problem until I can get SharePoint or some other solution in place. If that is not possible, then is it possible to force the synchronization much more often (like every 5 minutes), or would this be a problem over a WAN link? UPDATE - I can manually force the replication by selecting "Update Content" in the PF Management Console. It only takes a split second to update then says it is complete. However, when I compare the public folder calendar using a user logged in to each of the two CAS servers the calendars still do not match. I now feel that my problem is an issue with the synchonization itself. Any idea how to troubleshoot this? I have restarted all Exchange services and I do not see any error messages in the log. Thanks!

Hello Eric, Thank you for the further explanation. In order to check whether the public folder is successfully replicated, please run the “Get-PublicFolderStatistics” command on both Mailbox Server and see if the items and size are equal. Simon Wu Exchange Forum Support Please remember to mark the replies as answers if they help and unmark them if they provide no help. If you have feedback for TechNet Subscriber Support, contact tnmff@microsoft.com.