Topics related to Outlook and Entourage

Since Android devices vary with manufacturer, there is no simple way to provide graphic instructions.  However, there are some key pieces of information you will need when configuring your phone:

Username (wesleyan user name)
Password
Domain:  wesleyan
Server: exchange2010.wesleyan.edu
Check the box to enable SSL.

If you have any trouble, contact your Desktop Support Specialist for assistance.

Out of office messages can be set up in your email program (i.e. Outlook or Entourage) or via Outlook Web Access.  During the time we are updating our system, some users will have Outlook Web Access 2007 and some will have Outlook Web Access 2010.  By the end of July 2012, all users should be on Outlook Web Access 2o10.

Outlook Web Access 2010

Go to http://owa.wesleyan.edu and login with Wesleyan credentials.

Once logged in, click on Options in the upper right hand corner.

Click on Set Automatic Replies

Set up Out of Office email as desired.

Outlook Web Access 2007

Go to http://owa.wesleyan.edu and login with Wesleyan credentials.

Once logged in, click on Options in the upper right.

Select Out of Office Assistant on the right.

Set up Out of Office email as desired.

The following shows the sequence of screens involved in connecting Entourage 2008 to Exchange.

On the Entourage drop-down menu, select Account Settings, then select Wesleyan.  If nothing is there, select New, Exchange, and select the option to configure manually.  The settings below should be listed in the Account Settinngs.

These are the account settings that should appear with your user name in the Account ID field.

These are the settings for the Options button.

These settings should be on the Advanced button.

After performing these settings, you should click OK to exit the Account editor.

Lastly, to make sure that your local mail settings don’t conflict with server settings or inadvertently block good email, you should disable the local Entourage Junk Mail settings. 

Under Tools, Junk Email Protection. Set the Level to None.  Click OK.

Many Outlook and Entourage users have problems with performance.  The program may take a long time to load, navigation between messages may be sluggish, and overall usage can be frustrating.  There are some general guidelines for performance that can significantly improve user experience.  In addition, ITS is enacting some small changes that should make a difference to users.

There are 4 core areas of a mailbox: Inbox, Sent Mail, Contacts, and Calendar.  Keeping these folders under control will help performance tremendously.  What does “under control” mean?

Some basic guidelines are:

• For best performance, Inbox, Sent Items, Contacts and Calendar each should have fewer than 2500 items

• Mailboxes larger than 2GB must have caching disabled or caching enabled for selected folders that total less than 2GB

• Users cannot use Xobni

• Keep e-mail on the server, not in PST files

Item count is the single largest cause of poor performance.  For many users, though, the 2500 limit seems completely unattainable.  This does not mean nothing can be done.  One solution that ITS will be rolling out is use of Managed Folders.  Managed Folders are created by rules that can be set on the server to organize mail.  Using Managed Folders means that Exchange moves mail based on specified criteria to a folder whose items do not have to be counted when Outlook or Entourage opens up.  The messages are still there in their entirety, however, they are not indexed until they are accessed.  This often speeds up the performance quite a bit.  Messages over 90 days old will be stored in Managed Folders. This includes Inbox and Sent Mail.  These folders are fully searchable and there is no loss in functionality.

A quick word about PST and local mailboxes

PST files result when messages are pulled from the server store and saved locally on the computer.  This option seems appealing because reducing the size of the mailbox on the server by creating these separate stores usually results in quick relief.  However, there is great exposure here.  This mail is no longer backed up with our central mail system backup.  Corruption of these .PST files could easily result in lost mail.  The local desktop backup will skip these files if Outlook is open while the the backup is running.

Entourage has a similar feature for local storage.  A user can drag folders to the Inbox in the On My Computer section.  This will move the messages or folders to a local mailbox.  However, just like Outlook, this has major limitations for backup and recovery.  Should this local mailbox become corrupt, the mail will be irretrievable, nor does the mail backup when Entourage is open.

Using folders

Many users like to categorize their mail by making separate folders.  This can be a very useful way of storing mail.  The key is the location of the folder.  A user can create folders within the Inbox (subfolders) or at the same level as the Inbox.  This is a very important distinction.  Messages within Inbox subfolders all comprise the total Inbox item count.  Folders at the same level as the Inbox allow the user to move messages out of the Inbox and into a location where the messages won’t count toward the item total and where they won’t be indexed automatically on start-up thus impacting performance.

Location is also important with respect to how folders relate to Managed Folders.  Subfolders of the Inbox will be subject to the Managed Folders policy.  An exact replica of the user’s Inbox folder tree will be created under Managed Folders.  Folders at the same level as the Inbox will NOT have their messages moved to the Managed Folder area.  Users who prefer to create folders need to consider these differences to determine what is best for them.

Summary

Most of the performance problems that arise from Exchange are either due to limitations on the local email client program or users far exceeding the intended use of these programs.  Wesleyan is looking into longer-term archival solutions in the next year that we hope will ease the burden even further and allow users a long term-storage option that doesn’t impact performance.

Entourage Managed Folders

Outlook Managed Folders

Configuring Spam Assassin to put all email designated as spam into the Junk E-Mail will cause performance issues for Outlook on a PC.  A copy of mail on the Exchange Server is stored on the local hard drive for offline use in an OST file.  If the Junk E-Mail folder is large and continuously updating, so will the OST file.   When the OST file gets too big, Outlook will have a problem opening or freeze while starting up.  Even if Outlook opens, typical operations like opening, reading, and deleting emails will be affected. 

It is recommended that users configure Spam Assassin to delete mail at some spam score to minimize the amount of mail that is delivered to the Junk E-Mail folder.  A Spam Assassin setting of Moderate will delete e-mail with a spam score 20 or higher.  Settings of strong or aggressive will delete mail with lower scores.  We have never seen a legitimate e-mail with a score higher than 13.

When you type addresses into the To:/Cc:/Bcc: fields, Outlook remembers this information and AutoCompletes this information in the future when you begin to type the same string of letters.  If you change computers, recover from a problem, or simply reinstall Outlook, you can bring this AutoComplete information (much like a History list in a web browser) from your old version of Outlook to the new version.  Simply follow Microsoft’s suggestions here:

http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/outlook/HA011394511033.aspx

Tags: AutoComplete, Outlook

As of (approximately) 12:30pm today (March 17th 2008) Sending/Receiving EMail became functional within Outlook and Entourage clients using Exchange.

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We are experiencing technical difficulties sending and receiving email via Outlook and Entourage. This is being addresses at this time and a resolution is expected soon.

Messages which have been queued to send be delivered to their destination as soon as the problem has been resolved.

By default, the Outlook Calendar is divided into 30-minute time increments. You can adjust the time increments to something that is more fitting to your requirements. To do this:

1. Open your Outlook Calendar

2. Select Day or Work Week view.

3. Right click on the list of times and select the appropriate increment

Your calendar view is adjusted to reflect the new increments.

When you are online (connected to the network), Outlook constantly communicates with Exchange server and updates your mail, contacts, calendar and other folders. Outlook will also check recipient names against the Global Address List on the server and complete them as needed.

However, when your computer loses network connectivity (especially at home), your Outlook will go to an offline mode, if that is how it is configured. When you are offline, in the lower right hand corner of your Outlook screen you will see either Offline or Disconnected displayed. Please note that it is extremely important for you to turn on caching for the offline mode to work properly. You can read more about it here. Continue Reading »

It appears that some of your calendars have wrong permissions which allows other outlook users to view your entire schedule and in a few cases edit them also. This is the result of a wrong permission setting for the Default user. In few cases you may see an entry for Anonymous user. This gives web access to your calendar to even non-outlook users who know exactly how to look for outlook calendars on the web. The Default user should have no permissions. To change the Default user to Permission level none follow instructions below: Continue Reading »