Good Sunday to you! Today we continue the posting up of pages
from Windows Small Business Server 2003 Best PRactices (book
excerpt). The topic herein is extending Outlook in the Exchange
application in SBS 2003. You will ready about PDA
synchronization, IMAP and other nonsense :)
cheers...harrybbbb
Harry Brelsford - ceo of smb nation - www.smbnation.com and
your fellow Microsoft Small Business Specialists (SBSC).
PS - smb nation fall confernce is merely 75+ days away and we
are holding a gnarly SBS 2008\EBS 2008 LAUNCH PARTY!
###
Extending Outlook
In
this section, you will learn a few ways to further extend your
use of Outlook 2003 in an SBS 2003 environment. These approaches
are taken directly from the real world and reflect the reality
you’re likely to confront and embrace! Let’s start
with Outlook PDA synchronization, followed by using Outlook
Express with IMAP and ending with a totally cool add-on called
Outlook Business Contact Manager.
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Outlook PDA
Synchronization
You
might recall the Mobile Client and Offline Use page when you ran
the Add User Wizard/Set Up Computer Wizard late in Chapter 4
(this page is shown below in Figure 6-27). It was here you
elected to install ActiveSync 3.7 on the client computer. This is
a required application to synchronize Outlook 2003 between a
personal digital assistant (PDA) and the client computer machine.
Figure 6-27
This is the
critical path step to install ActiveSync 3.7 on the client
computer.
This is a VERY POPULAR SOLUTION with business people who
want to carry Outlook information with them such as e-mail,
contacts, and appointments on their PDA. This is how people work
in the real world and they demand that this type of information
be at their finger tips at any time. The way in which Outlook
2003 on the client computer will synchronize with the PDA using
ActiveSync 3.7 is as follows.
ActiveSync 3.7 is
installed on the client computer and ready for use. Assuming you
use the Compaq/HP iPAQ PDA, you attach the cradle to the USB port
on
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the
client computer. You place the iPAQ in the cradle and launch
ActiveSync
3.7
from Start, All Programs, Microsoft ActiveSync on the client
computer. You complete the wizard to create a partnership and
elect what Outlook 2003 objects/data you want to synchronize. You
then proceed to actually synchronize the data and resolve any
conflicts (e.g., double bookings on your calendar with the exact
same appointment). The process is shown in Figure 6-28.
Figure 6-28
An early and assured win with business
customers and SBS users is to deploy ActiveSync 3.7 to
synchronize Outlook 2003 data with a PDA, such as the IPAQ shown
here.
BEST PRACTICE: The whole Outlook 2003/PDA
synchronization matter exposes a weakness in SBS 2003 that
you’ll need to utilize a third-party tool to correct:
public folder synchronization. The problem is this. The SBS 2003
team is rightfully proud about creating the company-related
public folder object discussed earlier in this chapter. For
example, the contact list can be used as a company-wide contact
list that eliminates duplicate lists of customers circulating
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about the firm. But how would you get
this great contact list to your IPAQ PDA? Not natively, but with
some of the third-party synchronization tools reviewed at
SlipStick: www.slipstick.com/ addins/olpda.htm#wince.
You’ll learn about products such as Pocket Lookout that
performs this important function.
You can also use a Microsoft tool, the Outlook 2002
Add-in: Pocket Contact Synchronizer 1.2, which will take the
contact information in the company contact folder and synchronize
it to your mailbox-based Contacts, which would then synchronize
to your PDA via ActiveSync 3.7. Granted - it’s an
additional step, but this shoe may well fit.
BEST PRACTICE: I just love late breaking news. The
wonderful Susan Bradley, an MVP in the SBS and security areas,
recently shared that Infoware - Team Contacts for Outlook at
http://www.infoware.ca/ content/tcon.asp and
http://www.infoware.ca/content/ infoframe.htm?tcon.asp
synchronizes user contact lists with a central contact list in an
Exchange public folder. This automatically merges changes when
two users update the same contact in their personal Contacts
folder.
Ride the Outlook Express With IMAP
I
have a client who travels extensively for business and pleasure.
Back in the SBS 2000 era, she complained that using Outlook Web
Access (OWA, which I discuss in Chapter 8) was too bulky, slow,
and awkward. Now granted, in just a few chapters I’ll show
you why OWA has improved and should be the remote e-mail access
mechanism of choice. But for some, there will still be a chance
to use Outlook Express with the IMAP protocol to access e-mail.
As you know, Outlook Express is typically installed when Internet
Explorer is installed, making it a near universally available
e-mail client (in Internet cafés in Spain and so on).
When
you launch Outlook Express, you’ll need to configure the
client machine to connect back to the SBS 2003 server, be
authenticated, and use the IMAP protocol. This is accomplished by
running the Outlook Express Internet
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Connection wizard. This third page
(E-mail Server Names) is the tricky one. You need to drop down
the protocol list and select IMAP and then complete the server
connection information (Incoming, Outgoing) with either an IP
address or a fully qualified domain name. You provide logon
authentication information on the Internet Mail Logon page (this
would be your user account and password on the SBS 2003 network).
And then all that is left would be to click Finish.
So
why IMAP? Haven’t we been throwing around the word POP3 in
this chapter? SBS 2003 configures Exchange Server 2003 to support
the SMTP, POP3, IMAP, and HTTP mail protocols. But IMAP offers
the opportunity to efficiently download just the e-mail headers
(but not the full e-mail). That would allow my client to scan the
e-mails she wants to read and delete less worthy e-mails. The
point is that the full e-mail isn’t downloaded until the
e-mail is opened. This is a nice touch when working from an
Internet café! Note that POP3 is going to download the
entire e-mail to the client.
BEST
PRACTICE: While Exchange Server 2003 installs and supports IMAP
and POP3 natively, you’ll need to start these protocols in
Exchange. For example, to turn on the IMAP protocol, you would
drill down into the Exchange System Manager under Advanced
Management in the Server Management console. Expand Servers,
Protocols and open the IMAP4 protocol folder. On the right pane,
right click Default IMAP4 Virtual Server and select Start.
You’re now ready to use the IMAP-based e-mail in Exchange
Server 2003 (and ergo, SBS 2003).
Notes:
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This is an IMAP security setting that
you need to make. If the RRAS NAT/ Basic Firewall method is your
Internet security method (as per SBS 2003 standard edition), you
would select the Internet Mail Access Protocol 4 (IMAP4) as seen
in Figure 6-29 on the Services and Ports tab in the Network
Connection Properties dailog box. This will allow IMAP-related
traffic to flow baby!
Figure 6-29
Selecting the IMAP4 port opening on
your SBS 2003 server. When asked which private IP address to map
to, enter 127.0.0.1 (a dialog box will ask this when you select
this service).
If
ISA Server is your Internet security method (as per SBS 2003
premium edition), you would create a packet filter. You will do
exactly that in Chapter 13, so hang on to your hat!
Outlook Business Contact Manager
This is
known in some circles as customer relationship management (CRM)
for da’ little guy, whereas Microsoft’s full CRM
product is positioned for the firms between 25 and 500 employees
with at least of $5 million in sales. Outlook Business Contact
Manager is an Outlook 2003 add-on to help small business
people improve sales management. A comparison between
Business Contact Manager and CRM is shown in Figure 6-30.
BEST
PRACTICE: Be well aware that Business Contact Manager is SINGLE
USER ONLY. That’s some good old expectation management up
front and in your face because you might conclude that
restriction will limit the functionality of this cool tool.
Whereas the business public folders created by SBS 2003 would
seem to promote hugging and sharing, Business Contact Manager
would tend to do just the opposite and create an island of
information in the small business. These two strategies are at
odds.
Figure 6-30
Comparing
Business Contact Manager and Microsoft CRM at a glance.
BEST
PRACTICE: As of this writing, Microsoft is launching a promotion
that bundles SBS 2003 and CRM 1.2. The details are found in a CRN
article at: http://crn.channelsupersearch.com/news/
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crn/45066.asp. The good news is that
Microsoft is looking for ways to extend SBS with tools such as
CRM 1.2 (and I’ll cover this pairing in my future advanced
SBS 2003 book).
You
acquire Business Contact Manager from Office 2003 (enterprise,
professional, and small business editions). I’m not going
to delve much deeper into the definition of Business Contract
Manager but rather encourage you to take a short pause here and
read more at www.microsoft.com/outlook. When you return,
we’ll start the step by step to install Business Contact
Manager and make a couple of entries as part of the SPRINGERS
methodology.
Note
that I assume you’ve already installed Office 2003 on the
PRESIDENT workstation. If not, do so now with the normal or most
common components installed.
BEST PRACTICE: Late breaking news again! Please run an
update that allows BCM to function properly with Exchange e-mail
profiles on SBS 2003 by visiting the Microsoft download center at
www.microsoft.com/downloads and searching under Office Outlook
and the keyword Business. There is a quick fix you’ll run
prior to performing the procedure below.
1 &nbs
p; Log on
as NormH with the password Purple3300 on PRESIDENT.
2 &nbs
p; Put the
Outlook Business Contact Manager Disc in the CD drive of the
PRESIDENT and launch Setup.exe.
3 &nbs
p; Click OK
when the Business Contact Manager for Outlook 2003 Setup dialog
box asks for permission to detect and install the .Net framework
1.1.
4 &nbs
p; Agree to
the Microsoft .Net license by selecting I agree on the Microsoft
.NET Framework 1.1 Setup screen and click Install. This setup can
take several minutes. Click OK when the .NET Framework 1.1
is complete.
5 &nbs
p; Click
Next on the welcome page for Business Contact Manager.
6 &nbs
p; On the
End-User License Agreement page, select I accept the terms in the
licenses agreement and click Next.
7 &nbs
p; Accept
the default destination on C: drive on the Destination Folder
page and click Next.
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1 &nbs
p; On the
Ready to Install the Program page, click Install. You will be
advised of the installation progress on the status bar.
2 &nbs
p; Click
Finish on the Wizard Completed page. You’ve now
com
pleted the installation of Business
Contact Manager. In the following procedure, you’ll launch
Outlook and use Business Contract Manager.
1 &nbs
p; Launch
Outlook from Start, E-mail.
2 &nbs
p; Observe
and read the Welcome to Microsoft Outlook with Business
Contact Manager e-mail. I’m counting on you to read this to
learn more about the product as I won’t repeat it here.
3 &nbs
p; Select
Business Contacts from the Business Tools menu. Complete the
screen, similar to Figure 6-31, for a fictional customer (e.g.,
Mrs. Jones). Click Save and Close to close the record.
Figure 6-31
Adding a
business contact.
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4.
Select Accounts from
Business Tools and complete the screen similar to Figure
6-32 with fictitious information. Be sure to add a business
note and link Sally Jones. Click Save and Close.
Figure 6-32
Creating an
account in BCM. You’re putting the pieces in place for a
CRM system.
5.
Next up, explore the
other Business Tools menu options and create an Opportunity,
Product List and, if connected to the Internet to launch a Web
browser, select the Business Tools link that will take you to the
BCM page at Microsoft for the latest updates.
Notes:
6.
Finally, play around
with the Reports option under the Business Tools menu. One such
report is shown in Figure 6-33.
Figure 6-33
The
fictitious information is shown in the Account List with Business
Contact report.
Note that my intent isn’t to teach mastery of BCM
but rather turn you on to this cool tool. Perhaps a full chapter
in a future book will be dedicated to this tool for your reading
pleasure.
BEST
PRACTICE: BCM is a great start at delivering CRM to the
“rest of us.” I encourage you to learn it, use it and
provide feedback on it to Microsoft (the Outlook newsgroups are
sufficient to do this). However, it’s necessary to
understand that there are a couple of limitations for this,
including that the BCM data doesn’t really play well with
native Exchange mailbox data. That is, a contact record format in
BCM is different than the traditional Exchange contact record
format. Also, BCM kinda has this “island of
information” mentality and this isn’t shared
information. Rather, you should picture it as each salesperson in
a company keeping their own CRM system
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that is separate from everyone
else’s. That is bothersome to me and at odds with attempts
to centralize business information for the benefit (and
profitability) of all.
I
personally look for this limitation to be satisfied in a future
BCM release, which is why I highly recommend you play with it
today in anticipation of a better tomorrow.
Next Steps!
There are some next steps you can take that go above and
beyond this chapter on Exchange and Outlook.
•
Visit
Microsoft Web Sites: Exchange and Outlook. Your very next step is
to visit the sites at Microsoft for Exchange (www.microsoft.com/
exchange) and Outlook (www.microsoft.com/office and select the
Outlook link). Microsoft posts much of its technical
resources to its sites
and has
created this treasure chest of current information on their
products that this book can’t hope to keep up with!
•
; &nbs
p; Read Exchange and Outlook Books. While this book covers
the full suite of products in SBS 2003, there are many excellent
(and thick) books dedicated to Outlook and Exchange. I can
recommend the Outlook and Exchange Administrator’s
Smart Pak (TechRepublic) with more information at
https://techrepublic-secure.com.com/5106-624226-12333.html?p
art=tr&subj=12333.
•
; &nbs
p; Use Microsoft TechNet to learn Exchange command line
utilities. The second disc of the SBS 2003 media contains
Exchange command-line utilities that help manage and recover the
database. You should visit www.microsoft.com/technet and search
on “Exchange” to learn more about these.
•
; &nbs
p; Sign up for Sue Mosher’s RSS feed for Exchange and
Outlook issues: http://www.slipstick.com/rssnews/rssnews.aspx.
•
; &nbs
p; Read current articles on Exchange and Outlook. There is
an interesting InfoWorld article on the role of Outlook 2003 and
SBS 2003 (Enterprise Windows: Oliver Rist, November 7, 2003,
www.infoworld.com).
•
; &nbs
p; Learn more cool Outlook features. This chapter is only
the start, not the end of your time with Outlook. Please go
forward and educate yourself on the vCard capability to mail your
contact record to others, the mail merge capability, and the
automatic meeting planning tool.
•
; &nbs
p; Read Chapter 8 of this book. I’ve not forgotten
OWA and other remote Outlook connectivity approaches (such as
Outlook Mobile Access, Outlook over RDP, etc.). These are covered
in the remote connectivity chapter.
Late Breaking News!EICW Support Matter
Just when you thought it was safe to go out in the
neighborhood again, Karen Christian of the North County
Technology Group (www.nctg.com) sent in this nugget for your
consumption. This involves both the EICW (which Karen calls the
CEICW below) and remote access. As such, it serves as a great
transition to the remote connectivity chapter you’ll read
soon (Chapter 8).
11/11/2003
Here are the
results of a couple calls to MS support and a couple TS sessions
to my server in the last 24 hours. We could not connect via HTTPS
from the Internet for OWA or Remote Web
Workplace and wanted to get this resolved. This server
was SBS2000 w/ISA upgraded to SBS 2003 Basic/Premium.
(Still have to install SQL via the Premium CD......think
I’ll take a breather first.)
MS
tried rerunning CEICW and did not get the desired results. They
manually configured DNS, ISA and IIS and got it working late last
night. Today they wanted to get the wizard to do its job the way
it was intended. It required some
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manual cleanup first which was not expected on their
part. Guess this is another ’feature’ we have to keep
in the back of our minds. Steps Performed:
1 &nbs
p; Removed
the Web Server Cert.
2 &nbs
p; Removed
the ISA Incoming Web Listener Cert
3 &nbs
p; Removed
the Web Publishing Rules
4 &nbs
p; Removed
the Destination Sets
5 &nbs
p; Reran
CEICW, and waited for services to restart. Services take a few
minutes to restart, so ISA does not immediately show the changes.
We are now able to connect as expected.
The
expectation is that CEICW would have done all the updates and
repair work needed but it didn’t work as anticipated.
BEST
PRACTICE: When you run the CEICW that comes with SBS2003 Standard
edition (Premium edition is just another CD and we didn’t
have to install ISA as it was there from SBS2K already), you are
given an opportunity to create a certificate if desired.
You enter the Internet name (ie: servername.domainname.com). I
found out today that the wizard process creates two certificates
in the process. On my server it created one for
nctgdc1.nctg.com and one for publishing.nctg.local. One is for
the SSL session to ISA from the Internet and the other is for the
SSL session from ISA to IIS. This problem originated when I
created a certificate called nctgdc1.nctg.local which is
incorrect. Still one would expect that rerunning CEICW would take
care of this when you enter the correct certificate name.
Karen Christian
Thanks Karen!
Notes:
Summary
I end how I started. You know more
about Exchange Server 2003 and Outlook 2003 than you’ve
likely given yourself credit for in the past. You probably know
about 80 percent of the functionality of the programs and
it’s the remaining 20 percent that’ll take much
longer to master. And, hopefully, after reading this chapter that
dug deep in Exchange and Outlook, you feel you know much more
than prior to reading all this stuff (of course I’ve left
out some other advanced Exchange and Outlook topics that
I’ll address in a future book down the road - keep
reading!).
