Microsoft Outlook MAINTENANCE & USAGE GUIDE

Transcription

1 Microsoft Outlook MAINTENANCE & USAGE GUIDE Updated 1/31/2014 SUMMARY Microsoft Exchange is an messaging and scheduling service used in our organization. This service is managed on a global level and provides many benefits and features such as calendar sharing, contact management, an organization wide global address book and access via the web. This guide demonstrates some of the best practices when using Microsoft Exchange with Outlook. EXCHANGE / OUTLOOK Each Exchange user has an address and is assigned a mailbox that stores information. The mailbox area is located on the Exchange server itself and has the ability to store information such as calendar, contact and task data. A temporary copy of the mailbox data is stored on your local computer in a file called the Offline Storage Table (.OST) whenever Outlook is open on your computer. Items stored in the Exchange mailbox can be accessed from any Internet connected device such as a smartphone. This allows smartphone users the ability to view or sync their Exchange calendar with their smartphone and use Exchange from anywhere. Outlook is the client that connects to Microsoft Exchange. Outlook can be used to manage everything inside the mailbox. It can also manage local storage of messages in an area called Personal Folders which is stored on your computer in a file called the Personal Storage Table (.PST) Personal Folders are used because there are typically limitations on the amount of data that can be stored in the mailbox. To prevent exceeding the size limit, messages in the mailbox should be periodically moved into the corresponding folder in Personal Folders. Moving messages from the mailbox to the Personal Folders can be done manually or automatically using Outlook rules. See the guide Microsoft Outlook Setup for Exchange Server for information on how to configure rules. 1

2 WHAT ARE THE MAILBOX SIZE LIMITS? Due to the limited resources available on the server, size restrictions are in place on the amount of data that can be stored in the mailbox. With the introduction Exchange 2010 in January 2014, the mailbox size limits have been expanded. See the table below for the size limits. User mailboxes will be migrated to the Exchange 2010 environment on a per user basis. If your mailbox hasn t been migrated, your mailbox is on Exchange EXCHANGE 2003 MAILBOX SIZE 50MB (50000KB) 70MB (70000KB) 90MB (90000KB) ACTION notification is sent with reminder to reduce the size of the mailbox notification is sent informing user that mailbox is over the size limit. Ability to send messages is disabled until the size is reduced. notification is sent informing user that mailbox is closed. Ability to send messages is disabled permanently. A request to the Help Desk must be made in order to restore use of the mailbox. EXCHANGE 2010 MAILBOX SIZE 900MB (900000KB) 1TB ( KB) ACTION notification is sent with reminder to reduce the size of the mailbox. Ability to send or receive messages may be disabled. notification is sent informing user that mailbox is closed. Ability to send messages is disabled permanently. A request to the Help Desk must be made in order to restore use of the mailbox. PERSONAL FOLDERS BEST PRACTICES The Personal Folders file is designed to store large amounts of messages. Microsoft recommends the following to ensure optimal Outlook performance: 1.) Keep the size of the Personal Folders file (.PST) file under 2GB. While Outlook will still function when the file exceeds 2GB, anything over this size can have a negative impact on Outlook performance and cause a lag when searching for messages in Outlook. PST files over this size are also more susceptible to corruption and can become unreadable without special software. 2.) At the end of every calendar year, a new Archive PST should be created within Outlook and labeled appropriately to reflect the year. All the messages that correspond to the year that just passed should be moved into the new Archive PST. This will reduce the size of the active current PST and organize all your messages by year. CCAS IT SERVICES Outlook Maintenance & Usage Guide 2

3 MAILBOX MAINTENANCE It is recommended that you routinely check the size of your mailbox and perform the following steps to keep the size under the limit. HOW DO YOU CHECK THE SIZE OF THE MAILBOX? 1.) In Outlook 2007: Click Tools Mailbox Cleanup In Outlook 2010: Click File Cleanup Tools Mailbox Cleanup Click View Mailbox Size CCAS IT SERVICES Outlook Maintenance & Usage Guide 3

4 2.) Look at the Total Size including subfolders. If the size is approaching the established size limits, it s time to start cleaning up the mailbox. In some cases, there may be a discrepancy between the local data (what is stored in the.ost file) and the server data. CCAS IT SERVICES Outlook Maintenance & Usage Guide 4

5 MAILBOX CLEANUP PROCEDURES Move messages FROM the MAILBOX TO the Personal Folders 1. Make sure Outlook is open and in Connected Mode (Online) 2. Expand the folder, Mailbox Your Name or shows your address. 3. Select the Folder List view. 4. Look for messages in Deleted Items, Inbox and Sent Items. Delete or move the messages to the corresponding folder in Personal Folders. a. Select the folder, then select one message, then press Ctrl + A (Edit Select All) b. With the items still selected, drag the highlighted items to the corresponding folder under Personal Folders. This will move the messages out of the Mailbox. CCAS IT SERVICES Outlook Maintenance & Usage Guide 5

6 CALENDAR CLEANUP 1. Archive items older than 3 months in the past. a. Right-mouse click the calendar, select Properties b. Select AutoArchive tab Select Archive this folder using these settings. Clean out items older than 3 Months. Select Move old items to, then click Browse to locate the folder used to store Archive items. Press OK. 2. Remove large past events or the attachments in these events: a. Select the Calendar, click View Current View All Appointments b. Sort by Size in descending order (if you don t see the Size column, right-mouse click the field header, select Customize Current View, click Fields.) c. Select All Appointment fields from the drop-down list, find Size from the available fields and click Add to move it to the box on the right. Click OK. d. Find the calendar items over 500k and either delete the appointment entirely or open the item and delete the attachments (bmp, jpeg, agenda files, etc.) CCAS IT SERVICES Outlook Maintenance & Usage Guide 6

7 DELETE UNNECESSARY MAILBOX ITEMS 1. Under the mailbox folder, find the folder Sync Issues 2. Items in this folder and items in each of the subfolders (Conflicts, Local Failures, Server Failures) can be deleted. AUTO ARCHIVE This is a feature that will move or delete items in the mailbox automatically on a periodic basis. This tool can be used to control the size of the mailbox. Setup Auto Archive 1. Access the AutoArchive feature, by expanding the Mailbox folder. Select which folder to archive. In this example, right-mouse click Sent Items, choose Properties 2. Select the AutoArchive tab. 3. Select Archive this folder using these settings Change the time to when the archive will be activated. Then select Move Old Items To, click Browse and find the archive folder. If you don t already have an Archive folder, create one inside your My Documents folder. 4. When finished, click Apply & OK. If you receive a message about Global AutoArchive settings, press OK. 5. Repeat this process for each folder that should be AutoArchived. CCAS IT SERVICES Outlook Maintenance & Usage Guide 7

8 ARCHIVE (MANUAL) Manual archiving enables you to archive messages in the Personal Folders at any time. 1. In Outlook 2007: Click File Archive In Outlook 2010: Click File Cleanup Tools Archive 2. Select the folder to archive from and set the date. 3. Click Browse to create the Archive File (.PST). Navigate to the location where the PST files are located. A common location is \My Documents\Outlook Files\ Change the file name to correspond with the type of archive that will be performed. For example, if you want to archive messages by year, type Archive2009. This will keep the files organized. Press OK when finished. 4. To run the archive process, click OK. Outlook will now perform the archive process. Look in the bottom right hand corner to see the archive status. CCAS IT SERVICES Outlook Maintenance & Usage Guide 8