Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with exchange and Outlook

Outlook Web Access calendar subscription

lake59 — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 12:09:57 -0800

How to access two outlook exchange calendars from completely different domains side-by-side i work for two independent organizations. One of them has provided Outlook 2007 via Exchange 2003 and the other has provided OWA via Exchange 2003.

Each Organization provides a calendar. One is accessed as an exchange account in Outlook 2007 using and . The other is via OWA at https:///exchange//calendar.

I would like to access via outlook 2007 as well so I can easily compare the two calendars. I tried to subscribe to in Outlook using this address: webcals:///exchange//calendar but Outlook wants the subscription to include a specific file name like ical in order to work.

Any Ideas how i can get these two calendars side-by-side?

Thanks!

m.exchangemail.com

benzenedream — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 16:35:08 -0800

Seeking a lightweight web interface to Exchange 2003 server. Need something more usable than OMA, but more smartphone-friendly than Outlook Web Access. We don't allow work email to be cached on non-work devices for legal reasons. I'd like to be able to log in to webmail but find OWA rather clunky on a smartphone browser; OMA provides a bare-bones interface that's intended for ActiveSync rather than actual humans. Has anyone cobbled together a reasonable solution? I guess I'm looking for something like the mobile gmail page for Outlook. We won't be upgrading to Exchange 2007 for a while so its features are not an option.

Backup Outlook from Exchange?

Joleta — Tue, 12 May 2009 07:43:36 -0800

How can I back up my Outlook 2003 files kept on an exchange server to a thumb drive? I know how to find and back up .pst files on my personal computer. Is there any way I can make a personal backup of my Outlook e-mail, contacts, etc. when they're stored on an exchange server? I don't want to lose this information if I should, say, no longer have access to my work e-mail for some reason.

What would migrating an Outlook Exchange email system with Google's business Gmail?

gttommy — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 22:43:43 -0800

What would migrating an Outlook Exchange email system with Google's business Gmail? Google's Gmail for business seems like it has some potential and I am in the process of possibly converting the company!

http://www.google.com/apps/intl/en/business/messaging.html

Any advice on what could be involved such as drawbacks or implementation process or method will be useful.

Thanks mefi.

mangled email signature...

dance — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 13:59:58 -0800

Why would a PNG, sent as part of an email signature, look compressed and distorted and generally horrible when included again in the recipient´s reply? This is through MS Exchange but I think it´s more than one Exchange. Googling for Outlook´s image compression ´feature´ doesn´t return anything useful. I can send a sample mail to anyone who´s interested in helping. Of course I could make a GIF, but I wanted PNG, damnit! ;-)

Thanks!

Switching to Gmail for work email?

Cool Papa Bell — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 17:02:56 -0800

Have you used Gmail to handle work email? Were there any pitfalls? My previous places of business used Exchange servers, so at the office I'd use Outlook and then use the Exchange Web interface for home email. This was all well and good.

My current employer does not use Exchange, and its Web client is circa 1996 atrocious. While we can use Outlook at work, I've never liked the search functions, and without Exchange handling Calendars and Tasks, there's no *need* to use Outlook. As a result, I use Thunderbird with IMAP at work and at home.

I'm starting to dislike Thunderbird, for various reasons. It does wacky things with email forwards, for example. I've been thinking to just ditch it all and grab the work email to Gmail using POP3, and use Gmail as The One Interface to Rule Them All.

What are the common pitfalls I'm not seeing?

Gmail, Exchange, Outlook, oh my! Please help sort this through.

zooropa — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 14:05:07 -0800

Gmail, Outlook, and Sync oh my! How do I sort through this? Last week, I left my job. I got to keep my smartphone (Samsung on Verizon Wireless running Windows Mobile 6). At my job, I had used the phone to sync with our Exchange Server for WORK, and logged into Gmail using the Web browser for PERSONAL.

Unfortunately, I was not able to save and backup my contacts and calendar before leaving. So all that's gone. Trust me, it's a bummer.

So I'm trying to re-create my setup and achieve productivity nirvana (or nerdvana). Here are the goals I'm trying to accomplish:

-- I would like to keep my Gmail account since I've used it for years and everyone knows me on it.

-- I want to remain flexible enough so that I can still sync to future employer's Exchange Server.

---------------------

Here is how it all breaks down:

MAIL:
-- Phone: Using Gmail (via IMAP)
-- Desktop: Using Outlook 2007 (via IMAP). I detest Gmail's interface (please, no flames). It's dogslow, but it works. Molto bene!

CALENDAR:
-- Phone: ????
-- Desktop: Using Outlook 2007.
How do I get my Calendar on Outlook 2007 to sync with the phone? Should I use a third-party app like Oggsync or syncmycal?

CONTACTS:
-- Phone: ???
-- Desktop: Using Outlook 2007.
Same deal. How do I get them all in sync? Google has Contacts, but I hear they don't sync all that well.

TASKS
-- Phone: ???
-- Desktop: Using Outlook 2007.
How do I get the Tasks on Outlook 2007 to sync with the phone? Should I use a third-party like Remember the Milk?

This seems like an awful lot of overkill.

So I just went and signed up for a domain and a Hosted Exchange account. My first thought was that I figured I could just use the hosted exchange account for Tasks, Contacts, and Calendar, and use Gmail for Email. I'm starting to get second thoughts, though. Who pays $8-10/month just for Tasks, Contacts, and Calendar? This seems overkill, too.

All I want to do is be able to keep my Gmail for email, but also use Outlook 2007 on my desktop. That's the key. I want to be able to continue to use Outlook 2007 for Tasks, Contacts, and Calendar.

If anyone could help out on this, I would be immensely grateful.

cheers,
Michael

Help me get Entourage to play nice with my company's exchange server.

kdern — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 08:18:33 -0800

I need help fixing a problem with email on my Macbook. I am trying to get Entourage to play nice with my office's exchange server. I am running the latest version of Entourage on my Macbook (OSX Leopard).

I can get it to connect to my exchange server when I'm in the office by listing the exchange server as "fs1". With those settings, it doesn't connect when I am out of the office.

When I am out of the office, I have to change the exchange server setting to our exchange server address (our domain name, and then "/exchange". This setting does not work when I am in the office.

There are other problems - when I send an email from Entourage, it is not visible in Outlook back in the office (on my PC). Also, I'm not able to view our company's public contact lists on Entourage.

How can I set up Entourage to work both in and out of the office, and properly sync sent mail?

I am not against using Mac's Mail program or something else, if it will work better.

Thanks for any help.

Help me sync contacts from one user to another over exchange?

vrdx — Sun, 11 Jan 2009 22:18:00 -0800

Help me figure out a CRM/Sync solution! I'm going crazy trying to figure out a good solution for a small firm; need to sync contacts, more inside... So, I've googled myself to pieces and need your guidance. I've got a small group of folks in a firm I am the go-to solutions consultant for their newer IT services. I've got a few users spread throughout the country, and we're using a hosted exchange solution. One of the exec's assistants is not local, but has a 'master' contact database - this is a master list, within outlook, and is several hundred MB's large, containing many pieces of information w/in each contact's entry (some sensitive). I can set up the 'shared contacts' functionality from w/in exchange+outlook, but I need to sync those contacts TO users databases (for some to use w/ BlackBerry's / iPhones) (They've been using Outlook as a CRM solution...)

So, what is one way (preferably free) to sync this 'master list' of contacts to multiple users? It can run over Exchange, if that helps.

Possible issues: It needs to be pretty simple and easy to use, I can only remote-assist so much, but, it can't require a ton of learning curve on the users part, so things like Act, FileMaker, etc. are out... They are also somewhat averse to paying for another service (getting hosted exchange going was a huge step but still took a ton of work) so things like salesforce are out too.

Additionally, assume the users have a basic level of comfort/knowledge with things like outlook, but still experience general pc issues that perplex them ("why won't my outlook open...?") so I'd like to be as easy as possible.

So, mefi masters, help me! I'm open to trying tons of stuff, and we have online storage available to use as an intermediary place to store a database (to get from one remote user to the next), but I'm out of ideas.

Microsoft Exchange Hates Me

Zeker — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 11:15:45 -0800

We have Microsoft Outlook set to send emails via a POP3 service, but our old Exchange 5.5 server keeps trying to take over when we don't want it to. First the setup:

Our company's Exchange 5.5 server is having too many issues shaking hands with other email servers and has been blacklisted too many times, so we're deciding to take it down and set all our employees on POP3 mail, managed with Outlook (some on 2k2(xp), others on 2000) as a client.

We can't get rid of Exchange 100% as of now (though we will eventually) since a lot of our employees rely on the Global Address contacts, and some use the calendar for scheduling meetings and such. Until we devise a method for scheduling meetings/reminders and possibly keeping a centralized contacts list sans Exchange, we'll get rid of it. But as of now, this is the setup:

~Exchange 5.5 with internet email services disabled (but internal email enabled).
~100+ employees on Outlook 2000-XP(2002?)
~Outlook is set to retrieve internal mail and global contacts via Exchange
~Outlook is also set to send/receive POP3 mail as the primary send/receive source
~User's *.PST file is saved offsite their machine into another server
~Some OFFSITE employees were deleted from Exchange's Global Address list and placed instead on the user's local Contacts list. So all contacts in the local Contacts lists are offsite people.
~Our POP3 service provider allows us to keep the same domain name (***@company.com) on our POP3 that our Exchange server uses.

Now the problem:

Exchange is giving us hell by constantly trying to intervene on how the mail is sent. Even though we set Outlook to use POP3 as the primary send/receive account, AND even though we disabled the internet mail service on Exchange, Exchange tries to take over and send the email like a disgruntled mother-in-law, resulting in an "undeliverable" message from Exchange.

Now we realize that the Global Address list contains headers within the contacts that pertain to Exchange that would override our settings... but the local Contacts lists -created by yours truly- only contain the contact name and email address, and theoretically should not contain any exchange headers or reason for exchange to intercept our POP3's precious assignment.

Outlook 2002(xp) has an auto suggest feature that whimsically fills in the name of the contact you're typing. So the user is typing in Nancy (for example) and auto suggest returns "Nancy (e-mail)". Yay? Not so fast. Double click that entry and you find that it's got EXCHANGE all over the headers. So I deleted the auto-suggest cache file (*.nk2) from the user's local profile and the problem has disappeared. I can tell because auto suggest now gives us "Nancy (nancy@company.com)" instead of "Nancy (email)". So this issue is fixed... but only on people using Outlook XP(2002?).

I still have a ton of people on Outlook 2000 with a similar issue. This is a weird beast. There is no cache file I can delete (*.nk2) from what I know. Say we want to send something to Nancy again. We click the "To:..." button which brings us to our contacts selection screen. We go to the local contacts list, add Nancy, click ok, and now we're back at the main message screen, the "To:" field displaying "Nancy (email)". A double-click on this field takes me directly to the contact editor, which shows her name and email address correctly with no Exchange headers to be found. All good, right? But if I hit "Send" I get an "Undeliverable!" message with EXCHANGE ALL OVER IT OH GOD!!...

Now, we try again. We open up a new message, hit the "To:..." button. Get ready, this one's weird.... we go to the local Contacts list, select Nancy and hit the "To ->" button to add her as a recipient. If we double click her name in the "Recipients" box, (you ready for this?) instead of taking me to the contact editor like it did on the main message window, we see a window with bloody EXCHANGE all over the place, scrawled everywhere like blood in a
damned murder scene! I have NO IDEA where outlook is getting this info from or how to erase it.

Now, if I manually type in the recipient's email (nancy@company.com), POP3 happily does its thing without molestation. I really need help. If anybody can offer help and rescue me from a company lynching, it would be greatly appreciated.

Importing Exchange users into distribution list

starscream — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 08:30:42 -0800

I need to create a distribution list that includes all 750 people in my company, but I don't want to have to type in each name manually. I have all the user display names in notepad and am looking for a way to import these names. Difficulty: this needs to be a distribution list in Exchange, not simply in my Outlook. Assuming that I'm the domain/exchange admin, is there an easy way for me to create a distribution list in Exchange and populate it with display names that I have in a text file or in Excel? I can also get the e-mail addresses if need be.

Need Recommendations for a Hosted Exchange Provider for one.

ajr — Sat, 13 Sep 2008 10:24:21 -0800

Any recommendations for a reliable Exchange 2007 service provider for one person? I just need a single account to use with Outlook and an iPhone. 1and1.com is my current provider. Apart from being slow, they have had several service outages on "my" server recently. I don't mind paying more for fast and reliable service. Prior posts (tangentially related to this question) have suggested Apptix, but I sent a request for service three days ago that has not been responded to yet. Not a good sign.

Exchange 2003 calendar delegates

slagerst — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 09:15:20 -0800

How do I give my CEO's exchange calendar a new assistant? CEO had assistant 1. former IT people set it up that any calendar invite sent via exchange (2003) was copied to the assistant, who could then answer on the CEO's behalf.

assistant 1 became assistant 2. deleted a1 from exchange, added a2, and assigned delegate rights for CEO to a2.

the problem: i cannot find the mechanism that copies a1 on invites to the CEO. it is not rules on the CEO's profile. i see nothing referencing a1 in the CEO's exchange properties. meeting requesters get the following bounceback referencing a1 when they send request to CEO.

Your message did not reach some or all of the intended recipients.

Subject: meeting
Sent: 9/2/2008 11:18 AM

The following recipient(s) could not be reached:

a1 on 9/5/2008 11:18 AM
The e-mail account does not exist at the organization this message was sent to. Check the e-mail address, or contact the recipient directly to find out the correct address.

outlook is sending my meeting planners everywhere but the right place

stupidsexyFlanders — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 06:30:07 -0800

In Outlook 2003, all my appointments are being put on calendars associated with my *.pst files, instead of the calendar in the main Exchange folder. It's totally screwing up my workdays, as you might guess. Details inside. First thing to know is that I work out of *.pst files for all incoming and outgoing mail. Everything in & out, except meeting planners, is put by a rule into the current *.pst file for the current quarter. Every quarter I start a new one.

I want all my calendar items to remain in the main exchange folder, because I need to look forward beyond the quarter end for appointments.

HOWEVER, for some unknown reason, at some point in the quarter, calendar requests start getting put on a calendar folder in my currently quarterly folder, and I don't see them, because I'm only looking at the calendar in the Exchange folder.

When I create the quarterly *.pst file, there's not calendar item in it. Somehow at some point it's getting created, and meeting requests get put on it.

How do I get rid of the calendar in this *.pst file?

Microsoft Exchange Server for Epsilon Semi-Morons?

loquacious — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 09:39:04 -0800

How do I set up Microsoft Exchange (or Outlook) Server for a small office? I'm providing basic knuckle-dragger tech support for a small office, and one of the things they want to implement and that I want to provide eventually is an Exchange or Outlook server.

Where do I begin? What should I watch out for? What about security issues?

I will be using Server 2003 and a primarily XP client base.

Any central signature managment tools for MS Exchange?

bartleby — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 10:33:56 -0800

ExchangeFilter: any centralized signature/logo/disclaimer management tools you can recommend? I'd rather not go desk to desk to add a logo. OK, so I asked basically the same question two years ago; I ended up going from workstation to workstation adding a disclaimer to 40 people's signatures in Outlook. (There's a policy that no one is allowed to modify their own signature, so any changes have to be made by IT, which is me.) That involves travelling to 5 different sites, and I'd rather not do it again.

But there's a request in the air to add a logo or some other doodads to the company email signatures. Since my question was asked the first time, perhaps some advancements have been made.
Can this be done by:
1) a new Active Directory feature in Server 2008?
2) a new feature in Exchange 2007?
[we're running Server/Ex 2003 now]
3) if not, and this is still a 3rd-party-software solution, can you recommend any products? Exclaimer seems to come up a lot - any reviews?

Outlook/exchange - Pst problem

flipmiester99 — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 07:46:51 -0800

Outlook/Exchange Filter:: I have a user that has all his mail being delivered to a .pst file. How do i change it so that it keeps all the mail on the exchange server? Also, how do i get all his mail from the .pst file back on the server. He is using outlook 2007 and the exchange server is 2003.

Shared Outlook Categories firmwide = possible?

bartleby — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 15:03:18 -0800

Is there a way to share Outlook Categories / Master Category list across all users on an Exchange server? Company has several thousand Contacts in a shared Public folder (separate from each user's own default/personal Contacts) = "Company Contacts" on its Exchange server (using Outlook 2003 at their desks, Exchange/Server 2003 at the server).

There are several dozen Categories applied to these Contacts (which branch handles them, what type of services they provide, who manages the account, etc.).

As it is now, that list of Categories has to be re-built for each new user/workstation MANUALLY, as the Categories in Outlook seem to bind to the individual Outlook account.

To deal with this, we have simply centralized the addition & categorizaion of new Contacts to a few individuals in the firm, and maintained their Categories lists accordingly. Easy enough.

But there's a move on to spread that responsibility out to everyone - so everyone will need that list of categories so that they can properly categorize Contacts they add to that shared list.

Is there a way to share/deploy a Master Categories list firmwide, at one go? I really don't want to have to manually enter those Categories for each and every user profile.

Seems like there must be a way - everyone is using the same Exchange server, same version of Outlook 2003, etc - but I'm coming up empty.

How can I access the internal ICS file generated by Outlook when sending a meeting invitation?

lordaych — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 11:38:29 -0800

How can I access the internal ICS file generated by Outlook when sending a meeting invitation? I need to see the ICS attachment that is generated upon sending a meeting invitation (Outlook 2003, Exchange 2007). I know I can go into my own calendar and save an appointment as an ICS file, but I suspect there is a difference between the ICS file that is exported from my own calendar vs. the one that is sent when I invite other attendees.

I deal with ICS/iCAL files from time to time while working with BlackBerry devices. It's easy enough to create an ICS file that a BlackBerry will accept (and is quite neat that an entire month's worth of appointments can be embedded into a single ICS), but many of the problems and glitches we run into involve ICS files that are generated from Outlook, or ICS files that are generated from the BlackBerry itself and sent back to our Exchange server.

Unfortunately we don't use BlackBerry Enterprise Server so I am routinely hacking together solutions involving VCARD and ICS files.

In the past, I could send an invite to say, Yahoo Mail or perhaps even GMail and would be able to open the "meeting.ics" attachment. Now this does not work; GMail seamlessly handles the ICS file rather than letting me muck around with it. Yahoo and Hotmail happily devour it and leave no indication it ever existed.

Perhaps I just need to be made aware of some advanced options I'm not seeing in those webmail products; it'd be nice if there was a webmail site out there that let you really dig into the raw MIME-encoded guts of your email for purposes like this.

Is there a way to use a google calendar and outlook exchange without completely mixing the two and can they be synced differently on different computers?

D Wiz — Mon, 21 Jan 2008 07:12:43 -0800

Is there a way to use a google calendar and outlook exchange without completely mixing the two and can they be synced differently on different computers? I have a work computer and a home computer (both Windows XP). At home I use google calendar. At work they use outlook exchange. I am now in the market for a PDA phone. I am looking at both WM6 Pro and Palm. I will probably end up with the palm but I am not sure at the moment. (I have unlimited data on my phone if that makes a difference.) Ok... those are all the background details.

Here is the question: I want the PDA to only partially sync with my work computer and completely sync with my home computer. Meaning I want my calendar/schedule from work to upload to the PDA but I don't want my personal address book or other information to be saved to the work computer. At the same time, when I sync at home, I want my personal calendar on the PDA also. I want both calendars to be visible on the PDA but when I go back and sync it at work, I don't want my personal calendar to be synced with my office computer. Is there a way to do this? Can calendars be kept separately? Also, to do this, is it preferable to use WM over Palm OS or vice versa?

Why won't they let me use Outlook?

thinktwice — Wed, 12 Dec 2007 11:17:04 -0800

Any particular reason a company would not allow access to MS Exchange via Outlook and/or cell phone only allow access via Outlook Web Mail? I am working for a small company and they are forcing me to use Outlook Web Mail. I want to use Outlook 2007 to manage my contacts, calendar, etc. I asked he IT guy and he says no way.
What is the point of having MS Exchange server if you can only access via IE? Moreover, I can't even change column widths in Web Mail. Or add contacts. This seems totally weird to me?

So I'll ask to community, is there any legit reason NOT to allow any employee to access Exchange via Outlook and/or phone (Blackberry/Treo)?

MacBook + Exchange + Air Force = trouble?

wheat — Thu, 08 Nov 2007 14:09:03 -0800

MacBook + Exchange + Air Force = trouble? A friend of mine is a pilot in the Air Force. He has an HP/WinXP laptop that's dying and wants to replace it. He uses Microsoft Outlook at home and for work and has, I believe, some Windows-based, Air Force-specific apps that could be problematic. I know enough about Macs to know about Boot Camp and Parallels, but I've never used Entourage or tried to make a Mac play friendly with a Windows-centric office. Will he be in a world of hurt if he goes against the grain and gets a MacBook?

Dual boot seems an easy fix for most things. But, if he hates Entourage or can't get it to play friendly with the local IT department's Exchange server, is running Outlook via Parallels all the time an option? Or would that just be too much trouble?

How do I integrate e-mail using work and Gmail IMAP?

zooropa — Wed, 24 Oct 2007 11:25:42 -0800

How do I use Gmail's new IMAP with my existing Exchange e-mail? I work for a small business that uses a hosted Exchange account for e-mail (Intermedia is the host). I use Outlook 2007 to send/receive e-mail.

I also use Google's gmail service for my personal e-mail.

I'd like to be able to integrate the two services and use Outlook as the home base. Here are my questions:

* Can I access Gmail from Outlook using IMAP?

* Do I have to do anything special to send/receive my e-mail from the hosted Exchange account on Intermedia?

* Is there a way to send e-mail from Outlook 2007 so that it still includes the correct "From:" address? In other words, work e-mail still reads as being from "me@workemail.com" and personal e-mail still reads as being from "me@gmail.com".

Links to proper tutorials would be definitely helpful if you have them. Thanks!

Help me reach Gmail / mobile / desktop sync nerdvana

mjbraun — Tue, 01 May 2007 08:06:21 -0800

Please help me come up with a solution for automatically syncing Gmail, GCal, my desktop client and my mobile in one big data orgy. Currently I'm hosting my domain (email only) with Mailstreet and I'm relatively happy with their services and support. However, the siren song of "Gmail For Your Domain" has me entranced.

I'm in the market for a new mobile, and I'm looking at either a Blackberry 8800 or a Nokia E61i (when it comes out). Regardless, I want the full wireless sync of not only my email, but also my calendar and contacts (notes too, if possible). I can get this through Mailstreet if I sign up for the Blackberry service, but it's not cheap, and the storage space is limited (100Mb).

So I was wondering how I can set up automatic synchronization between my desktop PIM (I use Entourage, as I like having one app with all the data consolidated), my mail host, and my mobile as with the BES.

This sounds like something that Funambol would provide, but I'm not clear on the Gmail For Your Domain integration aspect.

The end goal will be I can add a contact on my mobile, and it just shows up on my desktop a few minutes later (the same with email, and calendar items). If I have to pay for Exchange, so be it, but I'd prefer to get away from it if possible.

Teach my PC some PDA-cleverness...

blue_wardrobe — Sat, 21 Apr 2007 13:52:26 -0800

How does my Windows Mobile PDA communicate with our office Exchange Server successfully without using a VPN, when I have to use a VPN with Microsoft Outlook to get at it? (And then are there any PC-based programs that can use the same technique as the PDA?)