M C T - I T & M C T - I T - D E V IT Support & Development in Maths, Computing and Technology MAC OS 10.6 SNOW LEOPARD AND EXCHANGE SERVICES (MAIL, CALENDAR & ADDRESS BOOK) JEFFERY LAY Last updated: Friday, 19 March 2010 MCT-IT Support & Development Teams
Overview The OU Exchange Server and Macs The OU s main mail server is actually cluster of Microsoft Exchange servers, collectively referred to as OpenMail. Microsoft Exchange is a complex and powerful system that offers multiple services - not just email, but also calendars, a global address book of all OU users, and various other features. Previous versions of Mac OS X had limited access to these services, but OS X 10.6, also known as Snow Leopard, has far better support. This document walks you through configuring it. It seems long, but that s because it s detailed and has plenty of screenshots. Don t worry, it s easy.! Mail s icon! ical s icon! Address Book s icon The advantage of using the Exchange server for all your work-related mail, calendars and addresses is that they can synchronise between multiple machines on multiple platforms, including Windows (using Microsoft Outlook), Mac OS X (using Mail, ical and Address Book), and iphone, ipad & ipod Touch (using built-in Exchange support for the Mail, ical and Contacts applications set in the central Settings application). Changes you make to information on OpenMail using any of these platforms will also show up on the others, without you having to do anything to keep them in sync. Mail Unless specifically requested otherwise, all staff have an OpenMail account. This is the easiest way to get OU mail on your Mac. The server gives you a limited amount of space on the server which should be sufficient for normal, wellmanaged use. If you need more storage, you can also create local folders on your own computer, but note that you will need to ensure that these are backed up yourself, perhaps using Time Machine, as the OU only backs up content you store on the server. It s also possible to access the accounts of other users (given appropriate permission), but that s beyond the scope of this document. ical You can keep your own calendar on OpenMail servers. You can also access other people s calendars (with appropriate permission) or give other people delegate access to your calendar, which lets them create, approve or delete appointments and tasks. You can individually limit who can do what tasks to your calendar should you wish. Reminders for appointments will appear on both your desktop computer(s) and your mobile device(s), so you ll still be alerted for that 2PM meeting even if you re at lunch. Address Book The Mac Address Book can browse any saved contact details you keep on OpenMail, but it can also search the Exchange Global Address List, which contains the email account details of all OU users on that server. This is very handy if you don t know someone s exact address. 1
10 step setup Easy configuration The setup of these services is fairly simple and straightforward, but there are a couple of quirks to be aware of. 1. Open Mail. If you haven t used it before, you ll be given a guided setup and can skip to step 2, otherwise open Mail s Preferences window from the Mail menu or by hitting -, (Command-comma), and click Accounts : My example obviously has some accounts already filled in, but don t worry if yours doesn t. Click the [+] button at the bottom left to add a new account. 2. You ll see a window like this: I ve already entered my details here. You ll need to use your own, of course. Enter them now, and click Continue. 2
3. If the account is a server that Apple knows about, such as MobileMe, GMail or Yahoo, it will automatically configure the account for you. However, this is an Open University account, and Apple don t know about it yet, so you need to tell Mail what kind of server it is and supply a few more details, like this: Firstly, the Account Type should be set to Exchange 2007, and the server to ouca.open.ac.uk. The username should not be your email address which is filled in by default, but your Open University Computer Username (OUCU), and the password should already be entered from the previous page. The description can be anything you like - it s only a name by which this account will be identified if you have multiple accounts. You probably do want to set up Address Book contacts and ical calendars too. Once you re happy, click the Continue button. 4. The Mac will connect to the server and verify everything s OK. If you get an error at this point, you may not have entered the information above correctly, so please go back and check. If you re sure it s right, then something else is wrong - perhaps you don t have an account on OpenMail, or perhaps it s not working correctly. You ll need to seek help from your IT Support personnel. If it s all working, you should see this, with your details instead of mine: Congratulations. If you were to stop here and close the Preferences window, you could now read and send your email, and use the Address Book. However, there are a couple of things best changed slightly. If you send emails with inline attachments - that is, images within the body of the message, like this document - they ll currently get somewhat mangled due to the way the server processes outgoing email attachments. We can get around this. 3
5. At the bottom of the Mail Preferences window is a popup menu that currently says something like OpenMail (Exchange). If you click on that popup, you ll get a list of available servers. Don t worry if your list only has that one entry in it - we re about to add another. Click the bottom option, Edit SMTP Server List : 6. In the resultant window, click the [+] button to add a new server, and enter the name OUCA SMTP and the address ouca.open.ac.uk. On the Advanced tab, select Use Secure Sockets Layer (SSL), set Authentication to Password, and enter your OUCU and password, then click the OK button: 4
7. Back in the Account Preferences window, select the new OUCA SMTP entry from the Outgoing Mail Server list as seen on the right, and make sure Use only this server is now checked: Finally, close the window. You ll get a requester asking if you re sure: Click the Save button. Your email and address book are now fully operational. You can see the list of available mailboxes and folders on the left of the Mail window. If you have multiple accounts set up, you can view the individual inboxes by clicking the little disclosure triangle to the left of the name, as seen here. OpenMail will be one of the options. If you only have one account set up, there won t be a triangle. The same applies to other special folders, such as the Drafts, Sent, Trash and Junk folders. You can also see any folders you have on the server under the OpenMail section of the list, as shown on the left. You can create new folders here, or on your own Mac, by using the [+] button at the bottom left of Mail s main window. The numbers in shaded ovals are the number of unread messages in that particular folder. If you collapse the folders using the disclosure triangle, the numbers will be totalled up and shown by the parent folder. 5
8. Your ical calendars still require one more step. Open ical (that s its icon, on the right, though it will be showing today s date on your computer). You ll see a list of your calendars on the left (as shown here), and there will be an error mark by the OpenMail entry. The problem is that ical will have guessed your account name wrongly, and so it s unable to access your calendars until that is corrected. Fortunately, it s very easy. 9. Open ical s Preferences window from the ical menu, or by hitting -, (Command-comma). Click the Accounts tab, and you ll see a list of your Calendar accounts, something like mine below: 10. Change it to reflect your OUCU as the username, and the corresponding password (which has probably already been entered). You can also choose how often you want ical to update your calendars. More frequent updates mean that changes made on other devices will be shown sooner, but they also use network bandwidth. On the OU campus, every 5 minutes is fine, but if you re using a slower link, say from home, you might want to set every 15 minutes, or perhaps even less. Your email, calendars and address book are now fully configured, and should work properly. If you have further questions, you may be able to get help from the OU Mac Users mailing list. You can join this list from the List Manager web page, which is at http://mail-lists.open.ac.uk. Log in as a staff member, and you ll see a table of lists you ve joined. On the Other Lists tab, look for Mac-Users-List and MCT-MacUsers-List (the latter is specifically for MCT staff) and subscribe to them both. They re low-traffic lists, but very useful for general OU information relating to Macs. 6
Functional mailboxes What and why? A functional mailbox - one which isn t tied to an individual, but to a role that multiple individuals can fulfil - can also be used in Mail. An example use for this is the mcs-a0-print-request mailbox, where MCT staff (it used to be MCS, hence the address) send posters for printing on a special large-scale printer. This printer needs to be managed because it s wasteful and expensive if a print job goes wrong, so jobs need to be thoroughly checked before processing. However, if I m unavailable, people can t wait for their posters, so someone else needs to be able to monitor the associated mailbox too. The functional mailbox allows several members of the MCT IT teams to keep an eye on it at once. How? These special mailboxes are created by AACS upon request, and if you think you need one, the first thing to do is talk to your IT Support staff. If you have a functional mailbox you want to access on your Mac, here s how to set one up in Apple Mail. 1 The functional mailbox must already be in existence. You don t have to have your Exchange account set up in Mail first, but you will need to have the OUCA SMTP server (or an equivalent) set up, as detailed in steps 5-7 of the section on setting up Exchange services. 1. In Mail, open Mail Preferences from the Mail menu or by hitting -, (Command-comma), and click Accounts. Click the [+] button at the bottom left to add a new account. 2. You ll be taken through a guided setup, as with other accounts, but you need to use a slightly different format for the details needed. Don t worry if you get them wrong at first, because you can always fix them from the Account Information window, as shown below. Fill in your account details like this example. The special bit is in the username. Replace my OUCU (jal58) with your own, and the functional mailbox name (mcsa0-print-request) with the full name of your own functional mailbox. You ll get these details from whoever set up the mailbox for you. Set the email address to the same name, and the password to your normal OUCU password. The description can be anything you like. Use the OUCA SMTP outgoing mail server. 1 Thanks to Smita Patel of AACS for this information 7