How to Login to SmarterMail

You will need to obtain the link to your SmarterMail server’s web site from your Administrator or Domain Administrator.

To login to SmarterMail, type in your full email address and password on the login screen. If everything matches up, you will be presented with the welcome page and a view of all folders in your mailbox. Alias names cannot be used to log in.

One thing to notice on the Login page is the “Remember Me” checkbox. By checking this box SmarterMail encrypts your login and password, then you can close the browser window and not have to re-log in when you return. This function works as long as you do not “log out” of SmarterMail prior to closing your browser window. If you do log out, you will have to log back in upon your return, regardless of whether the “Remember Me” box was checked or not. You will need cookies enabled on your browser for this feature to work.

If you have issues with your email account, first contact your domain administrator for troubleshooting help. The Domain Administrator is usually the owner of the domain or the person who set up your email account.

Welcome to SmarterMail

The first time you log in to SmarterMail, you will be presented with several options. These options can be modified at any time through the My Settings page once you are logged in, but are required to be set in order to provide you with a better email experience.

Time Zone – Setting your time zone will make it so that all emails show the correct time they came in. SmarterMail automatically adjusts for Daylight Saving time. By default, this should be set to the time zone that your domain administrator has chosen.

My Today Page

The My Today page gives you an overview of your entire account.

Calendar – lists upcoming events on your calendar.

Latest RSS Items – list recent updates to RSS feeds you are subscribed to.

Inbox – lists how many unread messages you have.

Disk Space Limits – lists how much space is available and how much space is being used in your account. Press the “Clear Junk E-Mail Folder” link to remove all items from your Junk e-mail box.

Tasks – lists unfinished tasks.

The My Today page is the default page to load when logging into your account. If you would rather go straight to your Inbox you can change it by clicking on the Settings button on the main toolbar, then selecting Account Settings in the My Settings tree view, and finally choosing the Webmail tab and changing the “Initial Page on Login” setting.

Reading a Message

The Read Message page in SmarterMail allows you to view the contents of an email message and perform various actions on the message. To read a message, click on it from the list of messages in a folder.

At the top right hand corner of the reading pane, there are four icons—Reply, Reply All, Forward, and Print. Each of these icons are actions that can be performed on the message you are currently viewing. To the left of these you will see the header of the email. This contains information about the email message like the sender, subject, and the date the message was sent. Underneath the header you’ll find the body of the message. Each of these sections will be explained below.

Action Buttons

Reply – Opens up the compose page that lets you respond to the sender of this message. In addition, the text of this message will be filled in to the new message as well.

Reply All – Operates similarly to the Reply button, but it also adds any email addresses in the To or CC fields to the response as well.

Forward – Opens up a new window and allows you to forward this message to someone else. The method used to forward the message can be customized by several settings in the Settings page.

Print – Prints the contents of the email without all of the extra navigation controls on the page.

Email Information Header

Date – Time and date the message was sent.

From – Email address from which the message was sent.

To – The email address(es) of the primary recipients of the message.

Cc – The Cc field should contain recipients that should receive “carbon copies” of the message, but are not the primary intended recipients of the message.

Subject – The subject of the message.

Attachments – If any attachments are included in the email, they will show up as links here. Be very careful when opening attachments in emails. Ensure that you know the sender and do not open any attachments you are not expecting.

HTML link – Displays the message in HTML format, which allows for colors and fonts. The default method of viewing messages is HTML, but it can be changed from the Account Settings page.

Text link – Displays the message in plain text, which only allows text content with no special formatting or graphics.

Header link – Displays the header of the message, which indicates the path the email took to get to your email account, along with several other pieces of information.

Raw Content link – Displays the content of the email exactly as the server received it. This is helpful if you cannot view the message in any other display mode.

Folder Auto-Clean

Folder Auto-Clean is a method for limiting how much of your account disk space is used by the Junk E-Mail, Sent Items, and Deleted Items folders. By placing limits on the size of these folders, you can help ensure that your account does not fill up unnecessarily. Messages are deleted from the folders in the order that they were received so that older messages get deleted first.

To check your possible options, click the Settings button on the main toolbar, then select Folder Auto-Clean from the Filtering folders tree view.

Note: Depending on the policies your administrator has established, you may or may not be able to change the settings on this page.

Note: If auto-clean is active on a folder, messages will get deleted from it eventually, so do not keep messages in that folder if you want to keep them.

Options

Use default auto-clean settings – Choosing this option will let you adopt the policy of your email host or domain administrator. If the administrator changes the policy, yours will automatically change with it. You can see the current policy on the Folders tab when this option is active.

Override auto-clean settings for this account – Choose this option to override the settings set by your administrator. Any changes you make will not be affected if the administrator changes their policy, unless they disable user overrides.

Inbox auto-clean – Users can use the auto-clean feature, if permitted by the System Administrator.

Folder Settings

If you are using the default auto-clean settings set up by your administrator, they will appear on this tab. In cases where you are able to override the settings, you have the option of auto-cleaning folders based upon size or date.

These options will be visible if size is chosen:

• Folder size BEFORE auto-clean – Once the folder reaches this size (in megabytes), the auto-clean process is started, and older messages (messages that were received the longest time ago) are cleaned.
• Folder size AFTER auto-clean – This is the goal size for the auto-clean process. It will try to delete older messages until the folder gets to this size. This number should always be lower than the “before” number.
• Enable auto-clean for this folder – If this box is checked, then auto-clean will be active for the specified folder.

These options will be visible if date is chosen:

• Mail Age – Enter the maximum number of days mail will stay in the current folder. Once a message reaches that age, it will be deleted.
• Enable auto-clean for this folder – If this box is checked, then auto-clean will be active for the specified folder.

Deleting Messages

SmarterMail has two different methods for deleting messages. First, you can delete a message while viewing it by clicking on the Delete icon from the actions toolbar. Second, you can delete multiple messages at once by checking them in the message list page and clicking the Delete icon from the actions toolbar.

The action SmarterMail takes when you delete a message depends on the option you choose in Settings page. Below are the options available for the option “When messages are deleted.”

• Move to Deleted Items folder – (default) – When items are deleted they are moved to a folder called Deleted Items. If the deleted items folder does not exist, it will be created automatically the first time you delete a message.
• Auto-Purge folder – When using IMAP or webmail and messages are deleted from a folder, they are only marked as deleted. Messages are not physically removed from the folder until they are purged. This option will automatically purge the folder after deleting the message. NOTE: When deleted messages are purged, the action is final. You will not be able to retrieve these messages later.
• Mark as deleted – When the message is deleted with this option, the message remains in the current folder, but will be crossed out and marked as deleted. If the folder is then purged, all items marked for deletion will be removed.
• Mark as deleted and hide – With this option, any message that has been marked as deleted will be hidden from view in webmail. This will allow you to keep deleted messages without seeing them every time you log into your mailbox. Note: It is important to keep an eye on your email account disk usage when using this option, as your mailbox may be more full than you realize.

Note: The action taken for deleted items will ONLY be taken when deleting items through web mail. Deleting an item from Outlook Express or another email client will NOT use the setting that you choose.

Note to POP3 users: When your email client connects to SmarterMail via POP3, any emails that are marked as deleted are automatically purged. To prevent this from happening, use the “Move to Deleted Items folder” option to avoid accidentally purging deleted items.

Effects of Folder Auto-Clean

Your system administrator may have established auto-clean policies that may delete older junk e-mail, deleted items, and/or sent items when these folders get too large. However, they may have left the option available for you to override auto-clean settings. In order to see what folders are currently set to auto-clean and to change these settings (when possible), refer to the topic Folder Auto-Clean.

Manage Folders

Utilizing folders in SmarterMail is the general method of storing messages that are both sent and received, either from within the web interface or, if you set it up properly, from your email client. Several folders have specific purposes, and you can also add other folders to store specific categories of mail. Common folders include Inbox, Drafts, Sent Items, Deleted Items, and Junk E-Mail. Some folders will be automatically created when you perform certain actions, such as the Sent Items folder after sending the first new message from a new email account. For more information about the specific purposes of the folders, see below.

To add or edit your email folders simply click on the Email icon on the main toolbar.

My Folders

Adding a Folder – A folder can be added a couple different ways. You can click the Plus Sign icon on the Folder toolbar; or move your mouse above a current folder, right-click, and choose New Folder. In both instances a new window will pop-up, allowing you to name your new folder.

Go To Folder – Click on a folder name to see the messages contained in the folder.

Rename a Folder – You can rename a folder by clicking on the folder you would like to rename and then clicking the Pencil icon on the Folder toolbar; or by moving your mouse over the folder that you would like to rename, right-click, and choose Edit. A new window will pop-up showing the current name of the folder, and a blank space will be available for a new folder name. Renaming folders is unavailable on folders that have specific purposes, like Inbox or Deleted Items.

Delete a Folder – First choose the folder you would like to delete. Then either click the Trash Can icon on the folder toolbar; or right-click and choose Delete. A new window will pop-up asking you to confirm your deletion. At that point you may either continue with the delete, or cancel it. Deleting folders is unavailable on folders that have specific purposes, like Inbox or Deleted Items.

Entering a Folder Name

Folder Name – Enter the name of the new folder. Using a backslash character ‘\’ when naming a new folder(e.g. Family\mom) will create a sub-folder, which can be useful if you wish to sub-categorize your email. Only lower ASCII characters are supported in the folder name due to limitations with certain protocols.

Note: In order for the folders you create to become available from within your email client (e.g. Microsoft Outlook) you will need to create a mail account with IMAP set as your incoming mail server type. If you use POP mail, you only have access to your mail account Inbox, not any folders that are created for storing mail. IMAP accounts are different than POP because they are directly connected to the server from the time you open an interface until the time the connection is closed. For this reason, deleted messages are crossed out until they are “purged” from the folder. This is different from a POP account where when the messages are deleted, they are gone from the folder or erased.

Special Folders

Drafts – When you are composing a message, you have the option to “Save as Draft”, which is located on the top of the New Message pop up screen. Choosing this option will save the email in this folder, but after a certain amount of time (which can be set by the user), it will automatically save to the Drafts folder. Later, you can click on the email in the drafts folder to edit or send it.

Deleted Items – You can set up your account to save deleted items in this folder from Settings. If you choose this option, ensure that you frequently clean out the messages in the folder to keep your disk space usage to a minimum.

Inbox – Incoming mail will usually come to this folder unless you have specific content filters that redirect the email to another folder. Users that connect to their email via POP3 will only be able to download messages from this folder.

Junk E-Mail – Email that is likely to be spam may get sent to this folder, depending on your spam filters. You should review this folder regularly to ensure that no valid email is contained in it, and “Unmark as spam” any message that gets put here when it should not.

Sent Items – Any emails you send from the webmail will get placed in this folder if you have enabled the option in Settings. Note that email sent from an email client, like Outlook Express, will not get saved in this folder.

Create a New Contact

There are two methods of adding a new contact:

1. Click the Collaborate button on the main toolbar, then click the Contacts control bar, and finally click New Contact from the left tree view; or
2. Click the Collaborate button on the main toolbar, then click the Contacts control bar, then click All Contacts from the My Contacts tree view, and finally click the New icon from the actions toolbar.

For ease of use, the contact page is separated into tabs that group related information. This information is outlined below.

Personal Info

• Display Name
• Title (Mr./Mrs./etc.)
• First Name
• Middle Name
• Last Name
• Suffix
• Email Address
• Instant Messenger
• Home Page
• Date of Birth
• Additional Info

Contact Info

• Phone Numbers
• Fax Numbers
• Address Information

Company Info

• Company Name
• Job Title
• Department
• Office
• Address Information
• Website

Categories

• Select which category or categories you would like to add this contact to
• To add a category simply click the Master Categories button and add comma(,) separated categories to the list

Importing Contacts

SmarterMail supports importing contacts from two different types of files: vCards (VCF) and comma-separated text files (CSV). SmarterMail also supports importing from a .zip file containing any combination of these files.

Importing vCard or zipped vCard files

1. Click All Contacts from the My Contacts tree view.
2. Move your mouse over the Import/Export icon from the actions toolbar and choose Import Contacts.
3. Link to the file you wish to upload and click on OK.
4. If any conflicts occur, you will be asked to resolve them by performing one of the actions below:
   • Add as a New Contact – As it states, this option adds a completely new contact record with the information in the vCard.
   • Replace Existing Contact – Replaces the contact in the box with the new one being uploaded. To examine the properties of the close match contacts, hover your mouse over the magnifying glass icon in the list at the bottom of the page.
   • Skip this Contact – Jumps over this contact and does not perform an action.
5. Once all conflicts are resolved, the process is complete.

Importing CSV or zipped CSV files

1. Click All Contacts from the My Contacts tree view.
2. Move your mouse over the Import/Export icon from the actions toolbar and choose Import Contacts.
3. Link to the file you wish to upload and click on OK.
4. Map the contact fields from your CSV to SmarterMail fields by choosing them from the dropdown boxes.
5. If any conflicts occur, you will be asked to resolve them by performing one of the actions below:
   • Add as a New Contact – As it states, this option adds a completely new contact record with the information in the vCard.
   • Replace Existing Contact – Replaces the contact in the box with the new one being uploaded. To examine the properties of the close match contacts, hover your mouse over the magnifying glass icon in the list at the bottom of the page.
   • Skip this Contact – Jumps over this contact and does not perform an action.
6. Once all conflicts are resolved, the process is complete.

Exporting Contacts

Contacts can be exported in an easy fashion in SmarterMail. When viewing a contact list like All Contacts or the Global Address List (Enterprise Only), move your mouse over the Import/Export button. Choose one of the options from the drop down list—export all contacts or just the selected ones.

Contacts are downloaded as a zip file containing vCard files. These files can be imported into Outlook or back into another SmarterMail account using Import Contacts.

To import contacts into Outlook, just drag one or more vCard files into your contact list in Outlook and confirm each one by clicking on Save and Close for each one.

Recurring events

SmarterMail’s calendaring allows you to add events that recur over time. Recurring events can include:

• Personal Occasions (Birthdays, Anniversaries)
• Holidays
• Regular Meetings/Business Appointments
• Important Reminders (Seasonal Appointments)
• Much More

When adding an appointment, it can be converted to a recurring event by clicking on the Recurrence Information tab. Use the options on the tab to schedule how often an event recurs. Recurrence is very flexible, and can be as simple or as complex as you want. Examples include:

• A birthday that occurs every 7th of August.
• A meeting that happens the second Monday of every month.
• An appointment that occurs every 4 days for up to 3 weeks.