Exchange Hosting News: 123Together Hosted Exchange

If you are one of those people that always need to have the latest version of software, if half the software installed on your machine is in beta, or if you are just considering upgrading (or already upgraded) then this post is for you.

You may experience performance problems when you are working with items in a large .pst file or in a large .ost file in Outlook 2007. Short version is that if you have large PST or OST files, Outlook hangs, sometimes 10-12 seconds and may reduce your computer’s speed. The cause is “To accommodate new features, Outlook 2007 introduced a new data structure for .pst and .ost files. In this new data structure, the frequency of writing data to the hard disk increases as the number of items in the .pst or .ost files increases.”

More info at http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=932086

Did you know that you can customize your views in specific folders?  Outlook can help you organize the contents of folders to best suit your needs.  For example, consider view options within the Tasks folder:
 

1.       Click on the Tasks folder on the left hand panel of Outlook.
2.       Click on the View menu then Arrange By > Current View > Customize Current View.
3.       The pop-up menu allows you to change the font or group by fields.
4.       You can change the default view to another view type: Table, Timeline, Card, Day/Week/Month or Icon.
5.      You can also define a new custom view. Click on View > Arrange By > Current View > Define View.
6.       In the Custom View Organizer box, select New.
7.       Create a new view by naming it and selecting the default settings.  Click Accept and your new view is applied to your Tasks folder!

Do your emails contain tasks you need to keep track of and accomplish?  Outlook can help you instantly create appointments and tasks from these emails.  Here’s how:
1.       In your Inbox, left click on an email that contains a task and drag it to the Tasks or Calendar tab on the left hand panel of Outlook.
2.       A new task or appointment is automatically created in the body of the selected email.  You can edit the task details by filling out due dates, priorities, etc.
3.       Click Save and Close in the upper left corner of the email.

Is your Inbox getting full and overcrowded?  Do you have trouble finding important emails quickly?  Outlook can help organize your Inbox by automatically placing incoming emails in specific folders.  Here’s how:
1.       In your Inbox, right click on an email that you would like to be automatically placed into a folder.
2.       From the menu, select Create Rule.
3.       In the Create Rule Box, select the conditions for your rule so that it will apply to the sender, wording, or recipient of the email.
4.       Below the conditions options, select Move e-mail to a folder.
5.       Click on Select Folder to specify where emails with your selected conditions should be automatically stored.  Click OK.
6.       A Success box will pop up. Select Run this rule now to apply your rule to other messages already in your inbox.  Or, click OK and your rule will apply to all incoming emails in the future. 

Increase your knowledge of Outlook and improve your email efficiency! Whether you’re new to Outlook or an experienced user, here are some quick Outlook tips geared towards your experience level:

Automatically Sort Incoming Emails

Is your Inbox getting full and overcrowded? Do you have trouble finding important emails quickly? Outlook can help organize your Inbox by automatically placing incoming emails in specific folders. Here’s how:

1. In your Inbox, right click on an email that you would like to be automatically placed into a folder.
2. From the menu, select Create Rule.
3. In the Create Rule Box, select the conditions for your rule so that it will apply to the sender, wording, or recipient of the email.
4. Below the conditions options, select Move e-mail to a folder.
5. Click on Select Folder to specify where emails with your selected conditions should be automatically stored. Click OK.
6. A Success box will pop up. Select Run this rule now to apply your rule to other messages already in your inbox. Or, click OK and your rule will apply to all incoming emails in the future.

Create Tasks from Emails

Do your emails contain tasks you need to keep track of and accomplish? Outlook can help you instantly create appointments and tasks from these emails. Here’s how:

1. In your Inbox, left click on an email that contains a task and drag it to the Tasks or Calendar tab on the left hand panel of Outlook.
2. A new task or appointment is automatically created in the body of the selected email. You can edit the task details by filling out due dates, priorities, etc.
3. Click Save and Close in the upper left corner of the email.

Customize Folder Views

Did you know that you can customize your views in specific folders? Outlook can help you organize the contents of folders to best suit your needs. For example, consider view options within the Tasks folder:

1. Click on the Tasks folder on the left hand panel of Outlook.
2. Click on the View menu then Arrange By > Current View > Customize Current View.
3. The pop-up menu allows you to change the font or group by fields.
4. You can change the default view to another view type: Table, Timeline, Card, Day/Week/Month or Icon.
5. You can also define a new custom view. Click on View > Arrange By > Current View > Define View.
6. In the Custom View Organizer box, select New.
7. Create a new view by naming it and selecting the default settings. Click Accept and your new view is applied to your Tasks folder!

BURLINGTON, Mass. - February 2, 2007 - 123Together.com, the leading provider of Hosted Microsoft Exchange, today announced that it is now offering 20 new Windows SharePoint Services v3.0 application templates.  123Together.com is the first Hosted Exchange messaging and collaboration provider to provide these important tools to their Hosted WSS users. 

Windows SharePoint templates are out-of-the-box customized web site templates that address the needs and requirements of specific business processes and workflows.  They allow for the easy customization of 123Together.com’s Hosted Windows SharePoint services to various business situations.

Even though Windows SharePoint Services v3.0 is a powerful standalone tool, application templates can be plugged in to help customize for specific situations such as:

The Competitive Analysis Site - The Competitive Analysis Site application template helps individuals and teams organize competitive information.  The site provides useful document templates helping users perform useful competitive analysis techniques. Links to industry, company and product news can also be included making the site the central location for all industry and competitive news and information.

The Employee Activities Site - The Employee Activities Site application template helps manage the creation and attendance of events for employees. Users can submit event profiles and create event calendar items while other employees use the site to sign up as well as track their full activities list.

The Employee Self-Service Benefits Site - The Employee Self-Service Benefits application template provides a location to inform employees about available benefits as well as enabling them to enroll for each benefit.

The Sports League Site - The Sports League application template helps an intra-company league administrator manage a sports league. The site tracks team information, players, captains and scheduled team activities (including off-field activities). Team members can enter in game results and perform analysis at a team, game or individual player level. The site also enables discussions between league members through a League Discussion board.

Details of the remaining Hosted WSS templates are available at http://www.123together.com/Windows_SharePoint_Services_v3.xhtml.

“We are proud to again be the first to market again with another SharePoint service,” said Ravi Agarwal, chief executive officer of 123Together.com, “and being the first to offer the latest version of software is one of the things that 123Together.com has become known for.  SharePoint is already one of our most popular services and we strive to be able to provide our users with the tools they need to further integrate SharePoint into their business workflow.”

Recently, 123Together.com became the first to offer Hosted Windows SharePoint Services v3.0 and with today’s release, they continue to be the first company to offer these important services.
 
About 123Together.com
123Together.com, a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner, helps small & medium-sized businesses leverage the power of Microsoft Exchange Server.  With over 9 years of hosting industry experience, 123Together.com is one of the largest providers of Microsoft Exchange Hosting today.

With up to a 100% uptime guarantee, 123Together.com is the leader in providing Mission Critical E-mail to companies such as banks, airlines, pharmaceuticals, and public companies - around the world all with flexible hosting options including shared and dedicated server hosting, full mobile availability for Blackberry, Treo, PocketPC, SmartPhone, and Windows Mobile handhelds, and the ability to resell the service completely white labeled.

123Together.com.com offers free Outlook 2007, 24×7 tech support, advanced SPAM filtering, Virus scanning, unlimited Public Folders, RPC over HTTP(S), VPN, Outlook Web Access (OWA), Outlook Mobile Access (OMA), web-based administration, daily backups, SharePoint, and continuous monitoring.  123Together.com also offers a 30-day trial.

Al Maguire
123together
781-273-6245 x641
amaguire@123together.com