Email Tips

Friday, 27 July 2007

I wish I could check email when I am out of the office…
If only I had an automatic responder to tell people that I am on holiday…

..but won’t I need some expensive software to do that?

No! Webmail is a very easy to use service that comes bundled with most domain hosting packages. Many people use a program like Outlook or Outlook Express to collect email messages, but where does Outlook get the messages from?

In short, it downloads them from a server on the internet somewhere. Webmail allows you to directly access that server, so you can check email from anywhere before it gets downloaded at work (assuming someone in your office isn’t using your email program!).

All you need to use webmail is an internet connection, and to be able to remember a URL such as http://webmail.mydomain.co.uk and a username and password. OK, so you wont have access to your address book or calendars, but to check and reply to email it is fine. If you are an ESP customer, find out whether you can use webmail by contacting us.

It is often assumed that auto-responders are only available to organisations with an Exchange (or similar) mail server. However, many ISP’s have a feature which allows an administrator to setup auto-responders as part of the hosting package. This normally involves logging in to a ‘Control Panel’ and as such should only be done by those with some technical knowledge as well as the authority to be able to administer other peoples email.

Once logged in to the control panel, a range of advanced configuration options is revealed and amongst them is usually an option to set up ‘Out-of-office’ responders on the email accounts. Once again, if you are an ESP customer and are interested in this feature, do get in touch!