Seven Tasks to Get Started with Microsoft Exchange

Exchange Server 4.0 is this thing. It's packed with so much functionand so many features that you wonder whether all things will be possible withit, or--because of all the functions and features--whether anything will bepossible. Exchange is a powerful Windows NT client/server email application. Itcombines scheduling, folders (the basis of information sharing), and customforms with database access and connectors to Exchange and non-Exchange systems.

So, Exchange allows mission-critical email capability and much more on anNT Server. When did email become mission critical? At our company, it happenedon the first day we used email as the primary line of communication withcustomers (I think it was a Tuesday). "Exchange's CoreComponents" gives a basic picture of it. Because Exchange runs on NT,you also get the benefit of NT's native reliability. Exchange's client/serverarchitecture provides an extensible platform that lets you easily add Exchangeservers when your message traffic begins to strain your hardware. You can alsoreadily add people--and, more important, groups of people--to yourExchange-based system.

Several features, such as Exchange's transaction log files and itslink and server monitors, make it a good choice for mission-criticalapplications. Exchange logs transactions to the databases in separatetransaction log files for each database. This feature means you can use acombination of the database backup and the incremental log files to performdatabase recovery. Transaction logging also improves overall system performance,because Exchange writes database activity to the sequential log file and thenupdates the database from the log. Additionally, transaction logs allow for hot,or online, database backups, a requirement for 24 X 7 operation.

SQL Server's implementation of transaction logging makes sizing andlocating transaction log files part of database creation. In contrast,Exchange's implementation runs an optimization program during installation anddetermines the best location (database path) and size for the database andtransaction log files, based on your answers to the questions about users,number of messages, and so on. You can change the database paths as necessary.An NT backup removes the transaction logs, or if you activate circular logging(in the Advanced Properties dialog accessible in the Servers menu of theExchange Administrator), Exchange can write over previous transaction logs asnecessary.

Exchange's link monitor lets you monitor external connections, such as yourconnection to the Internet. The link and server monitors show the status of yourentire email network and can send email to report problems on the network. Thiscapability lets you repair such problems before your email users call you. Anddon't forget the message tracking feature, which lets you follow a message toits recipient. This feature is good for those support calls that start, "Isent a message to Elmer in Duluth, and he says he didn't get it."

Add to these features data replication, dynamic server failover, andleast-cost routing, and you have a system that supports a high-traffic emailenvironment. Microsoft internally stores about 5GB of message data per day onits Exchange system.

Getting Started
So this thing, Exchange, makes a lotpossible. The problem is getting started with it. And if you already have anemail system, the hardest part about starting is answering the question, "Howcan I use Exchange without disrupting my existing system?" Without havingto know the product inside out and backwards, you can get results from Exchangeas soon as you install it ("Installation Tips," page 118, offers somehelp). In fact, I'll show you seven useful tasks you can do immediately: convertselected email accounts to post to the Exchange server, post information to afolder, use Inbox Assistant to organize your email, take folders on a road trip,create a conference registration form to post information to a public folder,track an email message, and monitor your connection to the Internet and to otherExchange servers.

Convert Selected Email Accounts
You can begin to send andreceive email via Exchange without changing the rest of the company's emailsystem--meaning you can test and learn Exchange without affecting day-to-daybusiness operations. Here are two ways to accomplish this feat. The first is toconfigure an Internet Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) service on theclient. To do so, you open the Exchange client, select Services from the Toolsmenu, add the Internet Mail service to the services list, and enter the personaland mailbox information as you see in Screen 1. When you restart the Exchangeclient, your SMTP and Internet email will post to it. This method will move themail directly to your client, not to the Exchange Server.

The second approach is to forward your Internet mail from an existingInternet post office to the Exchange server (most post office software hasforwarding capability). Be sure to set up an SMTP address in the recipientproperties email address page that matches the forwarded address. When you'reready to convert your entire organization to Exchange, alter the Domain NameSystem (DNS) entries to point all Internet email to an individual DNS entry tothe Exchange server. If an Internet Service Provider (ISP) handles your DNSservices, make sure the ISP clearly understands the DNS changes.

Post Information to a Folder
Posting information to a folder is how you store, share, and retrieveinformation in Exchange. To create a public folder, you click the plus sign nextto the Public Folders icon. Then highlight All Public Folders, select New Folderfrom the File menu, and enter a new folder name. You'll see the new folder onthe right side of the screen.

To post information to the folder, select an existing document from yoursystem and drag it to the new folder. Keeping the same folder open, selectCompose from the Exchange client menu, and then select New Post in This Folder.Fill out the keywords and subject. You can add text to the message box on theform or paste text from a document into the message box. Click Post when youfinish. You'll see the document you posted and the message you added in the newfolder. If you use Microsoft Office 95 7.0 applications, you'll notice thatExchange adds the Post to Exchange Folder option to their File menus. Thisoption lets you post your documents directly to an Exchange folder.

Use Inbox Assistant
Inbox Assistant automatically organizesincoming email for you based on criteria you specify. You can have InboxAssistant copy a message to a folder, move a message to a folder (leaving theoriginal message in the inbox), forward a message to another user, reply to thesender, or create an automatic response to a message.

For example, I want Inbox Assistant to copy all my email from Linda at DukeCommunications to a folder called News400. Here's how I set it up: I SelectInbox Assistant from the Tools menu and choose Add Rule to create a new rule.Screen 2 shows the Edit Rule dialog, which is for editing and addingrules. In the From field, I enter the address ([email protected]). I want onlymail that is sent to me, so I enter my name in the Sent To field. Tohave Inbox Assistant alert me when I get messages that meet these criteria, Iclick the Alert with check box (you can customize the alert you want toreceive by clicking Action). To tell Inbox Assistant to copy the message to myNews400 folder, I click the Copy to check box and enter the folder name.Then I click OK, and Inbox Assistant presents a screen showing the rule I justset up.

Inbox Assistant is especially handy for organizing email you receiveregularly. For instance, if you subscribe to an electronic newsletter, you canhave one copy delivered to a special email address and use Inbox Assistant toput the newsletter in a public folder so everyone can read it.

Take Folders on a Road Trip
When you travel, you can takeExchange folders along on your laptop computer and change or update theircontents while you're offline. When you get back, Exchange will automaticallysynchronize the folders from the offline system with the same folders on theExchange server. An offline folder must reside in your mailbox or be a publicfolder that you designate as a Favorite folder.

Let's step through taking a folder, let's say the Exchange Conference Ideasfolder, on the road. On the client computer, select the folder from the Favoritefolder. Right click to select Properties (or choose Properties from the Filemenu). Screen 3 shows the Exchange Conference Ideas Properties box that pops up.Click the Synchronization tab, and select the option to make the folderavailable when you're offline or online. Exchange creates a new physical file tostore offline folders on the computer that will be offline. Before you gooffline, however, you must put the items you want to work on in the folder. Whenthe folder has the necessary objects in it, select Synchronize from the Toolsmenu to update the offline copy of the folder.

Next you must configure Exchange for offline use. Select Options from theTools menu. Then click the Services tab. Select Microsoft Exchange Server, andthen click Properties. Click the General tab on the pop-up dialog you see inScreen 4, and then click the check box to activate the option, Choose theconnection type when starting. Then click OK.

Now, each time Exchange starts, it will ask whether you want to workoffline. Screen 5 shows the Conference Ideas folder with a new offline entry.The next time you connect to the Exchange server, Exchange will synchronizefolder data and update the synchronization log.

What happens if someone changes a folder entry while you're on the road?Not to worry. The Permissions tab in the Exchange Conference Ideas Propertiesbox in Screen 6, offers options to control access to all the objects in afolder. For example, I set up the Exchange Conference Ideas folder to let acolleague edit the objects in the folder, and he made a change to exchidea.doc.When I synchronized my offline folder with the Exchange server, Exchangegenerated a conflict message in my mailbox. Screen 7 shows the conflict messageand the options to resolve the conflict.

Create a Conference Registration Form
Exchange can distribute custom forms from a central data store to valid,requesting clients anywhere in your organization. This capability is useful forposting messages in a consistent columnar format. The fields you create in yourform will be stored in columns in the Exchange database, and you can search,group, and sort these columns. The Microsoft Exchange Forms Designer (EFD) letsyou create forms. Screen 8 shows the EFD screen.

The EFD is on the Exchange client CD, and you install it on theworkstation. You can start the EFD from an icon on the desktop or by selectingApplication Design from the Tools menu in the Exchange client. The EFD lets youchoose either the Form Template Wizard or just a form template to create a form.The wizard works like all standard Microsoft wizards, asking questions about theform you want to design, letting you fill in your choices, and finally providinga finished form. The EFD offers a Visual Basic (VB) interface to let you addtext boxes, pulldown menus, list boxes, and so on to your forms.

When you finish the form, you must install it to a forms library or afolder forms library. Select Install from the EFD menu bar. The VB compilergenerates Microsoft VB Project Code, starts VB for Microsoft Exchange Server,and starts Exchange (if it's not already running).

That's the work. The fun is using the form. Let's use an example form, aconference registration, to enter information and then to organize theinformation in a view. To activate the conference registration form, in theExchange client, you highlight the Conference Registration folder and select NewConference Registration from the Compose menu, as in Screen 9. The first time anExchange client activates a form, you see the message, "Installing the formon your machine," meaning that Exchange has determined that the formdoesn't exist on the client machine and is copying it from the Exchange serverfolder to the client.

When you finish entering information on the form, click the Tack icon inthe upper right corner of the screen in Screen 10 to post the information to afolder. The last task is to create a view to organize the messages in theConference Registration folder. Select Columns from the View menu. A dialogcontaining all form columns pops up as in Screen 11. You can organize themessage columns to show the data in any column order, logically group themessages, and search the contents of a form column.

Track an Email Message
Email happens. And sometimes it doesn't.Tracking email messages with Exchange is a great way to solve problems withemail delivery and receipt. Exchange lets you track both internal and externalmessages. To track internal Exchange messages, in the Exchange Administrator,enable tracking in the Information Store Site Configuration dialog. As you seein Screen 12, you get to it by clicking the Site Configuration icon in theExchange Administrator. Then click the General tab, and make sure the Enablemessage tracking box is checked. To track external Exchange messages, enable themessage tracking check box on both the MTA Site Configuration and the ConnectorProperties dialogs for the connectors you want to track (Exchange usesconnectors to communicate with other Exchange and non-Exchange systems). Irecommend tracking all messages until you're comfortable with Exchange's messagedelivery and receipt performance.

To use message tracking, select Tools from the Main menu on the ExchangeAdministrator and then select Track Message. The Select Message to Track dialogpops up as in Screen 13. From there, you can specify the criteria for yourmessage search. The results of your search show in the same dialog. In Screen13, you can see the results of finding all messages sent from David Geiger. Theicon in the Time column shows whether the message was a local Exchange messageor was received through a connector. The Message Tracking Center box in Screen 14 appears after the main message tracking screen. The Advanced Search option lets you search for messages Exchange sends, search for messages transferred into your site, or search for messages by message ID. The Transferred tothis Site option lets you search for messages transferred to Exchange from aconnector. The Track option shows the complete message tracking history.

Monitor Your Connections
Why be the last person in your organization to know that the Internetconnection is down? You can have Exchange monitor your connection to theInternet, to any other installed connectors, and to other Exchange Servers. Youcan easily configure the monitor to test your connections at specified intervalsand to send warnings and alerts to the people using Exchange's messaging system.

Let's step through setting up the monitor to ping an Internet/SMTP addressat a predetermined interval and evaluate the connection based on receipt of aresponse to the ping. To set up a monitor for the Internet/SMTP connection, inthe Exchange Administrator, select New Other from the File menu. Then selectLink Monitor for the properties for a link monitor. Click the General tab, andfill in the information to name the monitor. Set the polling intervals forwarnings and alerts, and set up a log file if necessary. Next, click theNotification tab and fill in the information. Exchange monitors offer threenotification types: Launch a Process, Mail a Message, and Windows NT Alert.(When you select Mail a Message, you must fill in the Users List on theNotifications tab to specify who gets the mail message.) Click the Servers tab,and you can select a server to include on this monitor (not required). Next, usethe Recipients tab to tell Exchange the address of the foreign site to monitor.

You can create a new custom recipient or choose an existing one to receivethe ping to test the connection. To create a custom recipient, select New CustomRecipient from the File menu in the Exchange Administrator. Choose a testrecipient that you know doesn't exist on the foreign site, because an invalidemail address message from the foreign site is a valid response to the ping.Next, go to the Bounce tab and set the bounce duration--the longest acceptableround-trip time for a message to travel from the Exchange Server to the foreignsystem. When you first set up the monitor, select large bounce times. Themonitor will tell you the return time, and you can refine your bounce times asyou go. You can set different intervals for warnings and alerts.

Once the monitor is configured, you have to start it. In the ExchangeAdministrator, double-click Monitors. Next, highlight the monitor you want,select Tools from the Administrator menu, and click Start Monitor. The monitorstatus is a question mark while the monitor waits for the first ping to return.A green up arrow means the monitor is running and has no warning state. A redexclamation mark denotes a warning state, and a red down arrow means the monitoris down.

Yes, It's Big
Exchange is indeed a colossus--and a strong product that you can learn asyou go. Just install it, and start using it as I outline here. "MoreInformation About Exchange," below, lists resources to help you delvedeeper into Exchange.

More Information About Exchange

Windows NT Magazine articles
"Migrating MSMail to Exchange," Spyros Sakellariadis, April 1996.
"Onthe Road with Exchange," Tim Daniels, May 1996.

After-market Exchange Books
Microsoft Exchange inBusiness
Author: Russell Borland
Publisher:Microsoft Press, Redmond, WA, 1996
ISBN 1-572-31218-1
490pages

Mastering Microsoft Exchange Server
Author: BarryGerber
Publisher: Sybex, San Francisco, 1996
ISBN0-782-11867-4
659 pages

Introducing Microsoft Exchange
Author: BillKilcullen
Publisher: Microsoft Press, Redmond, WA, 1996
ISBN1-556-15941-2
344 pages

At least six more Exchange books from Microsoft Press and from DukePress will be on the market by early fall. Other resources include MicrosoftTraining Partners Exchange courses, the BackOffice certification program, andInternet newsgroups at www.microsoft.com/exchange.