Exchange-Genie

In my last article I briefly touched on the fact that everything in Exchange 2010 is now controlled by EMS and RBAC and can be controled by creating custom roles and assigning them to users.  In this article I am going to go over the default view a user will see in ECP without any customization.

When a user accesses the  ECP directory https://mailurl.com/ecp or clicks the options button in the top right of OWA the below view is what the users will see.

one item I would like to point out, is the links “shortcuts to things you can do“. Most of these links take the user to other sections of the ECP however if you click “connect Outlook to this account” they will be directed to http://help.outlook.com .  In the current builds its unsupported to attempt to modify this information to point to internal faq’s

Accounts

The default page a users lands on is the Account sections, which by default will allow a user to update a number of their AD properties like Address, Phone Number, etc..

1. click edit at to bottom of the page

2. Modify attribute and click SAVE

Organize E-Mail

The next section Organize E-mail has 3 features that we can use 1. inbox rules, 2. automatic replies, and 3. delivery reports.

Inbox Rules

This is similar to the rules we had in Exchange 2007 however there are some new features available to us.

1. click New

2. Select create a new rule for arriving messages

3. On the menu select the drop down under the  section “When the message arrives, and:”

4. I am going to select apply to all messages

5. Under the “Do the following:” sections  I am going to pick “Redirect the message to”

6. When the address picker windows open I am going to select Jodie (if you want to redirect to an address not in the GAL just type the address in)

7. click OK

8.Click  More Options

9. Select move,copy, or delete and then Delete the message

10.  If you want to add an exceptions, select the Add Exception button

.

11. Select the exception that applies

12. Now that we have created the rule we want click the save button

Now we can see we have a rule that will redirect all messages to Jodie

Automatic Replies

The Automatic Replies section does not bring any new feature from Exchange 2007 but is the section that we use to set an Out Of Office message or for the old school exchange advocates OOF (Out of Facility)

The first section is set to internal away messages, this is determined by the Accepted Domains that are configured in your Exchange Org.

1. Click the button to Send automatic replies

2. Specify the date range you want to use

3. Enter the message

4. If you wish to set a message for external senders repeat steps 1.-3 for the External Senders section

5. Click the Save button

Delivery Reports

One of my personal favorite features is Delivery Reports which allows a users to perform self message tracking on messages to them or send by them. If enabled the user will also see that the message has been read even if a read reciept was not sent with the message.

* to enable the read tracking use Set-OrganizationConfig -ReadTrackingEnabled $true more can be found at   http://msexchangeteam.com/archive/2009/06/25/451680.aspx

Unfortunately you must use the user picker feature and cannot just type in either  of the first two fields

Lets search for the 2 test messages that I sent out

1.  Click the radius button “Search for messages I have receieved from”

2.  When the address picker opens select the user (or just type in the address) and click OK

3. Click the Search button

4.  You can see I have 2 messages in the report, you can either double click the message or highlight it and click the details button

5. You can see in this report the date and time the message was submitted , that is was delivered and marked as read

Groups

A nice feature that was been made available is the ability for users to join groups that have been created. If you also choose to enable another feature users have the ability to create distribution groups from ECP as well.

1. Clikc the Join button

*I have created 3 groups Demo-Open, Demo-closed,Demo-ManagerApproval *

2.  A windows will open showing all the available groups that can be joined

3. Lets select the first group which is set to be closed and attempt to join it

You see we get a message stating we cannot join this group because its closed

4.  Lets select the next group which requires manager approval

You see we get a message back stating that we have to wait for the manager approval

As the group Owner you will get a message to approve the user

5.  Lets select the remain group which is open to everyone can join

You can see what receieved a message stating we have joined the group

6. Lets now leave the open group that we have joined, select the group Demo-OpenMember and click the Leave button

7. You are now presented with a validation that you want to leave the group, click Yes

Settings

Mail

The first section under the settings tab is Mail,  which is broken up into 5 subsections – 1. E-Mail Signature 2.Read Receipts 3.Reading Pane 4. Conversations 5.Message Format and 6. Message Options

                 Read Receipts

The Read Receipts section provide us 3 options on how to hande Read Receipts on messages

1. Ask me before snding a response <Default>

2. Always send a response

3. Never send a response

 

            Reading Pane

The next section is the Reading Pane section, which allows a user to configure how to handle a message that is viewed in the reading pane and provides us 3 options

1. Mark the item displayed in the Reading Pane as Read

2. Mark the item as Read when the selection changes <Default>

3.  Do not automatically mark the item as Read

  Conversations

By default in the OWA UI messages are placed into the new conversation view which does take a bit of getting user too.  This section controls how the conversation view is displayed

This section is broken up into 2 parts

1. Sort messages in the conversation Reading Pane in this order:

Choose how to sort the messages in List View in an expanded conversation.

Match the sort order of the Reading Pane <Default>

Show the conversation treeWe also have a option to Hide deleted items, in the conversation view is will show messages that are apart of the conversation that have been deleted unless you check this box.

E-Mail Signature

There is nothing really new in this section but provides a user a location to input an email signature, if you want this signature added to each out going message you need to select the check box at the bottom Automatically include my signature on messages I send

 Message Format

 The Message Format section allows us to modify the following

1. Always show Bcc

2. Always show From

If either of the above are selected when creating a new message you will see the from and BCC fields on each message

3.  Compose messages in this format allows us to set the default message type of HTML or Plaint Text

4. We can configure the default font type and size of messages 

6. Empty the Deleted Items folder when I sign out

Spelling

The spelling section allows us to configure a number of options for spell checking.  The ability to configure a custom dictionary is still not there however we do have the same options as Exchange 2007.

 

 Calendar

General

The General section allows us to configure two options

1. E-Mail name resolution

2. Accessibilty

Once common issue I have found over the years is a user enabling the accessibility options when they first logon to thier mailbx which will then force OWA Light.

 

Regional

Reginal settings allow a user to configure the following

1. Language

2. Date format

3. Time format

4.  Current time zone

 

Password

The password section allows a user to change thier current password however you must know the old password when using this feature.

S/MIME

The S/MIME button will only be avaiabled with IE7+ and is not a feature that is supposed with Firefox or Safari since this uses an active X control. When attempting to install this control you will need to have local Admin rights to the machine.

The S/MIME control allows a user to be able to digitally sign or encrypt a message

*Note : currently the control requires the user to have thier certificate published to the directory however there is no feature in the web UI that allows a user to publish thier certificate and there for an Outlook profile or automatic provisioning will be required to use send digitally signe or encrypted messages.

Phone

The phone section is broken down into 3 sub sections Voice Mail (only if your account has been UM enabled), Mobile Phones and Text Messaging.

Voice Mail

Exchange 2007 introduced a new server role called Unified Messaging which intergrates Exchange into systems like OCS and telephony devices.  The OWA web UI now allows a users the ablity to managed settings.

There are 4 sections that can be managed

1. Call Answering Rules

2. Outlook Voice Access

3. Notifications

4. Voice Mail Preview

 

Mobile Phones

Text Messaging

Another new feature of  Exchange 2010 is the ability to use text messages to send notification to your phone. If you are already using a phone like Windows Mobile, Iphone, Palm Pre etc.. that can sync with Exchange this is most likely not a feature that you would be using however for those users who do not have a phone that is capable of syncing with the system this feature provides you notification for email, calendar, and voicemail.  By default this feature is disabled.

 

Enabling Notifications

Click “Turn on Notifications”

Next we will be ask to select our country and cell phone provider

You may note if you carrier is not listed there is a link that will take you to the following information page http://help.outlook.com/en-us/beta/ms.exch.ecp.configureregionandmobileoperator.aspx?r=ia&l=0

Click Next

Now you are ask to input your cell phone number

Click Next

A text message will now be sent to your cell phone with a  pin code that will be used to complete the next section

Input the pin that was sent to you phone and click Finish

 

Once this process has been completed you will find a new rule that has been created to send copies of information to your phone.

 

Block or Allow

 Exchange provides users with a simple interface to allow user to configure junk filters for thier mailbox.

The first section that we come across is the ability to turn off or on the junk mail filtering

By enabling this feature you  allow the system to move messages into our junk email folder that meet your configuration. Please note that the system can be configured to move messages to the junk folder as well.

Under the Safe Senders and Recipients section we can add users to our safe list to these users to not get placed into our junk mail foler

We also have the option of trusting anyone in our contact list

After the allow section we find the Blcoked Senders information. If a user is added to this section it will not block email from them but tag this message to be listed as junk and move the message to the junk folder.

We can also specify to that all email is considered junk unless the users is explicity listed in our safe list.

 

If you attempt to add a user that is apart of  your email organization you will receive an error stating you cannot perform this action