Outlook Integration

Connecting your Outlook™ users

Mailtraq Professional provides all the functionality you need to enable your users to share mail, address books, and calendars - all without the expense and complexity of Microsoft®  Exchange™.  Mailtraq's emphasis on usability and performance provides the ideal solution to work in partnership with your Outlook clients. Centrally stored and shareable mailboxes Mailtraq enables you to store mail on the mail server, easing backup and restore issues, and allowing messages to easily be shared with colleagues whilst preventing duplication and facilitating workflow management.  Read more... Calendars and Tasks - save money, time and resources Advanced shared Calendaring - manage your diary and tasks lists with this easy and powerful system. Calendars link to Outlook - so staff can update calendars, and colleagues can view them. Read more... Read more about Mailtraq here    How to  guides Using Outlook with IMAP to store and share your mail centrally How to use calendars for project management How to share Outlook contacts and calendars using MOS Fixing common problems - the FAQ page   Client configuration KB08032501 Outlook 2007 KB02012807 Outlook XP & 2003 KB02012805 Outlook '97 KB02012806 Outlook '98 and Outlook Express KB06061301 Outlook 2000 - IMAP KB07011601 Problems with Winmail.dat KB05111704 Connecting mobile devices

Microsoft Outlook Mailtraq recommends Microsoft Outlook as the most appropriate email client program for corporate use. Mailtraq uses industry standard protocols to leverage Outlook's client-side usability with the server-side power and affordability of Mailtraq.  Mailtraq Mailtraq provides Outlook users with the server functionality needed to store and share the most important collaboration information: mail, address books and calendars. Mailtraq is the logical choice for organizations needing a powerful yet affordable solution.

Configuration Tips

Using Outlook with IMAP
(Mailbox / folder sharing etc)

New users should be aware that there are differences in message handling in, say Outlook 2003, between POP3 and IMAP. Two of the most common are deleting messages and filing copies of sent items.

Deleting Messages

Message deletion is typically a two step process. First the message marked for deletion has a line drawn through it, but it is not actually removed until a separate Purge action is taken. You must Purge from time to time to prevent your mailbox filling up with unwanted emails.    Microsoft provide the following Purging advice for Outlook 2003 and for Outlook 2007

For example: Outlook | Edit | Purge deleted messages

Outlook offers you a couple of additional settings:

To hide messages already marked for deletion in Outlook:
Select View | Current View | Hide Messages Marked for Deletion from the menu.

• In Outlook 2003, select View | Arrange By | Current View | Hide Messages Marked for Deletion.
• Select View | Reading Pane | <desired setting> to re-enable the preview pane.

Purge Deleted Messages Automatically in Outlook when you leave a folder:

• Select a Folder.
• Select Edit | Purge | Purge Options... from the menu.
• Make sure Purge items when switching folders while online is checked.
• Click OK.

WARNING: When you change folders, all the deleted items in the folder you left will be purged. You will not be able to recover or 'undelete' purged messages.

Filing Copies of Sent Items (Outlook 2003 and earlier)

Outlook does not automatically save a copy of 'sent items' on the server - it only saves them locally. You can use the Tools | Rules & Alerts object in Outlook to create a custom rule to do this. Remember that there needs to be a User Profile created in Windows - Control Panel - Mail to access this object within Outlook.

Troubleshooting Outlook

There are a number of known issues with Outlook and IMAP (some of which depend on the edition of Outlook you are using), for example: Outlook cannot handle sub-folders of the Inbox. If you are experiencing problems using IMAP with Outlook we suggest you set up a test IMAP account using Outlook Express to check your configuration.

There are a number of web resources to help you troubleshoot Outlook - here is one and there are others here.

Microsoft provide this guide to using Outlook with IMAP and there are many other guides available.  Microsoft say that there are significant improvements to Outlook's IMAP performance in Outlook 2007, which supports the direct ability to store Sent items on the server, and also performs tasks in the 'background'.

Microsoft links on resolving large PST problems
Note that in general Outlook does not respond well to very large PST files. It also requires fast access hard-drives - adding RAM does not help. As PST files increase in size the problems can become acute.

1. Outlook 2007 performance problems here
2. Outlook 2003 Performance problems here and here

Microsoft links on resolving common Outlook Profile  problems

1. Outlook e-mail Profiles explained here   
2. Detect & Repair for O2003 here, and O2007 here
3. Use of the Inbox Repair Tool here and here

Third party links - here