Public Folder Watcher

Public Folder Watcher is an add on to MS Outlook. It provides notification facility for workgroup members for email folders that are public status. Timely notifications can greatly improve interaction between team members with this notification facility.

Pros: Public Folder Watcher (PFW) is an add-on for Microsoft Outlook enabling support of notifications about changes in Exchange Public Folders and providing a status of unread email messages. The notification works on similar lines as the Outlook email notifications but has additional feature useful to people using public folders. Group email addresses for example can use this facility very easily.

The application is integrated with the standard outlook menu thus there is nothing new to learn, settings are available through the familiar interface of the Outlook. While the Outlook works for Inbox only the Public Folder Watcher works for all the public folders. All of the members get to see the messages and interaction improves greatly.

This is a multithreaded application and thus should not affect the outlook performance to any significant level. Notifications at 20 minutes default interval are received for Public folders and email folders. These settings can be changed. Besides there’s a notification window available near the system tray that can provide an immediate snapshot, if desired.

Through the VPN mode participating members can be distributed geographically and work the same way as if they were on a local net.

Cons: There was not anything problematic that was noticed.

Overall: Generally a useful application though of limited utility. Considering everything this is a package that rates 3 stars.

Overview
Public Folder Watcher (PFW) is an add-on for Microsoft Outlook enabling support of notifications about changes in Exchange Public Folders and providing a status of unread email messages. It works similar to standard Outlook email notifications, but also has several additional features that may be useful for those who use Public Folders. The add-on is integrating into Microsoft Outlook and providing access to its settings through menu in Outlook. Everyone is familiar with standard Outlook notification window, that is why Public Folder Watcher works the same way, but in comparison with email notification working for Inbox folder only, PFW works for all Public Folders. As a result, it improves interaction level through providing the latest Public Folders changes notification.
Features List:
* Notification of Public Folders' updates
* Notification of e-mail folders' updates
* Outlook native visual style
* Smart notifications
* Configuration of the checking intervals
* Folders checking configuration
* Special "read messages" mode
* Multi-threaded application. Does not reduce Outlook performance
* VPN environment support
* Outlook 2003 and Outlook Office 12, Outlook 2010 support
* Multi-monitors environment support