In my organization we use OWA (Outlook Web Access0, as well as other
exchange clients.
In OWA, the sent items box list the "From" feild, and who the heck
want to see that field, right?!  What I would prefer to see is the
"To" field.
Of course making this change in Outlook Client is easier than pie, but
how do you configure the OWA server to display this information on the
web page?

The question:  What information can I approach the Exhange/OWA
admisistrators group with to explain how this can be done on the OWA
server.

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Request for Question Clarification by aht-ga on 23 Dec 2003 10:11 PST

stevenclary-ga:

There is no simple way to fix this "design feature" (a.k.a. bug) in
Outlook Web Access. By default, all folders that appear in the Content
View pane of OWA use the standard XML template to display the folder
contents. For almost all folders, displaying the "From" value is the
right approach. Only for the "Sent Items" folder is this not correct.

To rectify the situation, your company's Exchange administrators will
need to be familiar with the Exchange data schema, and familiarize
themselves with customizing the template used by the Sent Items folder
only. This goes beyond the normal, basic training that most Exchange
administrators receive, and ventures into the realm of XML coding.

If this is something that you wish to pursue, I can provide you with a
link to information that you can bring to the admin group; however, I
suspect that they will be extremely reluctant to dabble inside the
workings of OWA for fear of breaking it completely.

Please let me know if you wish to proceed, and I will provide the link
and explanation of the necessary steps in an Answer.

Regards,

aht-ga

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Clarification of Question by stevenclary-ga on 05 Jan 2004 07:30 PST

I am sorry for the delay over the holidays.  I do wish to proceed,
thank you in advance.

stevenclary-ga:

Thank you for your question regarding Outlook Web Access.

As I mentioned above, this is not a simple thing to 'fix'. In a
nutshell, the problem is that OWA uses the same template for all of
its default mail folder views, including the Sent Items.

To change this requires that your Exchange administrator(s) become
familiar with the Exchange data schema used by OWA, so that they can
configure the Sent Items folder to use a different template than the
rest of the mail folders.

One complication is that Microsoft, for reasons known only unto them,
have 'broken' the link to get to the documentation through MS TechNet,
the online library of technical information that all MS-trained folks
rely on.

I was able to find a copy of the necessary document on another site;
please download this document and store it locally, as there is no
guarantee that it will remain available:

Customizing Microsoft® Outlook® Web Access - White Paper
http://www.lsa.umich.edu/lsait/Outlook/techfaqs/CustmOWA.doc

While it is important to read the whole document in order to
understand how OWA works, I would draw particular attention to pages
64 and onwards. This is where custom views are discussed. This is also
where the problem becomes most acute. The two methods available for
customizing the view for a folder are both folder-centric, meaning
that each folder has its own view setting. For a Public Folder, the
Exchange administrator would only have to set the view once. However,
Sent Items folders exist in every mail account. So, even if the
Exchange administrators are successful in getting the Sent Items view
changed for one user, they would most likely have to do this for each
user individually. I have not worked on this myself, so I cannot say
how much effort is involved. I suppose it is up to your Exchange
administrator team to determine if it is worth it!

An alternate solution, albeit less desirable, is to add the To: field
to the standard view; however, this would waste an entire column's
worth of space to list your own address over and over again, in every
folder other than Sent Items.

I hope this information is useful to you.

Regards,

aht-ga
Google Answers Researcher

Thank you very much for your the info, and also for giving me the
opportunity to chose NOT to receive an answer due to probablility of
success.