Email Tips to get the most out of Outlook and Exchange
One of Terminal B's goals is to ensure that the Microsoft Exchange and Microsoft Outlook users we support are getting the most out of their time and investment. The most effective way to take advantage of Exchange account is to access them using Microsoft Outlook; with that in mind, we've pulled together a few email tips to help Outlook work better for you.
Xobni
Microsoft Exchange is a great way for your company to communicate, share ideas and documents, and keep records of correspondence. If you're using Microsoft Outlook as your filing cabinet to keep track of your Exchange documents, we highly recommend Xobni for managing and monitoring your data. Xobni allows you to search by any field-sender, subject, content, etc.; presents email as a threaded conversation; provides email analytics to find out who you email with most frequently and your peak communication times, and more. Your local PST file can also be included in the search. If you'd like to enhance your Outlook mailbox with Xobni's features, you can download the program from the Xobni website.
Mailbox Size
If you keep a lot of old messages, you may notice Outlook’s performance and response time beginning to slow down. It’s probably time to evaluate the old messages you have and throw away any you really don’t need—Exchange mailboxes are recommended to be kept at 300MB or less, to keep the amount of data that Outlook has to synchronize with the Exchange Server to a reasonable level. Outlook can’t properly handle mailboxes (PSTs) over 5000 messages in size. We have further Outlook help here including instructions and ideas on how to keep your Microsoft Exchange mailbox down to less than 5000 messages.
Spam Filtering
One of the top concerns of those who contact us for Outlook help is curbing spam. Ideally, spam filters are applied to incoming mail before it arrives at the Microsoft Exchange server. If you're using a hosted solution, this is probably already in place, but it's sometimes overlooked on in-house deployments. Processing spam or a denial of service attack can make a Microsoft Exchange server so busy as to be unusable-if the Exchange server doesn't have the horsepower to properly respond to a deluge of spam, it could eventually grind to a halt. By offloading these functions to another machine, or even an off-site service, you can better leverage the horsepower of the Exchange server, because the server's resources are solely dedicated to legitimate mail. It is important to note that while third-party spam services will likely have anti-virus solutions in place, these should not replace an anti-virus solution on your in-house server or desktops.
Passwords
In some organizations, passwords are considered an unnecessary annoyance. In fact, it's not uncommon to find that everyone in an organization uses the same password, usually the default password for an application or network! A secure network requires policies that encourage, if not require, users to change their passwords every 90 days. While strong password policies may cause some grumbling from employees, they protect valuable company information. The phrase "a chain is only as strong as its weakest link" definitely applies in the context of passwords; in the information age, loose passwords are a serious company liability. Password enforcement is one of our most highly recommended Outlook tips-it's free, and the risk reduction is well worth the minor inconvenience.
Continuity
Do you have a continuity plan for your Exchange service? One of the benefits of using a hosted Exchange service is that if for some reason your internet connectivity is lost inside the office, users can still access their mail from any computer or mobile device with internet access via Outlook Web Access (OWA). However, if you have an in-house Exchange server and that server goes down, or your office loses internet connectivity, your concern is not just your employees' ability to send email out-what's happening to the mail being sent TO the company? The last thing you want is for any mail to get lost or bounced back to the sender. It's absolutely imperative with on-site Exchange servers that some intervening mechanism catches and holds on to, or queues, incoming mail until your Exchange server is back up and running or internet connectivity is restored. Some spam or antivirus services can offer this safeguard, but there are several other ways to enable this layer of protection. Whether you're a small startup or a multi-office corporation, Terminal B can help you find the solution that fits your company best.
These suggestions are the tip of the iceberg in terms of optimizing Microsoft Outlook with Exchange. The bottom line is that a little knowledge with Exchange can go a long way to optimizing performance and productivity. Contact us today for more Outlook tips, and to see how Terminal B can increase the performance of your Exchange services and leverage its collaborative power in your organization.
Benefits of Exchange | Hosted Exchange | Exchange Tips
