Receiving Mail from Pop3 accounts

[ScalixSupport]

Please see Don's post above. The Release Notes state that you cannot have Internet Mail Services in the same profile as Scalix.

Thanks,
Rachel

[TCWardrobe_]

No offense... but this issue is in many cases the only or at least a major reason it permits the scalix roll-out. I Think this is clear to everyone.

We all have read and do understand that currently this is not possible. But reiteration the same over and over but ignoring the related questions does not help, it rather makes some people mad instead.

May we (who really try to love scalix!) ask if this issue is addressed somewhere / somehow / sometime? If answering, try not to be shortspoken, show that you're open as you propagate yourself

As a sidenote, surely there are alternatives like using Thunderbird / Outlook Express / foo for additional mail-accounts or switching profiles the whole day back-and-forth, but this is for some cases no option. Would you try to explain your boss he now has to use two applications?

Don't let killerapplications like this kill itself (for some of us)! Please!

[kdelyria]

I totally feal the same way. I am not going to install Scalix because of this very issue. I can not have my folks switching profiles to download email and the back to Scalix for it and the calendar. Worse yet calander invites go hoed up as well.

[florian]

Wow, this get's very passionate... So let's try to add a bit more information here.

1) I've talked this through with our engineering team a couple of times - they claim that Outlook does not offer any API interface that allows us to properly implement this. Always remember - Outlook exposes certain APIs that we use to connect into it. The integrated POP/IMAP client only works with a PST-based storage model; Scalix is built around a thought of a "primary default Store" MAPI provider, which is server-based - we don't keep data in PST files and on the client for many reasons. Therefore, the two things are mutually incompatible and we haven't found a way to change this behaviour, possibly none exists. The fact that this is possible with Exchange is no proof here as Microsoft might have done something within their core code that is just not possible for external plugins. They've done this in a couple of areas.

Therefore it seems that it's not a question of what we do support, but what we can support.

2) The requirement might look common when reading through the posts, but in some environments it is pretty much the opposite. Bypassing all server-side email security checks (Anti-Spam, Anti-Virus, invalid content) by directly downloading information from potentially external servers into a desktop client bypasses the email server which usually includes some policy enforcement (the above plus archiving, server-based storage, backup/restore); therefore, most larger organizations would probably block POP or IMAP traffic from the clients at their firewall. If at all such accounts must be included for "official" purposes, a server-side solution such as fetchmail is strongly encouraged.

nevertheless, we're tracking this, but honestly I don't see a solution on the horizon anytime soon, for the reasons stated above.

HTH,
Florian.

[TCWardrobe_]

Florian, thanks for the in-deep disclosure

So as we know as it seems it is not possible to this directly, I think it would be possible to implemet it somehow crabwise. As you brought in company policy and such things, maybe it was not clear (as what I think the problem is) what we need to have.
See, for instance an internet-media-advertising-agency-company they have "products" which are reflected online through www.superproduct.de and www.amazingstuff.de, as for all those products the staff at that company needs to get mails e.g. for info@superproduct.de and request@amazingstuff.de and of course they need to answer these mails "correctly" as for the customer amazingstuff.de and superproduct.de are different and has nothing to do with each other. Getting all mails (from what product-page ever) with fetchmail is no problem, the problem is, the employees at this company need to be able to write mails with different identities, different templates, different from-addresses.
For most uf us (I think) it is no problem that users can't get a pop3 account locally (fetchmail rules) but somehow they need an "smtp-account" to reflect several different identities.

Any idea if that could be somehow possible? I am not an outlook geek but is this somhow possible with outlook itself at the end?

[florian]

Hi,

thanks for your response - I think it is almost always better to discuss such things based on requirements than on particular technical elements of a predetermined solution.

My initial suggestion would be to setup a separate Scalix account for the product and provide it with an "info@product.com" email address. then you would either fetchmail into this mailbox (if it is hosted externally with pop3) or have the email directly delivered to scalix using SMTP:

you would then setup access rights (delegate access) to this mailbox for the user who is entitled to see and send. the user would open the mailbox for delegate access. in scalix 10, this is possible with outlook, in scalix 11, this will also be possible using swa.

if the user then replies to the incoming message, the reply will be "sent by <user> on behalf of <Product name>". This can be changed by setting the "Sender" flag on the product account (in scalix 10, that's a ommodu command line option), in this case, the real sender will be hidden and the email will appear as if it comes from "Product".

Hope this helps,
Florian.

[TCWardrobe_]

This sounds... acceptable... I think

However I'm am quite confused about what you said and if it works the way I think, or more precisely hope.

The documentation is rather... hum... moderate on those topics or I did look in the wrong docs, so...

1.) Is a not-premium-user enough for those additional accounts?

2.) as said I am not an Outlook geek / user, is it possible to add different rich-content templates (html mail, banners and pics) for those delegated accounts?

I'd really appreciate a fingerpost to the right documentation or... someone who aids me implementing this

TIA
Michael

[florian]

Hi,

well, sure, the documentation doesn't talk about this too much because it's mainly Outlook functionality that Scalix merely supports.

1) You will need to use premium accounts for both users, as it is delegate access and also accessing this account from Outlook.

2) I believe Outlook can do that but I haven't used this either.

BTW - one last way to archieve the whole result is to connect to both the primary and the secondary account using an all-IMAP profile - this is certainly possible and then you can switch identities. However, in that case you won't have server-based calendaring or any of the additional functionality that Scalix Connect provides.

Cheers,
Florian.

[TCWardrobe_]

I will play around with Outlook a bit to see if all goes as wished. I know its possible to switch templates in Outlook, I've seen this at several customers desk so I will have to look at my own

thanks so long and, I'll post back if something does not go as wished

Michael

[TCWardrobe]

Back from testing / implementing

Looks rather promising but there are some issues I can't test right now(1) and at least one thing I can't figure out(2).

1.) Assumption: info@superproduct.de is one of the accounts $boss needs to look at.
I get the mails for info@superproduct.de at host-mailgw (currently this host has an imapd running) with fetchmail and send them to $boss@host-scalix. I assume they are shown in his "native" mailbox, what will happen if he answers that mail? Will this mail be from info@superproduct.de or $boss@host-scalix (whatever internetmailaddress he has, it surely would not be $boss@host-scalix... just in cases... *g*)?

2.) I can open the delegated mailbox without a problem but it seems not possible to get a link to this mailbox in the link panel / folderlist... should it be? If I want back to the delegated mailbox I have to access it rather complicated through the menu "File" > "Open" > "1 Username (Inbox)" at the bottom. Did I miss something?

TIA
Michael

[florian]

Not exactly.

You create a new user on scalix with the email address info@superproduct.de. You open this account using outlook once and then assign delegate access rights for this mailox to boss. You then set the "sender" flag on the info account using ommodu. You then open this as an additional mailbox in outlook from boss and see the inbox as a separate folder. when you now reply from this confriguration, email will appear to be coming from boss.

you can setup outlook to automatically open another persons mailbox every time you start it by adding it in the scalix properties setting ("open additional mailboxes"), which is in the extras menu.

HTH,
Florian

[TCWardrobe]

Not exactly.

You create a new user on scalix with the email address info@superproduct.de. You open this account using outlook once and then assign delegate access rights for this mailox to boss. You then set the "sender" flag on the info account using ommodu. You then open this as an additional mailbox in outlook from boss and see the inbox as a separate folder.

I did exactly that but there shows no seperate folder, the other-users-mailbox just opens in the mainwindow and I can see the mails in the mailbox.

when you now reply from this confriguration, email will appear to be coming from boss.

So I assume if I get the mails through fetchmail to boss' primary account if he answers those mails, they would not be sent with the identity of e.g. info@?

you can setup outlook to automatically open another persons mailbox every time you start it by adding it in the scalix properties setting ("open additional mailboxes"), which is in the extras menu.

Thats a beginning
But if I open the other mailboxes through the scalix-properties dialog in the extras menu, the other mailbox IS shown as a folder in my folderview (rightside) but it is inaccessible. The error message "Diese Ordnergruppe konnte nicht geöffnet werden" shows if I klick on that folder.
Just to verify that I have enough permissions to access this mailbox I opened it like I did before through the open-dialog in the file-menu and the mails are shown.

HTH,
Florian

Your help is greatly appreciated!

TIA
Michael

[TCWardrobe]

Gnaaaa!

I did check everything three times, did all I did three times again, did reset everything and set it up once again (permission, delegation, opening others outlook mailboxes)... and after the third time it just worked! Damn Outlook! Inconsistency at its best!
So at least this issue is solved, left are the others posted above.

TIA
Michael

[florian]

now i start losing track - what exact issue is left?

-- f.

[TCWardrobe]

That if all mails (boss-mail and info-mail) are dropped to one mailbox (fetchmail) and if boss answers those mails from within this mailbox, the answer-mail won't show as "from:" for whom the original mail was intended for... e.g. a mail for info@superproduct.de will be answered with the identity of boss?

I hope I made myself clear