Sharing EMail Messages

[Jordan R.]

I have a client (small business) that is currently using only OutlookExpress
as a client to a 3rd Party email service.
They now want to be able to share email in addition to having their normal
private email folders on their local machines. Is there a way to set up
shared email folders on a server so that the employees can copy email
messages (sent, received) to the same shared folder, browse the shared
messages, etc? If it is possible, what is the simplest way to make it
possible for this client? What would be any server-side requirements? Please
note that the client is currently *not* runing Exchange server nor the full
version of Outlook.

Thanks!

 

[Jon]

There is no Microsoft supported way. If you do some searching on the net
you may find something to do this for you.

 

[Jordan R.]

Re:
<< There is no Microsoft supported way. >>

Do you mean that it's not possible at all with any combination of Microsoft
products? I can understand OE not supporting it - but what about the full
version of Outlook?

What if they had Exchange Server somewhere in the mix... noting that they
still need to ultimately send/receive email through the 3rd party email
service.

Thanks for your reply!

 

[Jon]

What I meant is Microsoft will not support the sharing unless using exchange
or a supported MS product. This applies to Outlook express and Outlook. I
know of some utilities for Outlook but none for Outlook express.

 

[Charlie Tame]

There is not "Reliable" way to do this so it's not a question of "If" it
will go wrong but "When".

Outlook is not really a "Full version" of OE, they are really quite
different programs with different concepts.

What you could possibly do (I assume that numerous accounts are set up by
now) is add all the email accounts to every machine and set them all to
leave a copy on server for a period of say (10) days, that way everyone
would download everyone else's messages. You don't have to set up different
"Identities" to do this - all that's necessary is to have OE read all the
accounts - they will all end up in the same inbox but you can get around
that by creating mail rules and user created folders.

If you only want to share messages the users want to share the simplest
answer is to have a common account set up and adopt the method above but for
the common account only - and then have the users simply use "Forward".

Of course you could also set up a group with all the user names and emails
in and simply forward to the group, so it's still the same number of easy
steps.

I guess it's down to what the users will put up with

Charlie

 

[Charlie Tame]

Yes a lot is possible with Outlook, but you may find more help in one of the
Outlook groups because it's a big leap in functionality and most of us hang
around in here because we don't need that functionality so don't really use
it that much (if at all).

There will be a learning curve if you move them up to Outlook, and of course
some cost, which is fine if the users are going to actually use it

I believe Outlook can share folders by itself so there may be no need for a
central server, but again you will probably find someone who has already
done exactly what you need if you ask in specialist groups.

Charlie

 

[Michael Santovec]

If your ISP offers IMAP mail server access, that is the way to go. IMAP
is designed for a single mail account to be shared by multiple PCs. The
IMAP mail is managed at the mail server.

If your ISP doesn't provide IMAP support, an option is to run your own
local mail server that accesses the ISP via POP3 and then provides IMAP
support to your local PCs. For an example of such a program, see:
Mercury Mail Transport System
http://www.pmail.com/overviews/ovw_mercury.htm

 

[Steve Cochran]

Another way to do this would be to swap out the dbx files between the user.

Have each user set up a folder called "Network" for example and access that
folder once for each user. Then take the messages you wish to share and put
them in a folder called Network. Then copy that dbx file to the server and
then the user can copy that and overwrite the prevous Network.dbx file on
their system. (see the last paragraph here for details:
www.oehelp.com/backup.aspx).

That's not very user friendly, but it works. You might also consider my OEX
program that will allow the user to import from any dbx file (on network or
wherever) with a single button click. (www.oehelp.com/OEX/)

steve