Hi there We have a weird issue with Resource Mailboxes in Exchange 2007. I used the set-mailbox utility to change the type of a couple of our Exchange 2000 migrated mailboxes to Resource (Room) mailboxes. Two of them worked perfectly... for the other one, users were getting an NDR when trying to book the room for meetings:- Delivery has failed to these recipients or distribution lists: Rec RoomYour message wasn't delivered because of security policies. Microsoft Exchange will not try to redeliver this message for you. Please provide the following diagnostic text to your system administrator. _____ Sent by Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 Diagnostic information for administrators: Generating server: mailserver.ourdomain.com Rec.Room@ourdomain.com#550 5.7.1 RESOLVER.RST.NotAuthorized; not authorized ## After much frustration trying various things (permissions, etc), I disabled the mailbox, then re-connected it to the user. No NDR's are being generated now and the resource gets successfully booked, but the behaviour of the notification when successfully booking it has changed. With the other ex-Exchange 2000 mailboxes (that worked perfectly after changing to Exchange 2007 resource mailboxes) when you successfully book them for a meeting, you just get a Window popping up immediately to tell you the resource was successfully booked. But now with the Rec Room mailbox which I disabled and re-connected, it sends me an email instead when I book the resource. This is going to be a huge pain for our Project support staff who book LOTS of meetings on behalf of others. I don't want them to have to keep deleting these emails, but I still want them to know if the resource was successfully booked. Any way to change the behaviour back to how it was?? Many thanksRaymond

You must certainly read this article as it explains policies on resource mailboxes http://msexchangeteam.com/archive/2007/05/14/438944.aspx Deli

Hi Deli Thanks for your reply- i had already read that article, and it hasn't really answered my question. I noticed now that there's a table listing the features of Outlook Direct Booking vs AutoAccept Agent vs Resource Scheduling. The very first item in the list says "Directly books without sending mail" and there's an X only next to Outlook Direct Booking. Fair enough, but how come the other two mailboxes that I moved from Exchange 2000 are still using the old (preferred) notification behaviour of just a msgbox popup instead of sending a mail? There must be something different between the moved mailboxes and the one I disabled and then re-connected. I'd like to find out whether it's possible to apply whatever this difference is to any new mailboxes so we can retain the old notification behaviour. Any ideas? I've done a comparison of the output of get-mailboxcalendarsettings from two resourcemailboxes that are showing different behaviour, and the only difference is some entries in the "TestFields" attribute. Thanks Ray

You can go into OWA for that mailbox and change all booking options from the options page in OWA Not really sure what TestFields are? Deli

Hi Deli Yeah i'm aware of the options in OWA... but the only option WRT email notifications is to enter additional text to include when resources are booked. It doesn't give you the option to use Exchange 2003/2000 behaviour, where you'd just get a msgbox instead of an email when booking a meeting. Ray

Exchange 2007 processes resource mailboxes differently than Exchange 2003 so I am not sure you can actually do this? Deli

Hey Deli I'm beginning to think the same thing I'll probably end up just disabling and reconnecting the remaining resourcemailboxes as well as the ones I still need to move, so at least they all behave in the same way. I'll leave the post open though in case someone has any bright ideas. Thanks Ray

The pop-up box is because the resource is set up as a direct-booking resource. You can do it either way, but just don't set up a direct-booking resource to "autoaccept". The disadvantage to a direct-booking resource is that users with rights can simply edit that calendar directly. By using autoaccept, the calendar isn't accessible to those booking the appointments; they'll have to cancel an appointment (which is the right way) which will then remove it from everyone's calendar, including the resource. This way, someone can't simply delete an appointment out of a conference room, book another, and then pretend it's a system bug that double-booked the room.Check out this article for more information:http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb232195.aspxIf you want to use direct-booking (i.e. keep the popups), just do the opposite of what that article says. - Mike

Hey MikeThanks very much for your post - that clears things up. I hadn't cleared the options in Outlook under Tools - Options - Calendar Options - Resource Scheduling. I cleared those, disabled all the mailboxes and reconnected them (to fix NDR problem) and set them all to AutoAccept. I also opened each resource mailbox in Outlook (having manually enabled each account) and gave domain users Reviewer rights to the Calendar folder only (and then disabled the account again).This way, all the mailboxes behave in the same way, and users can open the meeting room calendars to view but can't edit any of them directly.Sorry it took a while to reply... ThanksRay

Just digging up an old thread here guys. I'm beginning to understand the differences between direct booking and AutoAccept. We've only ever used Exchange 2007 and Outlook 2007, but we're obviously using direct booking because our users get a nice pop-up message telling them that they can't double-book a room. Unfortunately we also have users who insist on opening a room's calendar before clicking the "New" button, which actually creates the meeting in that calendar and sends invitations out as the room rather than the person creating the meeting. There's no way would our users put up with having to continually cancel/reschedule meetings after sending out a dozen invitations because they only learn the room is booked after the fact. Is there a way to get the best of both worlds? Can Outlook prevent a user from double-booking a room before it sends invitations to all invitees, without requiring direct booking? Cheers, Matt

Hey MattNot sure I understand your problem fully - but isn't it just a case of training your users to use the Scheduling Assistant to check the room's availability, before inviting it as a resource? In our environment our users use it that way, and we seldom have any issues with double bookings.cheersRay

Raymond Diack wrote: Not sure I understand your problem fully - but isn't it just a case of training your users to use the Scheduling Assistant to check the room's availability, before inviting it as a resource? In our environment our users use it that way, and we seldom have any issues with double bookings. Hi Ray, You're right - it comes down to training. Unfortunately I work at a pig farm (seriously) and my users are ... well ... challenging. Don't you think it should be possible for Outlook to warn the user before sending the invitations? It should only need access to the barest of free/busy time in the resource's calendar. Matt

Hehe I see your predicament ;-) Yeah it would make sense for Outlook to warn you hey? There must be a feature request blog somewhere where you could request this? Might never get implemented but worth a try. Ray

Hi there Just wondering when you say "do the opposite of what that article" what does it mean? Regards

So one unfortunate, or whatever you want to call it side effect is that the meeting will be booked (at least in my experience, but your conference room will decline). I just built two new conf rooms after a remodel that weren't pre-existing in our 2003 environment.... Nice side effect is that the conf room at least tells you who owns the meeting you're trying to squash. Your request was declined because there are conflicts. The conflicts are: Organizer and Time of Conflicting Meeting Brian Wing -9/18/2009 1:00:00 PM to 9/18/2009 1:15:00 PM All times listed are in the following time zone:(GMT-08:00) Time Zone _____ Sent by Microsoft Exchange Server 2007