Outlook Web
Access 2003Outlook Web
Access 2003
Quick Reference Guide
Outlook Web Access (OWA) is a feature of our Microsoft
Exchange Server that enables you
to work with your email, calendar, contacts, and other information stored in
your Exchange
account via an Internet browser. It allows you to send and receive email, update
your calendar, tasks,
notes, contacts and much more.
Microsoft Exchange also offers a version of OWA, called Outlook Mobile Access (OMA),
that is designed for internet enabled mobile devices such as PDA's and phones.
You can use OWA and OMA from any Internet PC anywhere in the world. It is ideal
for access to email when off-site, at partner organizations and from home. It
also has uses within the Organization, particularly in conference rooms or
during meetings where you can get to your email as easily as opening a web page.
Note that OWA and OMA do not provide access to
your Personal or Archive Folders that may be stored on your local
computer or network directory.
To access your email, open your browser
(i.e. Internet Explorer) and point it to the following address:
www.alameda-alliance.com.
This will direct you the Alliance's Secure Employee Internet Portal.
There, you will have several options. Click on the option for Employee Email Access.
Click OK at the Security Alert prompt.
Enter your Full Name in the field provided (i.e. John Smith) and click Submit.
At the prompt, enter your Username (i.e. jsmith) and Password.
Your username is usually the first initial of your first name, followed by your last name, up to 8 characters.
For security reasons, we do NOT recommend that you check the Remember my password box, specially on public computers!
Click on OK.
Welcome to the New Outlook Web Access!
Accessing Outlook Mobile Access
To access your email using a wireless device, such as a PDA or Phone, open your internet browser and point it to the following address: https://oma.alameda-alliance.org/oma
Click OK at the Security Alert prompt.
At the next prompt, enter your Username (i.e. jsmith) and Password.
Your username is usually the first initial of your first name, followed by your last name, up to 8 characters.
For security reasons, we do NOT recommend that you check the Remember my password box.
Click on OK.
Welcome to the New Outlook Mobile Access!
Although a Log Off button exists at the right end
of the toolbar, you can exit or close your
browser with the Close command from the File menu, when you are finished using
OWA.
If the Log Off button is used, an
additional screen will appear stating that you have been
logged off Exchange.
Click the Close button on this screen to close the browser. If a Microsoft Internet Explorer box appears stating that the web page you are viewing is trying to close a window, click Yes.
Note: If you do not close your browser, others
may be able to access your Exchange account
through the open browser window.
Your email messages are displayed in your Inbox. If you are not already viewing your Inbox, click the Inbox button in the Outlook Bar, or choose Inbox from the Folder list.
By default, your messages are arranged by date and time. You can also arrange your messages by clicking the column headings in your Inbox. For example, to arrange your messages by subject line, click the Subject column heading.
Furthermore, you can change the way the messages are displayed and/or grouped by selecting one of these options:
| Two Line View | Lists all messages with sender, and date and time received on the first line, and the subject on the second line. The messages will be in order by date and time received (default). |
| Messages | Lists all messages by date and time received on one line |
| Unread Messages | Lists only unread messages by date and time received. |
| By Sender | Groups all messages by sender’s name or email address. |
| By Subject | Groups all messages by subject line of message. |
| By Conversation Topic | Groups all messages by subject line of message but displays message groups by date and time received. |
| Unread By Conversation Topic | Groups unread messages by subject line of message but displays message groups by date and time received. |
| Sent To | Groups messages according to whom it was addressed. |
Your Inbox can display up to 25 email messages at a time. If you have more than 25 messages in your Inbox, you can use the page controls to view additional messages.
Even though new emails will arrive in the Inbox from the Exchange Server within a few minutes, this is not always an “instant” occurrence. To check for new email messages, click the Check for New Messages button on the OWA toolbar.
The OWA workspace looks and operates similar to the
Outlook desktop client, such as
Outlook XP or Outlook 2000. The major features and functions of the Outlook
client are
available in OWA.
The Outlook Web Access Workspace screen has four major areas:
| Outlook Bar: | Contains controls to access your Inbox, Calendar, Contacts, Options, and Folders. |
| Tool Bar: | Contains command buttons and controls to perform various tasks, such as creating a new email message or deleting an existing messages |
| Work Area: | Contains your selected Exchange information, such as email or contacts. |
| Reading Pane: | Contains a preview of the selected item in the Work Area. |
Hiding/Moving the Reading Pane
By default the Reading Pane is displayed to the right of the Outlook Web Access
Workspace.
The Reading Pane can be hidden or moved to the bottom of the Work Area.
Click the Show/Hide Reading Pane button on the OWA toolbar.
Choose Off to hide the Reading Pane.
Choose Bottom to move the Reading Pane to the bottom of the Work Area
From the New dropdown menu on the OWA toolbar, select the Message command. Or, if you are already viewing your Inbox, you can click the New button.
A new Message window will open.
You can directly type the email address of the recipients in the To, Cc, or
Bcc text areas. If you're sending an email to an Alliance employee, then you
can type their names instead as well as send emails to distribution lists (i.e.
grpAllEmployees). Use a semicolon (;) to separate multiple addresses or names in
the same text area.
Finally, click Send to send the email.
When addressing an email
message, you can find other Alliance employees by clicking the To, Cc,
or Bcc buttons.
Enter some identification information into the appropriate fields and click the
Find button. Partial entries are allowed. A list of possible matches from
the Alliance Exchange Directory will be displayed.
Select the intended recipient by clicking the name in the list and click the
To, Cc, or Bcc buttons at the bottom of the Find Names tool to add this
person to the appropriate address line of your message.
You can continue to use Find Names for additional recipients by entering new
identification information into the appropriate fields and clicking the Find
button.
When you are finished using this tool, click the Close button to return to your
new message. The selected recipients will be listed in the appropriate address
line of your message as hyperlinks.
Note: To remove a recipient from the Message window, right-click the recipient’s hyperlink, and click Remove on the shortcut menu.
Documents from any application can be attached to emails, and then opened or saved by the recipient(s).
In the Message window, click one of the two Add Attachments buttons.
The Attachments window will open.
If you know the path and file name of the file you would like to attach, you can enter its path and name in the Choose a file to attach text area. Or, you can click the Browse button to select the file using a standard file dialog box for your computer system.
When you have selected a file to attach, click the Attach button to
actually attach this file to your email message. Your attachment file will be
listed in the Current file attachments section as a hyperlink to the
file.
Note: You can remove an attachment by clicking the corresponding Remove button.
When you are finished attaching files, click the Close button to return
to your new message. You will return to your new message, and the attachment
files will be listed in the Attachments section of your message.
To check for spelling errors after completing the body text of an email, click the Spelling button on the Message toolbar.
The Spelling Options box will appear. Select the Spelling Language to be used, for example English (United States). You can set the Spelling feature to run automatically before sending an email by checking the Always check spelling before sending option.
Note: The Spelling Options window will only appear the first time you use the Spell Checker. If in the future you'd like to change these setting, you can modify them in the Options menu of OWA.
Click Check Document.
The Spelling window will appear, sequentially highlighting any misspellings in your email.
The buttons in this window provide the following options:
| Ignore | Ignore this one instance of the misspelled word. |
| Ignore All | Ignore All instances of the misspelling of this word. |
| Change | Change this misspelling to the highlighted word in the Suggestions box. If there are several words in the Suggestions box, any of these words can be selected for this change. |
| Change All | Change All instances of this misspelling to the highlighted word in the Suggestions box. |
| Delete | This option will be available if, for example, a word has been typed twice in succession, and one of the words needs to be deleted. |
| Close | Close the Spelling window. |
If no spelling errors are found, the Spell Checker will pop a new window.
There are several ways to delete a message from a folder.
Select the message by clicking on it and press the Delete key on your Keyboard.
Select the message by clicking on it and click Delete from the Outlook Toolbar
Right-click on the message and select Delete from the Menu Options.
The selected item will be moved to the Deleted Items folder.
Emptying the Deleted Items Folder
To empty out your Deleted Items folder, right-click on the folder and select Empty Deleted Items from the Menu.
If you are already viewing the Deleted Items folder, you can click the Empty Deleted Items icon on the Outlook Toolbar.
You can move or copy a message or any item in OWA just as you would in Outlook.
You can drag and drop the items or Move/Copy them to another folder.
Your calendar information is displayed in your
Calendar folder. If you are not already
viewing your Calendar, click the Calendar button in the Outlook Bar.
By default, your calendar appointments and events for the current day are
displayed. You can change to a weekly or monthly view by clicking the
appropriate buttons on the OWA toolbar.
You can view your calendar for other days by clicking the date in the date
navigation control on the right side of the calendar workspace.
To view dates in other months, you can click the
next-month 
or
previous-month 
buttons.
Changing Out of Office Settings
The Out of Office Assistant is used to automatically send replies to received email messages informing the sender that you are not in the office.
You can enable and configure the Out of Office Assistant from the Options page in OWA.
Here, you can choose to enable the Out Of Office Assistance by clicking I'm currently out of the office.
You can also choose to customize the automated reply by entering your own message in the AutoReply text box area.
Many of OWA's functions and tools require the use of Pop-ups (i.e. Reply to Email, Reminders etc..) which can be disabled by Pop-Up Blockers installed on your computer.
In order for OWA to function properly, please make sure that you turn off any pop-up blockers installed on your computer or configure them to allow pop-ups from OWA.
Another option is that most pop-up blockers will allow you to temporarily disable them by holding down either the Shift or the Control key while you use the mouse.
Note: If you have Windows XP Service Pack 2, then you must turn off or configure the Internet Explorer built-in pop-up blocker.
To turn off the Windows XP pop-up blocker:
OWA has been optimized for Internet Explorer 5.0 and later. Although OWA will work with older versions of Internet Explorer and other browsers, such as Netscape and Mozilla, you may not be able to access all the features of OWA in these browsers.