BGSU is in the process of transitioning 40,000 users of its existing Sendmail--based e-mail system to a Microsoft Exchange-based e-mail system.   Exchange is a collaboration suite that offers e-mail,contact/directory information, integrated calendaring, task management tools plus a base for further enhancement in the future.  What multiple applications did in the past can be done by accessing one system - BGSU's Exchange system.   BGSU's Exchange server can be accessed with recommended desktop clients, web-based and mobile devices.  

Once transitioned to Exchange, Windows users can gain access to their e-mail and calendar using Microsoft Outlook 2007 and Macintosh users can use Entourage 2008.  These applications are included in the Campus Agreement between BGSU and Microsoft.  They are both part of Microsoft Office.  With Outlook and Entourage, users have both online access to the server for e-mail, integrated calendaring, tasks, contacts and other features plus offline access to messages saved in personal folders or archived on their desktop.  As users in campus offices are transitioned to Exchange, the latest version of Microsoft Office will be installed on their university-owned systems.  BGSU's Exchange system can also be accessed with any application that supports IMAPS (e.g  Mac Mail, Thunderbird).  POP or IMAP clients can no longer be used.

BGSU e-mail and calendars on the Exchange server (online content only) are also available through OWA (Outlook Web Access) a web-based client provided by Microsoft.  There is a premium version that looks similar to the Outlook interface that only works with Internet Explorer 6.0 or later and a light version that works with almost any browser.  BGSU e-mail users can access their accounts from anywhere by pointing a web browser to http://mail.bgsu.edu and logging in with a valid BGSU username and password.

BGSU's implementation of Exchange includes a quarantine area for for suspected Spam.  Instead of sending those messages to the user's Inbox, they are held in the quarantined area.  Users who have messages held there will receive Spam Quarantine Summary messages from the postmaster with the sender and subject of each held message.  The user can let the system delete the messages in 10 days if they are spam or login to http://junkmail.bgsu.edu with their e-mail address (e.g. ffalcon@bgsu.edu) and release messages to their Inbox that are not spam.

Exchange offers some significant improvements and advantages over the older system and provides a number of key features that have been requested by the user community.  These include:

• A more robust, full featured WebMail interface which more closely matches the appearance and capability of desktop mail/calendaring applications.
• Integrated calendaring and scheduling features for all users.
• Enhanced support for accessing e-mail and calendar events from mobile devices
• The ability to directly review quarantined messages suspected as SPAM.
• User controlled ability to restore deleted e-mail messages.

See the TSC Self Help pages for printable, step-by-step e-mail setup guides and instructions for Macintosh and Windows users plus OWA (Outlook Web Access) clients.