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Parkers Mailbox 
~~Parker Renaud, IT Manager, Colliers Keenan, Inc.

Outlook Web Access 

In a previous issue, I listed some of the very useful Outlook features available to you only when you use Microsoft Exchange Server, such as: 

•  Message Recall

• Voting

• Offline folders

•  Offline Address Book

• Delegating Access and Folder Permissions

• Group scheduling

• Public folders

• Out of Office Assistant

• Web Access

The most useful of these features, in my opinion, is Outlook Web Access. With Outlook Web Access, you can access your e-mail, contacts, and calendar from anywhere in the world as long as you have Internet access. The president of our company regularly checked his office e-mail while traveling in Australia last year. I have accessed my e-mail from public libraries, trade shows,  hotel business centers, etc. It is certainly much easier than lugging a laptop around and going through airport security with it.  

The best thing about Outlook Web Access is that it is FREE! If your company is using Microsoft Exchange Server 5.0 or later, Web Access is already built in and waiting to be used. Your network administrator simply needs start the service and configure it. 

Not all Outlook features are available in Web Access, but the more important ones are.

If you are a poor typist, or are spelling-challenged, take note that any e-mails you send using Web Access are NOT spell checked. 

To take full advantage of Outlook Web Access features, you should use Internet Explorer 5.0 or higher. Although any browser that supports HTTP version 3.2 or higher also supports Outlook Web Access, certain features and functionality are only available with Internet Explorer. (I have received reports from employees that Web Access does not work with AOL or with CompuServe. I have not tried it with them, however.) 

To use Web Access:

1.      Open your browser (Internet Explorer) and go to your web access URL. Your system administrator can give that to you. It will be something like http://mail.keenancolliers.com/exchange.

2.      Next you will get one of several login screens, depending on which version of Windows and Internet Explorer you are using.

3.      If you get a logon screen with just two fields to fill (without a space to enter the domain name), enter domainname/username in the User Name field. In the Password field, enter your network password.

4.       If you get a logon screen with three input spaces, enter your username, your password and your domain name in the correct blanks.

5.      Next the Microsoft Outlook Web Access screen opens with another Log On. Enter your user name again.

6.  Now you are in a "virtual" Outlook screen. From here you can do just about anything you could do in Outlook on your office PC, including read e-mail, open attachments, reply, forward, attach files, set up appointments, etc. However, the interface is arranged in a slightly different manner.

For instance, instead of being able to scroll down through your entire inbox, you will see only one page at a time. To see the next page, use the arrow key to the right of “Page 1of X”.

7. When you are finished in Outlook, simply close your browser. 

Parker Renaud is the one-man IT department at Colliers Keenan where he manages 90 PCs on 5 servers.