messageops notifier installation and configuration guide.pdf

MessageOps Email Notifier

Version 2.0

Installation & Usage Guide

www.MessageOps.com

[email protected]

http://www.messageops.com/

mailto:[email protected]

www.MessageOps.com

©2011 MessageOps, LLC. All Rights Reserved. 2

Contents

Introduction....................................................................................................................................................................... 5

Overview ............................................................................................................................................................................. 6

Installation ......................................................................................................................................................................... 7

Pre-requisites ............................................................................................................................................................... 7

Installation Kit .............................................................................................................................................................. 7

Security Access ............................................................................................................................................................ 7

Running the Installer ................................................................................................................................................. 7

Upgrading .................................................................................................................................................................. 11

Configuration ................................................................................................................................................................. 12

Basic Settings ................................................................................................................................................................. 13

Status Area ...................................................................................................................................................................... 15

Start Button ................................................................................................................................................................ 15

Stop Button ................................................................................................................................................................ 15

Advanced Settings ....................................................................................................................................................... 16

Expert Settings .............................................................................................................................................................. 18

Other Settings ............................................................................................................................................................... 20

Notifications .............................................................................................................................................................. 20

Startup ......................................................................................................................................................................... 21

Calendar ...................................................................................................................................................................... 21

Shell Integration ....................................................................................................................................................... 22

Login ............................................................................................................................................................................. 23

Tray Icon .......................................................................................................................................................................... 25

No Unread Messages ............................................................................................................................................. 25

Unread Messages .................................................................................................................................................... 26

Double-Click .............................................................................................................................................................. 26

Tray Tooltip .................................................................................................................................................................... 26

Disconnected............................................................................................................................................................. 26

No Email ...................................................................................................................................................................... 26

Unread Email ............................................................................................................................................................. 26

www.MessageOps.com


Tray Notifications ......................................................................................................................................................... 27

Startup ......................................................................................................................................................................... 27

New Email ................................................................................................................................................................... 27

Calendar Appointment .......................................................................................................................................... 28

Single-Click ................................................................................................................................................................ 28

Tray Menu ....................................................................................................................................................................... 30

Options ........................................................................................................................................................................ 30

Open OWA ................................................................................................................................................................. 31

PST Viewer .................................................................................................................................................................. 31

Open Outlook ........................................................................................................................................................... 31

Recall Last Popup .................................................................................................................................................... 31

Reset Tray Icon ......................................................................................................................................................... 31

Exit ................................................................................................................................................................................. 31

PST Viewer ...................................................................................................................................................................... 32

Mailboxes ................................................................................................................................................................... 32

Read Email .................................................................................................................................................................. 33

Attachments .............................................................................................................................................................. 35

Message Window .................................................................................................................................................... 36

Copying Body Text .................................................................................................................................................. 37

Saving Email .............................................................................................................................................................. 38

Reading MSG Files .................................................................................................................................................. 38

Tray Activation .......................................................................................................................................................... 39

Technical Notes ............................................................................................................................................................ 40

OWA URL .................................................................................................................................................................... 40

Office365 Override .................................................................................................................................................. 40

Shell Integration ....................................................................................................................................................... 41

Key Functions ....................................................................................................................................................... 41

Limitations ............................................................................................................................................................. 46

Auto-Login ................................................................................................................................................................. 48

Limitations ............................................................................................................................................................. 49

www.MessageOps.com


Configuration ........................................................................................................................................................ 49

Logging ............................................................................................................................................................................ 51

Screen .......................................................................................................................................................................... 51

Log Files ...................................................................................................................................................................... 51

About ................................................................................................................................................................................ 53

Uninstalling ..................................................................................................................................................................... 54

Questions / Comments / Support ......................................................................................................................... 55

www.MessageOps.com


Introduction

This manual is intended for End Users of the MessageOps Email Notifier (hereafter referred to

simply as Notifier) software application.

This guide does not assume that readers are highly technical beyond the day-to-day installation

& use of applications on the Windows® operating system.

www.MessageOps.com


Overview

Notifier is designed for end users of the Microsoft Exchange email Server, whether hosted in the

cloud (specifically, Office365) or an in-house corporate solution.

The primary user of Notifier will be those who either by choice or necessity is unable, or

unwilling to use Microsoft Outlook as their email client; instead choosing Outlook Web App

(OWA).

The main feature of Notifier is that it will visually and audibly alert the user that new mail has

arrived in their inbox. This is something which will happen quite silently if the OWA window is

not currently in-focus on the desktop. As will be seen later on, Notifier also fulfills several other

useful features which the non-Outlook user will find extremely beneficial in their daily usage of

OWA.

Notifier is designed to work out-the-box on Office365 accounts with minimal setup, however is

flexible enough to be used with almost any configuration of Exchange Server.

www.MessageOps.com


Installation

This section deals with the installation of a new instance of the Notifier application, and the

upgrade of an existing installation; both processes are identical.

Pre-requisites

Notifier has a tiny footprint and will work on practically any PC that can support Windows XP or

newer. Furthermore, Notifier will have negligible processing impact on any supported platform.

The following components are required to allow the installation of Notifier.

Windows® XP, Vista or 7, x86 or x64.

Microsoft .NET Framework 4.0

5Mb of disk space

IE9 preferably. IE7 and IE8 are known to work. Other browsers may work but are not

supported.

Exchange Server version 2007 SP1 or newer required.

Exchange S/MIME control for some Shell Integration features.

It is assumed that a suitable network connection exists between the target workstation and the

Exchange Server and that access details to connect to it have been provided.

Installation Kit

MessageOps supplies Notifier as a binary installer package available as a download from their

website.

Security Access

Notifier requires a suitable Local System user account with administrative privileges to be

defined which will be used during installation.

Running the Installer

Log in to the server using a privileged account and copy or download the installation kit to a

temporary folder.

Double-click the installer.

www.MessageOps.com


Click ‘Next’.

www.MessageOps.com


Read through the License Agreement, and click ‘I Agree’.

Choose the installation folder, and then click ‘Install’.

www.MessageOps.com


The installer will unpack and configure the Notifier application. This should take little more than

a few seconds..

www.MessageOps.com


Click ‘Finish’.

Upgrading

The only consideration required when upgrading an older version of Notifier is to ensure that

the application is closed before running the installer.

This can be done by right-clicking the tray icon and choosing Exit.

www.MessageOps.com


Configuration

Notifier ships with a representative set of configuration defaults; however there are certain

properties that must be set manually, prior to full operation.

If Notifier does not have such details and cannot connect to Exchange then, on startup, it shall

present the Settings dialog to allow the user to provide them.

Conversely, if Notifier connects automatically to Exchange on startup then it will not show the

Settings dialog and will revert to running in the tray are of the desktop.

The Settings dialog can be manually invoked at any time by right-clicking the tray icon and

choosing ‘Options’.

www.MessageOps.com


Basic Settings

The default settings view caters for users who have an Exchange configuration that allows for

the simplest of setup.

This will broadly fall into two categories of user,

Office365.

Corporate user with the Autodiscovery facility fully configured & tested.

In order to configure Notifier to communicate with Exchange, fill in the following two fields,

Email Address

Password

Additionally, if not running Office365 then please untick the ‘Force Office365 Account on OWA’

checkbox.

Once done, click the ‘Test’ button and within a second or two of activity one of the following will

be displayed.

www.MessageOps.com


This means that Notifier has been unable to connect to Exchange using Autodiscovery and the

provided credentials.

This means that Notifier has successfully contacted Exchange and is ready to start work.

The other options available on the Basic Settings tab are as follows.

Attempt to use Autodiscover When ticked, Notifier will use the Email

address, Password (and, optionally, the

Username) to connect to the Exchange service

using the Autodiscover protocol. If unticked

then additional Advanced properties, such as

Server Address, will need to be provided

before a connection can be made.

Force Office365 Account on OWA See Technical Notes later in this guide for a

discussion of exactly what this option means.

Update Interval The interval in seconds that Notifier waits

between checking for new email. Minimum

value is 1, Maximum is 3600; Default is 5

seconds.

www.MessageOps.com


Status Area

Towards the bottom of the Settings tab there is a Status area which show 3 key pieces of

information and also allows Notifier monitoring to be switched On and Off.

Email Address This is the email address that will be used for

all operations by Notifier.

EWS URL EWS is the mechanism which Notifier uses to

communicate with Exchange. This URL will be

derived automatically by Notifier and should

never usually be changed. There is a facility

under the Expert Settings to modify this

manually.

OWA URL See Technical Notes later in this guide for a

discussion of exactly what this URL means.

Start Button

Clicking this will initiate a new session with Exchange based on all the available options, start the

background polling process & minimize Notifier to the tray.

If any one of the above processes fails then Notifier will report an error to the logging area and

stop until the issue has been corrected.

Stop Button

Clicking this will stop the background polling process thereby inhibiting further notifications.

www.MessageOps.com


Advanced Settings

The Advanced settings view caters for users who have an Exchange configuration that cannot

take advantage of the Autodiscovery process.

There are 4 options as described below. It should be noted that, as in the above screenshot, the

Server Address option is disabled if Autodiscovery is selected under the Basic settings.

Server Address The DNS name of the server that is the entry

point to the Exchange system be it either

hosted or in-house. Not available when using

Autodiscovery.

Username The user identification required to gain access

to the Exchange server. Under Office365 this

will be the same as the Email Address and can

be left blank; for other systems this may need

to be specified.

Windows Domain This will almost never be needed to be

specified. If it is, it should denote the Internal

Windows® domain name, not the external

DNS name.

Exchange Version For all Exchange Servers that are version 2010

or newer this setting can safely be left at

www.MessageOps.com


Autodetect. For older, supported servers this

should be set to 2007_SP1.

www.MessageOps.com


Expert Settings

The Expert settings view caters for users who have an Exchange configuration that has been

customized to the extent that normal settings will not work. Most users will never need to touch

these settings.

Use Windows Domain Credentials If using Notifier within the same LAN as the

Exchange Server then this box will use the

credentials from the workstation session to

also connect to Exchange. When ticked, the

Username & Password fields may be left blank.

Override Autodiscovery Validation Under normal circumstances this should be left

ticked in order to avoid spurious errors being

raised by the Autodiscovery process.

Override Certificate Check If the Exchange Server does not have a valid

x509 certificate, issued & certified by a known

authority installed then this box can be ticked

to negotiate the errors that may be raised.

Override Exchange EWS URL Only check this box & add a value to the field

under instruction from the Exchange system

admin. Misuse of this option will almost

certainly mean that Exchange cannot be

contacted.

www.MessageOps.com


Override Exchange OWA URL See the Technical Notes section of this guide

to fully understand what this setting means.

Normally this should not be changed.

www.MessageOps.com


Other Settings

This section outlines the other options available for Notifier.

Notifications

These settings specify how Notifier alerts the user when new mail arrives.

Notifier has 2 notification options as described below. Notifications can be selected in any

combination and are not mutually exclusive.

Notifications are discussed in more depth later in this guide.

Note: if no notifications are selected then the arrival of new mail will still be noted in the

Logging area.

Enable Balloon Notifications A balloon notification from the system tray

area will accompany any new mail arriving.

Enable Sound Notifications An audible ‘Ding-Dong’ will be heard when

new mail arrives.

www.MessageOps.com


Startup

This setting designates whether or not Notifier will be automatically started when Windows logs

in.

Notifier auto-start works by placing a shortcut to the application in the Windows® Startup

program menu folder. Unticking the box will remove this shortcut.

Calendar

These settings control how Notifier reports upcoming appointments via the notification system.

www.MessageOps.com


By default, Notifier is designed to display notifications of upcoming appointments. This can be

fine-tuned using the options below or, alternatively, switched off completely.

Notifications are discussed in more depth later in this guide.

Disable Calendar Notifications Ticking this box will switch Off calendar

notifications. If this option is taken then the

remaining settings are disabled.

Update Interval This is the number of seconds between

Notifier reminding you that there is an

imminent appointment. It acts effectively like

a countdown mechanism until the event itself

occurs. Minimum value is 1, Maximum is 3600;

Default is 300 seconds (5 minutes).

Warn me This is the number of minutes before an

appointment that Notifier starts reminding you

that there is an imminent appointment.

Minimum value is 1, Maximum is 3600; Default

is 15 minutes.

Shell Integration

These settings control how much Notifier interacts with the desktop and other applications.

www.MessageOps.com


Shell Integration as a concept is very powerful and will be explained in its own section later in

this guide.

The second option is extremely useful for instance if Chrome or Firefox are installed and are the

preferred browser for most purposes, however IE is still desired for OWA functionality.

Enable Shell Integration Ticking this box will switch On Shell Integration

and register the various services making OWA

the default mail handler. Switching it off will

reverse this process.

Always Open OWA in IE When Notifier invokes a browser to show OWA

or an email message it can do it in one of two

ways. With this option switched On, Internet

Explorer will always be used regardless of

which browser is set up as the system default.

With it off then the default browser will be

used.

Login

This setting controls whether or not Notifier will attempt to automatically login to an OWA

session.

www.MessageOps.com


This option does not work at all with Office365 accounts as it does not use the Forms-Based

Authentication mechanism that ships with standard Exchange servers.

For non-Office365 accounts the mechanism that auto-login uses are explained in more detail

later in this guide.

This option is switched Off by default.

www.MessageOps.com


Tray Icon

The Notifier tray icon can be in one of two states, giving a visual indication of the Inbox message

content.

The normal behavior of Windows® 7 is to hide tray icons from view which, in the case of

Notifier, will be counter-productive.

In order to ensure that the Notifier tray icon is permanently displayed, follow this process.

Click the ‘Show Hidden Icons’ arrow.

Click ‘Customize’.

From the window ensure that the following option is selected then click OK.

No Unread Messages

The envelope icon normally indicates that the Inbox has no unread messages.

There are 2 other instances where this icon may mean something else. If no connection to

Exchange has been possible then this icon will also show, however the tooltip message will

indicate this more clearly (see below). If the ‘Reset Tray Icon’ menu has been clicked then

regardless of there being unread email or not, this icon will be displayed (see below for more

information on this menu).

www.MessageOps.com


Unread Messages

The bubble icon indicates that one or more unread email messages are in the Inbox.

Double-Click

When the tray icon is double-clicked then the main OWA windows will be displayed with the

Inbox visible.

Tray Tooltip

When the mouse is hovered over the tray icon, a message will be displayed in an overlay to

indicate the current connection and mailbox status.

Disconnected

Displayed on application startup and also if no connection to Exchange is possible.

No Email

Displayed when a connection has been made but there are no emails in the Inbox.

The second line indicates the physical mailbox server that has been connected to followed by

the name of the account.

Unread Email

www.MessageOps.com


Displayed when there is an active connection and one or more unread email messages in the

Inbox.

Tray Notifications

The main purpose of the Notifier application is to visually and/or aurally indicate to the user that

new mail has arrived in their Inbox.

The visual indication is via a balloon popup which comes from the tray icon as shown below.

In common with Windows® behavior, notification balloons will remain visible on-screen until

the user causes some activity with either keyboard or mouse at which point the balloon will

slowly fade from view. If the user is away from the workstation or operating an application

which obscures the desktop, e.g. a game then the notifications will be queued until such point

as normal usage is resumed.

Startup

When Notifier starts, it checks for unread messages in the Inbox; if it finds any then it will pop

up an initial notification.

This message will simply state how many unread emails are available.

New Email

This notification will appear any time a new email arrives in the Inbox. If multiple new emails

have arrived within the polling frequency then multiple notifications will be generated.

www.MessageOps.com


Calendar Appointment

This notification will first appear 15 minutes or so before the appointment time and will be

repeated every 5 minutes thereafter until the appointment has started.

These times can be modified in the Settings as described above.

Single-Click

When a notification balloon is clicked then Notifier will bring up the specific email message that

generated the alert.

Important: the single-click functionality will not work correctly when the Office365 override

option is switched on. For further discussion see the Office365 section in the Technical Notes

later in this manual.

www.MessageOps.com


In the case of Calendar notifications, the appointment will be displayed.

www.MessageOps.com


Tray Menu

Right-clicking the tray icon will display a context menu that exposes several pieces of

functionality as described below.

Options

This will bring into view the main Notifier window allowing options to be modified.

www.MessageOps.com


Open OWA

This has an identical effect to double-clicking the tray icon and will bring up the main OWA

window with the Inbox visible.

PST Viewer

This will bring up the PST Viewer window, which is described in more detail elsewhere in this

manual.

Open Outlook

If Microsoft Outlook® is installed then selecting this option will start it up.

Recall Last Popup

Notification windows fade away after a few seconds and cannot normally be recalled. Clicking

this option will re-generate the last popup balloon allowing the user, for example, to click on it

and show the email message directly.

Reset Tray Icon

Normally, the tray icon will remain as the speech balloon until all unread emails in the Inbox

have been marked as read. Clicking this option will force the tray icon back to the default

envelope graphic until such time as another new email arrives.

Exit

Close down the Notifier application completely.

www.MessageOps.com


PST Viewer Notifier ships with a utility that provides the capability to open Microsoft Outlook® compatible

PST files and read the mail contained therein.

This is an essential piece of functionality for users that now exclusively use OWA for mail

handling but have archived emails from previous use of Outlook®.

As well as PST files, Notifier can also open & read MSG files that contain single email messages.

Mailboxes

Prior to showing the email within a PST, the file itself needs to be loaded into Notifier as a

mailbox.

Notifier supports multiple mailboxes and will remember them once loaded.

Click ‘Add PST’.

Select a PST file and click ‘Open’.

www.MessageOps.com


The PST is loaded into Notifier as a mailbox.

Repeat the above to add as many mailboxes as required.

Mailboxes can be removed by selecting the checkbox to the left of the entry and clicking the

‘Remove’ button.

Read Email

When at least one mailbox has been loaded, click the ‘View’ button to bring up the mail reader.

A new window appears.

www.MessageOps.com


The first mailbox on the list will be selected by default, however other mailboxes can be selected

from the dropdown list in the top left of the window.

The mail reader operates in a very similar fashion to Microsoft Outlook® with a navigable tree

on the left side of the window.

www.MessageOps.com


Clicking on a folder will load the messages contained within that folder into the message list on

the upper-right side of the window.

Clicking on a message in this list will load the actual email contents into the message pane in

the lower-right of the window.

As can be seen the header information is shown just above the message contents.

Subject

Sender

Time Sent

Attachments (see below)

Attachments

When an email message has one or more attachments then the message list will show an

indicator on the very left of the entry.

The message header will also have a visual indicator.

www.MessageOps.com


Clicking on this icon will bring up the attachments window.

If there are multiple attachments then they will each be displayed in the list here.

Attachments can be saved and viewed from this dialog. Check one or more attachments on the

list and press either the ‘Save’ or ‘View’ button.

Saving will bring up a dialog to pick a destination folder & filename.

Viewing will inform Windows® to bring up the default application to show the attachment

depending on the file type.

The attachments window can also be reached by clicking the button in the toolbar.

Message Window

Double-clicking an entry in the message list will bring up the email in a separate window.

www.MessageOps.com


This window shows the same basic information as the main window and also allows the

attachments dialog to be activated.

Copying Body Text

The contents of an email may be copied to the Windows® clipboard from the main window by

selecting text then right-clicking the message body area and selecting ‘Copy’.

Alternatively, if the entire body is required, the ‘Select All’ option can be chosen prior to the

‘Copy’.

www.MessageOps.com


Saving Email

An email may be saved to a MSG file by selecting it in the message list then clicking the button

in the toolbar.

This will show a dialog allowing selection of destination & filename.

Reading MSG Files

MSG files that have been saved from Notifier itself, or obtained from Microsoft Outlook® and

other sources may be loaded directly into the Message Window from the main application.

From the dialog, select the MSG file and click ‘Open’.

www.MessageOps.com


At this point the Message Window will open with the contents of the MSG file loaded.

Tray Activation

The PST Viewer may be activated directly from the tray menu.

If mailboxes have been pre-loaded into Notifier as described earlier then the window will be

shown with these PST mailboxes available.

www.MessageOps.com


Technical Notes

OWA URL

The URL that is used by Notifier to interact with OWA is derived in one of 5 ways depending on

chosen options. The following are in descending order of priority.

1. Office365 Override (see next note).

https://www.outlook.com/owa/<Email>

2. Autodiscovery.

Address reported by Exchange through Autodiscovery.

3. Override Exchange OWA URL.

Whatever the user specifies.

4. Server Address.

https://<Server>/owa/<Email>

5. Unknown.

URL cannot be derived from any of the above. No connection possible.

Office365 Override

Due to the way Microsoft have implemented the session handling of OWA on Office365 Notifier

needs to implement a workaround to ensure that the URL will actually bring up the correct site.

Once an Office365 OWA session is logged in the session will last 2 or 3 days meaning that

username & password need not be typed in each & every time the site is contacted. Once this

session is established then the Autodiscovered OWA URL works flawlessly and will bring up the

main window and also specific emails when notifications are clicked.

The issue, which necessitates the Override feature, is before this session has been established.

Attempting to contact Office365 OWA at this point will result in a generic live.com login page

being redirected to which will refuse to accept the Office365 user details. This is a Microsoft

issue and something entirely out with our control.

When this happens, switching on the Office365 Override will ensure that the correct login page

is displayed and allow the session to be established. This is why the Override is enabled by

default in the Notifier application.

Leaving the Override switched on does no harm; however notification clicking will not bring up

the email message correctly. Switching off the Override once the session is established will re-

enable this functionality.

We are hopeful that at some stage Microsoft will sort out this anomaly so we can dispense with

this rather complicated & crude workaround.

www.MessageOps.com


Shell Integration

Shell Integration is a concept that encompasses several key pieces of functionality that attempt

to make OWA more usable within the standard Windows® desktop.

Microsoft Outlook® - and several other mail client applications – utilize some hooks into the

Windows® registry which expose some advanced functions such as sending mail from within

Office and enabling Send To links. The Shell Integration features of Notifier go some way to

giving OWA similar functionality.

Key Functions

Default Mail Handler

Windows® has a concept of defining a single default application that will catch & handle all

mail-related activities. Normally OWA cannot be registered in this way as, at the end of the day,

it is simply a website running within Internet Explorer®. Notifier Shell Integration provides a

mechanism for allowing OWA to be declared the default mail handler.

The default programs can be accessed from the Start Menu.

Access the final option.

www.MessageOps.com


The following dialog will be displayed.

Click on the Non-Microsoft option.

This shows that Outlook Web Access has been assigned as the default E-mail program by

Windows®.

www.MessageOps.com


MAILTO Links

When a MAILTO link is clicked within a browser application such as Internet Explorer® then

Windows® will entrust the handling of that link to a default application. Shell Integration allows

Notifier to be that default handler.

To examine this setting access Default Programs from the Start Menu.

Select the Default Programs option.

Once loaded, the list of default programs will be displayed. Looking down the list, an entry for

OWA Notifier will be visible.

Clicking on this entry will display a description of the application.

www.MessageOps.com


Notice the text, ‘The program has all its defaults’. In actual fact, Notifier only has a single default

but the main point here is that Windows® is informing us that it has been successfully assigned

that default.

To see what the default is click on the second option.

www.MessageOps.com


This shows that Notifier has been assigned to handle any MAILTO links generated by

Windows®.

Send To within Applications

Microsoft Office® and several other commercial applications utilize a mechanism called MAPI

which allows these applications to send email by offloading the process to another program.

Normally OWA cannot take advantage of this functionality, however Shell Integration enables

this meaning OWA can receive MAPI notifications.

Furthermore, Notifier supports the passing of attachments so the following type of operation

will work.

From within a Microsoft Word® document, access the ‘Save & Send’ menu.

And click on the ‘Send as Attachment’ button.

www.MessageOps.com


When activated, this will open a New Mail window in OWA and attach the Word® document.

Send to Mail recipient

Similar to the previous option, this feature allows files to be attached to a new email message in

OWA directly from Explorer or the Windows® desktop.

Highlight one or more files on the Desktop.

Right-click and select Send to Mail recipient.

When activated, this will open a New Mail window in OWA and attach the files.

Limitations

Browser

All the Shell Integration features are designed to be used within Internet Explorer®.

Office365 & S/MIME

The ‘Send To’ functions of Notifier depend on a Microsoft ActiveX Control called S/MIME being

installed or the attachment of the files will fail. For normal Exchange configurations this can be

installed from the OWA settings page, as described below.

www.MessageOps.com


Unfortunately, hosted Microsoft Exchange solutions, such as Office365 do not expose S/MIME at

present, therefore this functionality will not work under Office365. It is hoped that in future,

Microsoft will offer this at some point.

Click on the Options button within OWA.

Then select All Options.

After the Options have loaded, click on Settings.

Click on S/MIME from the top row of buttons.

www.MessageOps.com


Install the control from the link on this page.

Accept all defaults & security warnings then once installed close down Internet Explorer® and

restart it.

The first time S/MIME runs, an additional security warning will be displayed which can be safely

accepted.

Auto-Login

Notifier has a facility which will attempt to pass the password of the current user to the OWA

window and click Return automatically, thereby effecting an automated logon to the mailbox.

This functionality is designed to operate on Exchange installations which utilize the Forms-based

Authentication page standard on non-cloud configurations.

www.MessageOps.com


Limitations

Office365 does not use this mechanism and will therefore not work. Office365 does allow the

password to be remembered which has a similar effect, although the session will expire after a

number of days.

Configuration

For non-cloud installations the best way to ensure automatic logins work is to follow these

steps.

Manually start Internet Explorer and browse to the OWA address.

On the Forms-based Authentication screen, ensure that ‘This is a private computer’ is

selected.

Type in the Username & Password.

Click ‘Sign In’.

www.MessageOps.com


Open up the Notifier and the Login Settings page.

Select ‘Enable Automated Login’

Minimize Notifier.

Close all Internet Explorer® windows.

Having done this once, and assuming that Notifier has been successfully configured to access

Exchange, double-clicking the Notifier tray icon will start Internet Explorer® and within a few

seconds the password will be pushed to it and the session will log in.

www.MessageOps.com


Logging

Screen

All messages are logged to the Logging tab which will refresh in real-time as events are

generated.

The most recent log message will also be shown in the status bar at the bottom of the window

as this is visible at all times.

Log Files

Notifier keeps a hard log of all events in a text file in the following location,

C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Local\MessageOps\OWA Notifier\1.0.0.0\notifier.log1

If there are any problems or you are investigating an unexpected event then this is the place to

look.

This file will be written to sequentially until it reaches 10Mb in size, at which point it is archived

with an appended timestamp to the name. A maximum of 10 such files will be kept before

being deleted, oldest first, to make room for newer files.

1 Note that this location will differ on a Windows XP installation.

www.MessageOps.com


MessageOps may ask you to send them this file in the eventuality of a technical query.

www.MessageOps.com


About

This tab displays version & contact information that should be quoted when contacting

MessageOps for support or advice.

www.MessageOps.com


Uninstalling

Notifier can be cleanly uninstalled by selecting the option in the Start Menu folder.

Alternatively, use the Programs & Features applet in the Control Panel.

www.MessageOps.com


Questions / Comments / Support

We’d like to get your feedback whether it’s good or bad. If you have any questions, comments,

suggestions, or run into problems, please email [email protected].

mailto:[email protected]

messageops notifier installation and configuration guide.pdf

Documents