MS Exchange (SBS edition)

[meeja]

Anyone know how to copy an exchange user's incoming emails to an external address?

ie: Employee "working from home" for a day or two, no VPN access into the company server, employee needs to be able to access business emails from home?

Also would need them to be copied, rather than forwarded, as I'd like the emails to stay in the exchange inbox.

Anyone?!

[crazylegs]

Could make a POP3 connection and choose "Leave a copy of messages on the server?" in the e-mail client?

[slinksport]

AFAIK, OOA (Out of Office Assistant) enables you to forward the mail and retain a copy in the users mailbox..

I've advised a number of our customers to use this approach as we are not configuring our SBS servers for external access as yet.

Drop me a line if you want any more info,

HTH,

W

>> Edited by slinksport on Monday 10th May 16:15

[meeja]

slinksport said:

AFAIK, OOA (Out of Office Assistant) enables you to forward the mail and retain a copy in the users mailbox.. I've advised a number of our customers to use this approach as we are not configuring our SBS servers for external access as yet.

Had thought about that, but it just opens the door for spammers doesn't it? ie confirming email address existance by sending out OOA replies

[slinksport]

meeja said:

Had thought about that, but it just opens the door for spammers doesn't it? ie confirming email address existance by sending out OOA replies

In that case, you could just use the "rules wizard" to forward all mail to an additional address without generating the OOA responce.

Create a simple rule and turn it on when the user is out of the office..

"check messages when they arrive"
next, next
Yes I want this to apply to all mail I receive
"forward it to people or distribution list"
Specify people/distro list
Finish..

That should do the job, i've been reliably informed that the rules will be stored server side.

How's that?

W

[m12_nathan]

OWA is the answer

[malman]

Rules are OK but make sure it does turn out to be a server rule otherwise if it says client then the client PC outlook must be open to process the rule.

You could also use the delivery options on the users exchange mailbox to forward to another user. There is an option to deliver to both the forward address and the mailbox.

Neil

[agent006]

I'll have a look on the exchange server at work tomorrow and get back to you, as i can't remember offhand.

[ph_flyer]

Yep, rules as per slinksport's post are server-side. Here's text from O2k3 help:

If you have an e-mail account on a Microsoft Exchange Server, the server can apply rules to your messages even if you don't have Outlook running. These are called server-based rules. The rules must be set to be applied to messages when you receive them in the Inbox on the server, and the rules must be able to run to completion on the server. For example, a rule can't be applied on the server if the action specifies that a message be printed. If a rule can't be applied on the server, it is applied when you start Outlook.

[slinksport]

m12_nathan said:

OWA is the answer

Good, but does need the rest of your server to be as secure as a really secure thing! remember, this is 'doze after all!

[m12_nathan]

Use another server to front end it - maybe in a vmware session?

[slinksport]

feasible..

Bit of an arse to configure tho..

For this job, using rules to forward is a hell of a lot easier with no additional license requirements..

W

[timsta]

slinksport said:

m12_nathan said: OWA is the answer Good, but does need the rest of your server to be as secure as a really secure thing! remember, this is 'doze after all!

I would still go with OWA. You should already have a firewall in place, and you only need to forward port 443 and use on the Exchange server SSL for it to be secure. That way only authnticated users would pose any real risk. Don't open port 80 to the server.

To use SSL you would need to create a certificate and should register it with a certificate authority. You don't have to register it if you want to save some money but your users will get a warning that it isn't trusted.

It's what I use for my system and I haven't had any issues yet.


Forwarding the mail is less secure. That way there is another copy of your mail out in the world somewhere. If you use OWA then the mail is where it should be, on your corporate server.

[andyf007]

In Exchange Server Admin, create a new Custom Recipient for the guy's home email address. Then find his company mailbox in the Recipients container and double click to open it. Select the Delivery Options tab and at the bottom click on the Alternate Recipient radio button and then the Modify button. In the following window choose the new Custom Recipient that you created earlier. You can then check the box to Deliver Messages to Both Recipient and Alternate Recipient if you wish to have the emails duplicate to both internal and external addresses.

Alternatively, the guy can set up a forwarding rule on his mailbox to send to the Custom Recipient, or people internally could use the Custom Recipient to send mail directly to his home address.

Andy

[meeja]

andyf007,

That's what we have done.... set up a seperate exchange user that receives a copy of everything sent to user's 'normal' account

Seperate user then has automatic forwarding rule to external address.

This way the User's external address gets a copy of everything, regardless of whether rules are applied, or Out Of Office is on or off.

Is working a treat!

[andyf007]

meeja said:

andyf007, That's what we have done.... set up a seperate exchange user that receives a copy of everything sent to user's 'normal' account Seperate user then has automatic forwarding rule to external address. This way the User's external address gets a copy of everything, regardless of whether rules are applied, or Out Of Office is on or off. Is working a treat!

That is a little more long winded, as the Custom Recipient, when it's set up, would be given the home email address not an internal one (it isn't a mailbox on the server) and duplicate emails would be directed straight to that address. By your method you have added another hop in the email routing and another mailbox to your server and had to then set up a rule on the new mailbox, all of which are unneccessary.

The other beauty of using a Custom Recipient is that it has a display name in your address book just like an internal mailbox, ie Joe Bloggs Home Email instead of [e-mail]. This means that when he changes his home email address (and they always do), you simply change it in the custom recipient properties and the address book entry remains the same to all internal users. They are great for managing external contacts. No more problems with people forgetting long email addresses or getting the address wrong. One I used in the past was to set one up called "Sales Rep (Joe Bloggs Ltd)" instead of "[e-mail]" who was our contact at that time. Inevitably sales reps at Joe Bloggs Ltd came and went, but for us internally we still used the same 'address'.

Andy

[meeja]

Andy,

Apologies..... disregard my first description of what we've done..... I was talking out of my backside (it's been a long day!) We had actually done what you have suggested!

Need more coffee methinks.....