The sudden removal of public folder access in outlook on the web

[technonath]

Last week access to public folders was removed from outlook on the web with no announcement, does anyone know why?  and why was the message centre not used to communicate this change ?

Now you get a banner saying "switch to outlook desktop to view public folders"

[#2]

@SandraGoulet 

I chased my microsoft contact on this again yesterday as something was due around April 28th, their response was:

"We were on track to the rollout but we were hit by a road block. We are actively trying to resolve the issue. I will get back to you on the updated timeline by tomorrow/day after." 

[#3]

I am told this is now scheduled for the end of this month.

[#4]

Meanwhile still can't add Public Folder (containing contacts) to the New Outlook...
Does not work.

Had one user today not finding a contact list, he had switched to the new Outlook, and sure we can add them in Old Outlook and have the contacts show up in the people tab, but still nothing alike for the New Outlook.

[#5]

@Paypercorn - in case you haven't seen it - Microsoft have now released the toggle.

Hi all,

Based on your feedback to use public folders, we are providing you with a toggle to switch to the old People Hub experience on Outlook Webapp to use Public folders. You can continue to use the new experience if you do not use Public folders.

Public folders are available to view in "To:" in compose scenario in mail.

Thanks,

Gargy Shekhar

[#6]

Thanks, not just there for me yet, but it should be coming our way at some point, hopefully it will work fine.

Thanks again.

[#7]

Public Folders ended up back on my plate this week.

It's working great for OWA.
Contact Public Folders are also displaying in the New Outlook client, but it fails to retrieve the elements and just displays a generic error message.
It's like the UI ( the same as OWA) is there but not working for the New Client.

Only a minor part of my org is on the New Outlook so it's not a big deal for me yet.

Anyway thanks for the previous updates would have been lost and bothered on the whole subject without you.