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Traveling Laptops, Exchange 2000, and Multiple Profiles?
PDiddy asks: "Working for a corporation which uses Exchange 2000, I have run into countless traveling users with laptops that have complaints about how their mail is received from the outside vs. inside. Most of these users have a 56k or less dialup when on the road, so having them connect with an Exchange profile is incredibly slow, even with 'Offline Folders' enabled. The second option is to have two profiles. One for Exchange (Inside), and have it default to delivering to a PST. The second profile (Outside) be setup for POP and set it to the same PST. On the surface, this solution looks great to the user, but the ability to nightly backup the mail on the exchange server is removed. The third option would be to have a combination of the two approaches, the difference being the exchange profile (Inside), would leave the mail on the server, but then you have users complaining about having to sort through their new mail twice.
What I need is a good, all around solution. Perhaps their are some third-party plugins for outlook I am unaware of to create a new solution?
Also, are their any recommended methods for accessing an Exchange global address book over a very slow connection, or, perhaps syncing updates to laptop while connected so it can be used on the road? Currently, if you export that address book, it will set the email addresses to X.400, which will not work from a POP profile."
If you arn't connecting with your main computer, the web based interface is one of the better ones. I have no problems accessing over my fairly slow DSL connection, and the one time I saw it used with dialup it didn't work any worse than any other email client over dialup. Wow, its been almost 6 years since I have used dialup for more than a week.
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... try Outlook Web Access, or maybe just have them use Outlook in a Terminal Services session. Either way is a hell of a lot faster than accessing the mailbox directly over dialup.
Over a remote modem connection, I've found using Terminal Services to run Outlook to be faster than trying any of the other arrangements.
Doesn't help them get mail when offline, though.
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If the Exchange server and Outlook are both setup correctly you should not see this kind of delay and speed issue. The Outlook client should besetup of syncronize the offline folder with the server when they are online. In this way the only headers that need to be sent to the client on each connect are any new ones the client already has all the old ones. Also reasonable limits on the size of the exchange mailbox help alot. We have found here that approx 65MB mailboxes are ideal...the upper limit is around 150MB before things really get ugly. Don't let users use mail as a failing cabinet, or at least force them to personal folders (which we don't recommend to the users here, loose the hardrive loose the mail) as that function. Tell them to keep only useful mail, and be responsible about deleting and keeping the mailbox clean, move attachments to safe storage locations.
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That's great and all until Joe Traveler asks why he can't get his calendar that way. And they're going to demand that they have access to those 2GB worth of "important archives" - you know, the same lame jokes and pictures that are clogging the system to begin with. I've always wondered what is up with people insisting on saving every email, along with it's attachment. People don't feel compelled to record their voice mails to cassette tape, why is email different?
Outlook Web Access would handle the calendaring function. That, plus your IMAP suggestion would give them the most flexibility, but that would add a training overhead. They could use IMAP when they're on the road, and, when they need to use the calendar they can fire up OWA. Of course, you can get masochistic and copy their PST over for them to their laptop before every trip, but that introduces all sorts of problems.
For the address book, I know Mozilla Mail has an option to download LDAP directories for offline use, I'm sure Outlook has similar functionality.
Your exchange box is behind a firewall, right?
Having them VPN in solves a lot of DNS, routing and other such issues, as well as security, and blah blah blah. That's how I did it, at least, last time I had to worry about offline users talking to Exchange. Worked pretty good, too.
Oh, and Outlook Web Access. True, doesn't help with the offline stuff, but how many users REALLY need that? Otherwise, tell them to sync at night in the hotel room when it doesn't matter, or to find a broadband connection.
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In addition to setting up offline folders, you need to force Outlook to 'Work Offline' or present the user with a choice between 'Connect' and 'Work Offline' when Outlook starts.
If Outlook sees any kind of network connection, it will default to 'Connect' if not told otherwise, no matter if the link is 56k or 100Mbps...
So, combine that with properly sync'd offline folders (sync when logging off when connected), you'll have none of this trouble.
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I'm running Outlook 2000 w/ Exchange 2000 on the backend. Connecting from home over a VPN takes 3-4 minutes to initialize the connection and start seeing new mail. Connecting with Mozilla via IMAP takes less than three seconds to read new mail. I'm not even exaggerating or joking.
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Much more is done when you initially connect with the exchange protocol (do not call it MAPI, I've already seen a couple of people here handing out exchange advice who don't know the difference between a protocol and an API) than happens with IMAP. Public free/busy, flagged messages, alert queue, more being checked before the message list is even looked at. If all _you_ want is the messages, then IMAP is great.
All the answers I've read so far seem to be shots in the dark. My shot in the dark; use the "remote mail" functionality in the client (assuming you are using outlook 98 or higher, if your running outlook 97 it is time to take advantage of the "free" upgrade to outlook 2000 included with exchange server).
Finding out there are (still employed) admins out there forcing their users to connect to their exchange mailbox at 56Kbps using a protocol designed to run over 10Mbps connections, that is hilarious. Use the remote mail tools, that is what they are there for. RTFM if you have never used them before.
You will find the remote mail tools work at about the same speed as an IMAP connection (only extended support for message header info unique to exchange which can be more helpful than what IMAP can provide when deciding whether or not you want to download that 24MB message). Also, from the client side, you will still see calendar, task folders, etc. in the same mailbox store, which is nice.