John Richards

Email Clients Replacement Project Board 19 May 2006

2 Agenda

1. Introductions and Apologies for Absence

2. Minutes of the last meeting

3. Matters arising

4. Status report

a. Technical evaluation of webmail candidates

b. Shortlist

c. User evaluation process

5. Any other business

6. Date of next meeting

3 Email Clients in Use (sending mail)

Count of unique tuples (From address / mailer version) in sent mail

between 11 April and 10 May 2006

15204

7705

1955

1164854 825 491

Mulberry

Webmail

Unknown

Thunderbird

Outlook

Other

Apple Mail

4 Desktop and Webmail usage

Staff server

3129

591

2711

desktop only webmail only both

Student server

4585

1952

7050

desktop only webmail only both

Count of number of unique users between 11 April and 10 May 2006

5 Technical Evaluation

• SquirrelMail

• IMP

• Prayer

• @Mail

• XandMail

• IlohaMail

• Oracle Web Access

• SunOne Communications Express

6 Technical Evaluation

• SquirrelMail

• IMP

• Prayer - Restricted use of IMAP folders

• @Mail - Does not support secure IMAP

• XandMail - Does not support secure IMAP

• IlohaMail - Low life expectancy

• Oracle Web Access - Limited IMAP support

• SunOne Communications Express - No IMAP support

7 SquirrelMail

http://www.squirrelmail.org/

8 IMP

http://www.horde.org/imp/

9

To be done forwebmail and desktop

Release

Install and test

Decide

Evaluate

Shortlist

Get feedback

Approach

Define requirements

Create training Create documentation

Deliver training

10 Accessibility

• Legal requirement to make web-based resources

accessible to all regardless of disability

• University policy on web content

• Lisa Gault is checking shortlist with disability forum

and TechDis

• Will get disabled users to evaluate

11 User Evaluation

• Evaluation versions of SquirrelMail and IMP will be

set up

• Users invited to evaluate and complete a survey

• £10 incentive for students

• In first 48 hours: 143 students and 26 staff

volunteered. Now 44 staff.

12 Evaluation Survey Factors

• Appearance of user interface

• Speed of user interface

• Listing messages in the Inbox and other folders    

• Reading messages

• Composing messages

• Using the Address Book

• Handling attachments  

13 Survey

14 Plan

ID Task Name Start Finish DurationQ2 06 Q3 06 Q4 06 Q1 07 Q2 07

Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec Jan Feb Mar Apr May

2 4.2w14/06/200617/05/2006User evaluation

3 1.2w22/06/200615/06/2006Decision on client

4 12.2w15/09/200623/06/2006Create doc & training

5 1.8w05/07/200623/06/2006Install software

6 2w19/07/200606/07/2006Test

7 .2w15/09/200615/09/2006Release

8 10.2w27/11/200618/09/2006Mulberry requirements

9 27.6w07/06/200728/11/2006Replace Mulberry

1 17.6w15/09/200617/05/2006Silkymail replacement