What Phones Will Synchronize With My Exchange Mail, Calendar, and Contacts?

With so many phones available, it’s important to choose a phone with the options you need including the ability to synchronize with the OET server, if you are an Exchange client. If you can access your mail through OET webmail, then you are an Exchange client, and you should look for a phone that runs Windows Mobile or an Apple iPhone. These phones can synchronize with OET’s Exchange server and give you access to your mail, calendar, and contacts on the go.

Although Blackberry phones will connect to the OET server to allow you to read mail, they will not allow you to synchronize your calendar or contacts. To access calendar items and contacts on a Blackberry, you would need to log onto OET’s webmail through the phone’s browser.

Clearing Cache within Entourage Helps with Mail Synchronization

Clearing the cache within Entourage occasionally may assist Exchange clients who experience mail or calendar synchronization problems with the use of multiple devices such as an iPhone and Macintosh laptop.

To clear the cache, open Entourage (log off any other instances of Exchange on your iPhone, for example) and verify that you are connected to the Exchange server. Within Entourage, on the left, mouse over the name of your Exchange account and press the Control key and the mouse button together to get the “right mouse button” menu. Select Folder Properties. Under the General tab, which opens by default, click on the Empty button to empty the cache.

Outlook Autocomplete Tip

As you probably know, Outlook has a feature which builds a list of email addresses you have used before.  This list is used for automatically completing the address when you begin typing into the “TO:”  or “CC:” box on a new message.

Over time, the list can become rather long and might contain addresses that you no longer need in the list. 

To delete an address from the list:

• Open a new message and begin typing an email recipient’s name or address in the “To:” box.  Keep typing until the address you want to remove appears in the autocompete list.
• Using your arrow keys, highlight the address you want to delete.
• Hit the Delete key.

Viewing Shared Calendars with Outlook Web Access

Outlook Web Access (OWA) is great for accessing your mail and calendar from anywhere on the web.  However, viewing someone else’s shared calendar with OWA is not as straight forward as it is with Outlook.  With OWA you don’t have the convenient check boxes in the navigation pane to choose the shared calendars you want to see.  You can view a shared calendar by keying in the necessary information into the browser’s address line:

Example:  When you’re in OET Webmail, your address line will show as follows:

https://webmail.oet.udel.edu/exchange/ 

After the final slash, key in: Smith/calendar

Like this: https://webmail.oet.udel.edu/exchange/Smith/calendar

Where Smith is the Windows user name sharing the calendar.

How to Export Outlook Contacts

If you want to move or copy your Outlook Contacts to another email system, there are a few options from which to choose.  For instance, if you’re moving the contacts to another Outlook environment, the best way to port the data would be to save the data in an Outlook “.pst” file.  This file type saves the data in exactly the same format as the original contact information.  If the new email system is not Outlook, you would choose one of the following file types: Comma Separated Values, Tab Separated Values, MS Access or MS Excel.  If you’re unsure of the file type your new email system expects, your best bet is to use Comma Separated Values (.csv).  This file type can be easily converted to many other file types, if necessary.

1. On the Outlook file menu, choose Import and Export…
2. In the Import and Export Wizard select Export to a file.
3. On the first Export to a file window, select your file type.
4. On the next Export to a file window, locate and select your Contacts item under Mailbox – yourname.
5. On the next Export to a file window, key in or browse to a place to save the file.
6. On the final Export to a file window you have a chance to Map Custom Fields, in case your new email system requires different field names for the contact information.  If not, just hit Finish, and you’re done.

Keeping Appointments Private in Outlook

If you are an Exchange client who shares an Outlook calendar with other staff members, there’s a way to keep your child’s recital, furniture delivery, and other personal appointments private.  To make an appointment private within Outlook, right-click on the individual appointment and select private. If an appointment is part of a series, right-click and select “Edit Series” then click on the icon of the lock to make the series private.

Changing Your Outlook Font Size

There are many display settings in Windows to change the font size on various components.  You might have used some of these and find that your Outlook Inbox is still too small to read.  Outlook has its own settings for “Outlook Views”.  To enlarge the font in your favorite Outlook view:

1. On the View menu, select Arrange By.
2. On the Arange By submenu, select Custom…
3. In the Custom View dialog box, choose Other Settings…
4. The Other Settings window has options for changing the fonts sizes by Column, Row and the AutoPreview pane.

This works the same way in Outlook 2003 and Outlook 2007.

Managing the Size of Your Exchange Account within Outlook

Exchange account users on the Office of Educational Technology (OET) domain each have a mailbox on the OET Microsoft Exchange Server. Exchange mailboxes have a physical size limit imposed by Microsoft which cannot be overridden by any Microsoft-supported settings. Therefore, to ensure that you have continued e-mail service through the Exchange Server, you need to maintain your mailbox within the established size limits.

If you are an Exchange client, the OET mail storage limits are set to warn you when your mailbox reaches 1.4GB in size. If your mailbox continues to grow, you will not be able to send mail when your mailbox reaches 1.75GB, and you will not be able to send or receive mail when your mailbox reaches 2GB. However, you can easily manage your Exchange account within Outlook.

For details on how to manage your Exchange account e-mail within Outlook, see How-to-clean-up-your-exchange-account (PDF). If you’d like to meet with an OET technician to manage your Exchange account, just send a note to oet-help@udel.edu.

Who Should Think about Exchange Accounts and When?

In a few CHEP units, it is routine to request Microsoft Exchange accounts—local e-mail accounts on the College mail server—for new employees or grad students; in most units, this service is extended only to administrators and secretaries. The touchstone is generally: if the person needs to look at another person’s calendar to fulfill their responsibilities, an Exchange account is warranted. (This is an ADDITIONAL service over and above the login which allows people to use departmental computers and save to “the H: drive.”) When OET receives an Exchange-account request, we send someone out to orient the new employee. The first step in the orientation is to forward their e-mail from their @udel.edu account to their Exchange account. All their e-mail then flows to their Exchange mailbox; they read it using Outlook or webmail.oet.udel.edu, and save it on the Exchange server. We routinely set their return address to be their @udel.edu address, so they have a public e-mail address that looks like that of any other UD student or employee.

Since this orientation generally occurs during their first week in a new job, people typically forget that it happened. They may be unaware that OET or their CHEP affiliation has anything to do with their mail service. The dark side of the picture is that their e-mail account will be terminated when their employment by the particular CHEP unit is over. Often, in fact, they have been away from the campus entirely for several days or weeks when OET gets the termination notice and pulls the plug. Panic! My e-mail disappeared! So OET is left to pick up the pieces, corresponding at a distance with an angry and bewildered ex-client who is no longer even affiliated with CHEP. This is unfortunate and need never happen.

If OET is notified BEFORE a person’s affiliation with CHEP ends, we can arrange a phone call or a visit to stop the forwarding. We can show them with remarkably little fuss or stress how to transfer their saved mail folders to another account or package them for travel. In extreme cases, we have made differential e-mail archives so that one or more of an employee’s successors have access to the history of their e-mail pertinent to the responsibilities being passed on.

If you are a temporary employee or student worker who reads mail using Outlook or webmail.oet.udel.edu, you need to know this: check in with OET before you leave. If you are the supervisor of such a person, you can do us and your workers a big favor by bearing it in mind and making it part of your exit debriefing.