Email HOWTOs

This is the Email section for the HOWTOs collection.

Changing Your MEDNET Email Password

This guide shows you how to change your MEDNET email login password, it's used when you voluntarily want to change the password, or when you're prompted that your old password has expired or about to expire.

Click here to learn more about the MEDNET email policy.

Shortcut to the NT Password Management Page

To change your MEDNET email password, please go to this link: https://www.mednet.ucla.edu/ChangePassword/. It'll bring you to the following page:

Fill in the Domain field with "MC" or "mewwex" or "ad" (depending on which domain you were given), as shown in the screenshot, and fill in the rest of the page.

Alternate Method

To change to your MEDNET email password, you'll need to go to the Web Outlook Access Client.

If you have never used the Web Outlook Access Client, you can first check out the setup howto.

Assuming you have successfully logged into your account, you will see the menu bar on the top of the browser window like the image up above.

Click the Options icon.

You will see a new navigation pane on your left. Scroll down the list of options until you see the Change Password option. Click on it and the middle pane will refresh and look like the picture above.

The domain and username is already filled in for you. Put in your old password and your new password in the appropriate boxes. Click the Save button at the top to finish the process.


Click the Log Off icon at the top menu to exit. Log in using the new password you chose to make sure everything worked out fine.

NOTE: This change of password affects your MEDNET email only, to change your Gonda login, check out the General Password Change howto.

How To Set Up Outlook for Mednet Email - for Off-Campus Use

In order to use Outlook away from campus, an extra piece of software called a Virtual Private Network (VPN) client is required on your computer.

1. VPN client installation: You may find detailed instructions on how to install the VPN client for your operating system here: http://vpn.mednet.ucla.edu/.

2. Then you will also need to get the Profile Configuration Files (pcf) from the Human Genetics IT Office.

Note: These pcf files expire every quarter, once you register with the IT Office, make sure you're on the VPN mailing list so you'll be given the latest copy every quarter.

The rest of the setup is EXACTLY the same as the on-campus setup, please refer to How to Set Up Outlook for Mednet Email - On Campus.

Alternate Option Without Using VPN

If installing a VPN program is not viable or not preferred, you may connect to our Windows Terminal Server - Titan. It offers a suite of office applications including Outlook for email. If you have a personal folder (.pst) attached to your Outlook, Titan will allow you to connect to it as well. (whereas you won't be able to do so with the VPN.

Here is a guide on how to connect to Gonda Servers using Titan

How To Set Up Outlook for Mednet Email, On Campus

Your version of Outlook maybe different, so the windows you see may not be exactly the same as shown here. However, the general steps and names will be will be the same.

1. Open the Control Panel from the Start Menu.

2. When that folder opens, double click on "Mail".

3. When the window opens, click on E-mail Accounts.

4. When the Account Settings window opens, under the E-mail tab, click on the New... button.

5. This is going to be a Microsoft Exchange account.

6. Choose to manually configure the server settings.

Again, this will be a Microsoft Exchange account.

7. Under Microsoft Exchange Server, type in "EMGMB1.ad.medctr.ucla.edu". Under user name, type in your user name (everything that comes before @mednet.ucla.edu) and click on the Check Name button.

8. A window might pop up asking you for your Mednet login credentials. Make sure to include "ad\" before your username.

9. You will be brought back to the original window like in Step 7, except this time both the Microsoft Exchange server and the user name should be underlined. The Microsoft Exchange server listed may have also changed in name. That is fine. Click on the Next button.

10. Your Mednet email account should now show up under the list of email accounts that Outlook has set up. If need be, set the Mednet account as your default account. To verify that your Mednet account is the default, look at which account is listed at the bottom, where it says "Selected email account delivers new email messages to the following location". Make sure that the name listed there is in the form of: "Mailbox - Lastname, Firstname\Inbox"

11. Now you're done!

Knowing Your MEDNET Email Policy

This guide oulines the basic policy differences between the 2 email domains, MEWWEX and AD

There're currently 2 main groups of email users, the previous group logging onto MEWWEX the newer members using the AD domain. Your account policies are different:

MEWWEX users

• No Password Expiration
• 0 - Number of Passwords Remembered (Password History)
• 3 - Number of invalid login attempts before your MEWWEX account is Locked Account automatically unlocked after 15mins.

Default limit applying to MEWWEX users

The default mailbox limit on all accounts is 15MB (15,360KB). You will not be able to send email if you have exceeded your mailbox limit.

AD users

• 95 Days - Password Expiration
• 6 - Minimum Password Length
• 3 - Number of Passwords Remembered (Password History)
• 5 - Number of invalid login attempts before your AD account is Locked (you MUST call the Helpdesk at 310-794-Help to unlock it)

Default limit applying to AD users

1. An automated warning message will be issued when your mailbox grows to 28MB.
2. You will not be able to SEND any new messages when your mailbox exceeds 30MB, but you will continue to receive new messages.
3. You will not be able to SEND and RECIEVE email if your mailbox grows to 300MB. Contact your local computer support

To change your MEDNET email password, please go to this link: https://www.mednet.ucla.edu/ChangePassword/. It'll bring you to the following page:

Fill in the Domain field with "MC" or "mewwex" or "ad" (depending on which domain you were given), as shown in the screenshot, and fill in the rest of the page.

NOTE: This change of password affects your MEDNET email only, to change your Gonda login and Calypso account, check out the General Password Change howto.

MEWWEX Email Migration

Details about MEWWEX Email migration

Users must exit from Outlook before mailbox migration




WHEN: December 11th from 7 pm until approx. 10pm




Your password will be reset to username06.


So for username jbruin, the password will be jbruin06.


Don't forget to change your password first thing tomorrow morning at:

https://www.mednet.ucla.edu/changepassword/



Logon Credentials Change:

All the examples below use jbruin as the username

If your email client has a logon window with 3 fields, use AD for the domain field. For example:





If your email client only has 2 logon fields, use AD\username for the username field. For example:





The same applies to the Outlook Web Access (OWA). It has only 2 fields on the logon window.
So you will use AD\jbruin for the username..





New Password Policy:

AD Domain Password Policy
95 Days - Password Expiration
6 – Minimum Password Length
3 – Number of Passwords Remembered (Password History)
5 – Number of invalid login attempts before your AD account is Locked permanently
User will receive an email warning that your AD password will expire in 1, 5, 10 or 15 days.
You can change your password at this site:
https://www.mednet.ucla.edu/changepassword

Mailbox Size Limits:

The default size of your mailbox will increase to 250 MB
An automated warning message will be issue when your mailbox grows to 225MB
You will not be able to SEND any new messages when your mailbox exceeds 250MB, but you will continue to receive new messages
You will not be able to SEND and RECEIVE email if your mailbox grows to 300MB. Contact the Enterprise IT Help Desk.

Outlook Web Access (OWA) 2000:

Users will now be able to use Exchange 2000 OWA which has better calendar functionality. The new address to access the OWA will be:
https://mail.mednet.ucla.edu/exchange:
When prompted for User Name, type your Domain\UserName (e.g. AD\JBruin). If your browser asks for User Name and Domain as separate fields, enter your UserName (jbruin) in the User Name field, and AD in the Domain field.
Tab to the Password field and type your password
For those currently using
www.genetics.ucla.edu/email to access the OWA, we will update the link after the migration to point to the new Exchange 2000 OWA.

Known/Potential Issues: for AD Password Email Expiration Notification:

* If your AD password has expired and you try to use OWA 2000, it will not warn you that your password has expired, and will keep prompting you for your password. Eventually, your AD account will probably be locked.
* Spell Checker feature is not available yet with OWA 2000 client
* Outlook Public Folders are not available yet with OWA 2000 client
* Don’t use OWA 2000 to reset your passwords
* MAC users using Entourage as their email client, their password locks after 1 bad password. The reason is that Entourage tries to resend the password more than 5 times. So it locks your account.

Making Mail Suck Less

Your mail sucks. The password is always getting locked. Your mailbox is always full. You have viruses and spam out the wazoo. Your "Personal Mail Folder" is always getting corrupted. And all of your outgoing mail is tagged with an obnoxious multi-line disclaimer of questionable legality and certain idiocy.

There really isn't a need to put up with all of this- there are better ways to handle mail.

The problem is Outlook (the program you run on your computer) and Exchange as run by Mednet. The solution: don't use Outlook and don't use Mednet.

The Server

First, the server part. You can get an email address from Bruin Online instead. BOL gives accounts to any UCLA student or staff, you just have to request one. The benefits to a BOL UCLA address are many fold:

• Shorter address (jbruin@ucla.edu instead of jbruin@mednet.ucla.edu)
• More space (BOL offers 50MB, Mednet 15MB)
• BOL provides spam tagging, making it easier to sort out junk mail
• BOL doesn't attach an obnoxious multi-line disclaimer of questionable legality and certain idiocy to your email
• BOL isn't violently hostile to non-Windows users.
• The satisfaction that comes from knowing you are not using a mail server from a criminally convicted monopolist.

There are, however, some downsides to switching from a Mednet address to a BOL one:

• You still have to receive mail from annoying Mednet accounts.
• The Microsoft Way means that some "integrated" features will no longer work (see note on calendars below).

The Client

While technically you can continue to use Outlook with a BOL email account (and benefit from all the pluses mentioned above), there really isn't a point to using Outlook if you are not chained to The Microsoft Way. BOL uses Internet standard protocols for communications, so pretty much any email client can be used - you actually now have a choice! This is how it used to be before Microsoft's business practices took the computing world hostage. Also, note that many of these products actually address shortcomings in Outlook, shortcomings Microsoft would never admit to (cf Internet Explorer and Firefox).

Benefits to using something other than Outlook:

• Threat of mail-attached virus infection reduced greatly.
• You can choose something you like
• Many have advanced spam controls

Downsides:

• You might have to spend 1 day getting used to a new interface. If you are unable to do this, then it is advised that you stop using the Internet as you represent a grave hazard to those around you (and by "around", we mean "EVERYWHERE"). Really, you spent some time learning Outlook at one point, what makes you think it's OK to have to stop learning ever again?

Since there are so many clients now available to you, this document cannot cover them all. MacOS X users are encouraged to use Apple's Mail.app. It's slick and its interface has the polish Apple users have come to expect. For Windows users, here are links to a few that we recommend:

• Thunderbird is the email client brought to you by the fine folks in the Mozilla group, makers of a fine browser called Firefox, which you may have heard of.
• Sylpheed Claws is a mail client with many features advanced users might appreciate.

Note: Eudora is not recommended. However, UCLA users do have access to a site-license, so if you'd prefer, you can use it. See! Isn't choice nice!

Calendar

One important note: Mednet's Exchange+Outlook combination provides a calendar feature. Some people like it. BOL doesn't provide such a feature. You can continue to use Outlook+Mednet for calendaring, even if you switch email providers/client. Microsoft would like you believe that email and calendaring are one and the same (they are not), and keep you tied to their product. Their success is largely due to perpetuating falsehoods like this and keeping their users ignorant of such details.

----------------------------------------------------------
IMPORTANT WARNING:  This page (and any attachments) is only intended for the
use of the person or entity to which it is addressed, and may contain
information that is privileged and confidential.  You, the recipient, are
obligated to maintain it in a safe, secure and confidential manner.
Unauthorized redisclosure or failure to maintain confidentiality may subject
you to federal and state penalties. If you are not the recipient, please
immediately notify us by return email, and delete this message from your
Intarweb.
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Setting up Outlook AutoArchive

Background

By default, Outlook will prompt to archive your email messages to a certain location. That location is NOT what we want to use, especially after setting up a personal folder on the M network drive (or other locations you preferred).

We need to reconfigure the default autoarchive settings so when it is done, it will redirect all old mail into your personal folder, instead of the place hidden deep in the system files within Windows, often forgotten as people upgrade or retire their computers.

Steps

1. Within Outlook, go to Tools, Options, the Other tab.
2. Click on AutoArchive button.
3. In the middle section, where it says "Move old items to:", hit Browse, and go to your M drive, then double click on the personal folder you have created, likely to resemble something like outlook_username.pst.
4. Confirm that it is indeed the location you want all old items to be moved to, and other options are to your likings. You can choose to have it run more often (1st option), and what are considered "old items" (clean out items older than...)
5. You can click on Apply these settings to all folders now, unless you know very well what you're using and would like to configure each folder individually (recommended for those who would like to finetune further)
6. OK all those windows and you're done.

Fine-tuning settings for each folder

This section is optional unless you know what you're doing and really need separate archive settings for each folder. Be careful you may also run the risk of mis-configuring something and lose mail. Triple-check before proceeding.

This is useful in situations e.g. if you rarely refer to your sent item folder but need more space for your Inbox: You can set the Sent Item folder to "clean items older than 3 weeks", while using "older than 6 weeks" in Inbox. Items in your Calendar usually won't take up as much space so it can be tuned to use "older than 1 year", etc.

1. Right clicking on each folder under the "Mailbox - your name" tree, clicking Properties and the AutoArchive tab gives you more fine-tuning power.
2. By default, the choice "Archive items in this folder using the default settings" would be chosen. It is the settings we just configured from the previous section.
3. Choose "Archive this folder using these settings:" if you want this folder to differ from the rest. Both retention and location can be changed individually.

Setting up Outlook personal folder (.pst file) on M drive

Background

Since there's a relatively limited amount of space available on the Mednet email server, the "personal folder" becomes the alternative to archive emails that are necessary for records but not actively referred to. At Human Genetics, we recommend storing such "personal folder", which is basically a file with a .pst extention), on the user's network drive, commonly known as the M drive.

When is the personal folder needed

It is needed when you have reached your quota after heavy use, and you have stored more items in the mailbox than allowed.
It is not intended for indiscriminate attachment storage. You should always groom your mailbox for unnecessary items first, especially attachments (both from Inbox and Sent Items).

All folders under "Mailbox - Your name" are still stored on the email server, so even if you move data from the Inbox to those subfolders, your quota-use stays the same. The next step is to create a personal folder where you can free up your quota by moving mail off the email server to the local drive, or as described in this how-to, the M network drive.

Steps

At this point, it is assumed that you have used your Mednet email account for a while and have accumulated more email than you can groomed away and have reached your quota mulitple times.

* The wording used in the following instructions may not be exact. Wording differs depending on the version of Outlook you're using, but the general name will be very similar.

1. While logged on in Outlook, go to Tools, Account Settings, and go to the Data Files tab
2. Click on the Add... button to add and configure a new Personal Folder File.
3. Choose the type of Outlook Data File you want. If you're using Outlook 2003, you will want to choose "Outlook 97-2002 Personal Folders File (.pst)" to get most compatibility with other systems, e.g. Titan etc.
4. A window will pop up prompting you to choose where to save the new file. Browse to your M: drive and navigate to whatever folder you want to save it in.
5. Put in a filename. We recommend it to include something about your username and the date or year. This makes it easier for you to distinguish older folders from newer ones. Click Ok.
6. Another window will pop up to ask you what you want to name the folder. Choose a meaningful name, this will be the one that shows up in your list of folders in the left navigation pane of Outlook. At this point, you are also given the option to create a password for this folder. Whether or not you implement this is your preference. Click Ok when you are done. 7. The new Personal Folders File you have created should now show up under the list of Data Files. Make sure it has been created by checking your M drive, the file named above should appear. Also, make sure that the Data File labeled "Mailbox - Lastname, Firstname" is still listed as the default. Click on the Close button and you should be all done!


Note: Microsoft Outlook imposes a roughly 2-gigabyte size restriction on any and all Personal Folders Files (.pst). However, some users have reported problems with accessing their folders even before reaching that limit (usually when they reach the 1.5 gigabyte threshold). To avoid this, keep an eye on the size growth of your pst files and create new ones as you see fit.


Another crucial step to reconfigure AutoArchive settings

After this, another crucial step is to reconfigure your AutoArchive settings within Outlook. By default, Outlook will prompt to archive your email messages to a certain location. That location is NOT what we want to use, especially after setting up the personal folder outlined above. Here is the HOW-TO on AutoArchive.

Using Web Outlook

Web Outlook is officially called Outlook Web Access, and is referred to as OWA in general and within this how-to.

This how-to is based on access via Microsoft Internet Explorer, screenshots and dialog boxes may be different with a different browser.

Pre-requisites

To connect, you will first need to have a compliant web browser, which has 128-bit encryption. Checking the Help section of your browser may reveal the encryption strength or cipher strength. If you see that you have 56-bit, your browser requires an upgrade. Please refer to the browser vendor for upgrade information.

PC users:
For those with Windows XP SP 1, you can download Internet Explorer 6
For those with Windows XP SP 2 or 3 (32 bit), you can download Internet Explorer 8
For those with Windows Vista, it may come prepackaged with Internet Explorer 7. You have the option to upgrade to Internet Explorer 8
If you have the 64-bit version of Vista, Internet Explorer 8 can be found here
If you have Windows 2000, you'll need the Windows 2000 High Encryption Pack.

Of course, you also have the option to go with a third-party, non-Microsoft web browser. Mozilla Firefox is a popular option.

Linux and Mac users:
The internet browsers that come prepackaged with those operating systems should be able to render the OWA. If not, you also have the option to go with Firefox or any web browser you wish.

Logging in

Address is https://mail.mednet.ucla.edu/exchange.
Or you may use our easier to remember shortcut - www.genetics.ucla.edu/email

On the front page of the OWA, type in your User Name: mewwex\your username or AD\your username whichever was given to you (mewwex and AD are the older and newer domain names, respectively)
Password: password that was given to you upon account creation

Click Log On

This is how the main screen looks like upon login. Navigation bar on the left, menu on top (new message, delete, reply, etc). You may click on each sender's name to go into the specific message.

NOTE: It is recommended that you change your default password upon the initial logon. Here is the how-to on Changing your MEDNET Email Password.

If you're interested, Mednet also has an Animated Demo on how to access your web outlook.