Allow subscriptions to…

By default, users can specify either a document or a folder when creating a subscription. If they specify a document, the subscription will produce update email regarding only that document. If they specify a folder, the subscription will produce update email regarding all documents in that folder.

The default selection, Folders and Documents, allows either type of subscription.To limit activity on the Office-extended server and mail server, you may want to only allow subscriptions to documents. Select Documents only to prevent user subscriptions to folders.

You may want to disable folder subscriptions because:

• Security can be compromised. If a user subscribes to a folder and NTFS permissions have been placed on documents in that folder to hide them from the user, the user will still receive change notification email on those documents.

Important Enabling folder subscriptions will reveal document names and changes that are taking place on documents that users may not have permission to access.

• Subscriptions to folders can cause excessive activity on the Office-extended server and mail server, especially when folders contain a large number of documents or documents are changed frequently.

However, the advantages of enabling folder subscriptions include:

• Users can create one subscription that covers everything in a specified folder, instead of subscribing to every individual document of interest.
• Users don’t need to memorize and type in individual document names when configuring subscriptions. They only need to know the folder name.
• As more users take advantage of folder subscriptions, fewer subscriptions need to be managed by the Office-extended server administrator.