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Microsoft Exchange Server
Features and Benefits
Inter-office
Email
Standard POP3 email can be used to send email within your
office. Exchange Server, however,
makes inter-office email much easier to use and administer.
- Centralized
Address Lists: All of your
employees are automatically added to the “Global Address List” which is
available to all users when addressing email.
- Centralized
Groups: Groups of users
(e.g. Commercial Lines Employees) can be created within Exchange Server and
then appear in the “Global Address List” which is available to all users
when addressing email.
Public Folders
Public Folders are centralized folders that can be accessed by all
employees. Access to these folders
can be restricted (by user or group) to provide whatever level of security is
needed. Public Folders can contain
any kind of information including Contact info (Name, address, phone, email,
etc), Appointments (Calendars), Tasks, or Email.
Some examples of public folders include:
- Contact
information for your business partners (insurance company contacts, vendor
contacts, etc.)
- Calendars
to schedule the use of shared resources like conference rooms.
Group Enabled Outlook Features
With Exchange Server, everything in Outlook becomes “group
enabled”. Your calendar, task
list, Inbox, etc. can all be viewed or modified by other users.
Of course, you decide how much, if any, access you want to allow to your
information. Now any one can find
out where you are and when you will be back just by checking your calendar.
Meeting Planner
Exchange Server features a Meeting Planner that lets you select users for a
meeting, checks each user's calendar to determine a free time, and then notifies
each user and updates their calendars with the scheduled meeting.
Out of Office Assistant
Exchange Server provides a simple tool to notify others when you
are out of the office. Just go to
the Out of Office Assistant, tell it you are out of the office, and type a
message. Whenever you receive
email, the sender automatically receives an email back with your message.
If you will be gone for a long time, you can have your email forwarded to
another user so nothing falls through the cracks.
Outlook Web Access
Outlook Web Access is Web browser based version of Outlook with almost all the
same features. Now you can access
your email, calendar, contacts, etc. any time, from any PC, from anywhere in the
world, via a Web browser.
Unlimited Internet Email Addresses
Exchange Server allows each of your users to have has many email addresses as
they want. John Doe’s email
address can be john@…, jdoe@…, johnd@…, and sales@… all at the same
time. Exchange Server also supports as many different domain names
as you want. You can have addresses
at mycompany.com, mycompany.cc, and myothercompany.com all at the same time.
Real Time Email
With Exchange Server, everything happens right now.
You receive your email as soon as it arrives at the server and when you
send an email it goes immediately.
Administration
Exchange Server provides easier and more complete administration of email.
With standard POP3 email, everything is stored on each user’s
individual PC. With Exchange
Server, all the data is stored in a database on the server.
There are many benefits to this:
- All
email, contacts, calendars, etc. are included in the nightly tape backup
of the server. When a PC "crashes", the email will not be
lost because it is stored on the server. When a server
"crashes" the email can be restored from the tape backup along
with all your other data.
- When
a user gets a new computer, there is no need to manually move the email and
address lists from the old PC to the new PC. With Exchange Server you just tell the new PC
which mailbox you want to access on the server.
- Virus
software for Exchange Server prevents viruses from getting into the
mailboxes. The virus will be removed before it hits your PCs.
With traditional POP3 email, virus software cannot detect a virus
until it reaches the user’s Inbox.
- Third
party software options. Many
companies make add-on products for Exchange Server to increase its
functionality and ease administration.
Some examples include:
- Faxing
Integration: Many faxing
network solutions can be used with Exchange Server so that faxes can be
received and sent from Outlook.
- Content
Filtering and Monitoring: Emails
can be scanned and rejected for inappropriate content or simply monitored
for reporting purposes.
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