In addition to all of the new security & collaboration enhancements introduced in MDaemon 17.5, our latest release of Outlook Connector adds additional control for administrators as well as configuration reporting for end users.
Allow or Block Certain Third-Party Outlook Add-ins to Improve Performance
With the wide variety of Outlook add-ins that users can install, one common challenge is making sure these add-ins don’t negatively impact Outlook performance. Beginning with MDaemon 17.5 and Outlook Connector 5.0, administrators can control which add-ins are enabled or disabled on client machines.
Administrator Control of Outlook Add-Ins
New Outlook Connector Features for End Users
Generate an Outlook Configuration Report to Assist with Support Requests
When submitting an Outlook Connector support request, it is helpful for our support staff to know as much as possible about the Outlook configuration settings on the client computer. Beginning with Outlook Connector 5.0, users can generate a configuration report containing information such as:
All Outlook Connector Profiles, including the email address plus the location and size of the local cache file
Information about when the Outlook Connector database was last compacted, and the size of the database
The current version of the Outlook Connector plug-in
Send/receive intervals
Outlook Connector – Generate Configuration Report
In addition to these major updates, we’ve included various minor fixes & enhancements. More information can be found in the release notes, or if you can download our free trial to start using Outlook Connector today!
Our continued focus to make email safe and simple to use has resulted in some great new features in the most recent release of MDaemon 17.5. We’ve highlighted some of the features for email administrators and end users below. So, let’s have a closer look.
New MDaemon Features for Administrators
Stop Spam and Malware Sent from Specific Countries
Many email administrators want an easy way to block connections from specific countries that send spam and malware. New country screening settings allow administrators to block incoming SMTP, POP, and IMAP connections from designated countries. This benefits businesses by allowing them to block messages from countries with which they do not do business, and provides an extra layer of spam protection when certain countries are known sources of spam.
Block incoming connections by country via the new Location Screening feature
Prevent and Set Alerts When Hackers Try to Access Your Email
MDaemon’s new Dynamic Screening features can be configured to track authentication failures for all protocols, including SMTP, POP, IMAP, WorldClient, and ActiveSync (among others). After receiving a specified number of failed authentication attempts from a given IP address in a designated period of time, subsequent connections from the IP are blocked for a specified period of time. This helps prevent further connection attempts and password guessing by hackers & spammers.
If you’re looking for the previous dynamic screening settings, they are still located under the Security Settings screen, but this screen has been renamed to SMTP Screen.
Flexible Filtering to Manage Messages
Administrators can set multiple IMAP filtering parameters based on the message size or the contents of any message header, and perform actions such as moving, deleting, forwarding, or redirecting the message.
Complex IMAP filters
Improving Server-Side Encryption Key Exchange
An option has been added that allows the process of exchanging public keys for OpenPGP to take place during the SMTP message delivery process. When this feature is enabled, authorized users will no longer need to manually send their public key to another user from whom they wish to receive encrypted email.
Automatic Encryption Key Exchange
Improved Message Search Capabilities
A new Message Search page has been added to MDaemon Remote Administration, allowing administrators to search a single user’s messages based on keywords in the sender, recipient, subject, or attachment name. Searches can be performed on all messages, or only messages within a specified date range.
New Message Search for MDaemon Remote Administration
New MDaemon Features for End Users
Flexible Search Filters for Inbox Management
Improved search filters have been added to MDaemon’s web-based email (WorldClient) allowing users to specify filtering rules based on the message size or any message header. Message results based upon the filter criteria can be moved to another folder, deleted, forwarded, or redirected.
Complex filters for WorldClieint, MDaemon’s web-based email client
Custom Buddy List Groups for Instant Messaging
WorldClient Instant Messenger users can now arrange their buddy lists into custom groups.
WorldClient Instant Messenger – Buddy List Grouping
Adding Attachments to Calendars, Contacts, Tasks and Notes
Attachments can now be added to calendar items, contacts, tasks, and notes via WorldClient, Outlook (using Outlook Connector) or your favorite CalDAV or CardDAV client. When scheduling a meeting, attachments added to calendar events will be sent to all meeting attendees.
Attachment Support for Meetings, Contacts, Tasks
Import and Export Groups/Distribution Lists to/from a Contact Folder
WorldClient users can now import and export groups/distribution lists to & from their Contacts folders. The ability to import groups allows users to avoid the extra steps needed to add group members individually.
Import Groups
Using Email Voice Memos
WorldClient’s new voice recorder allows users to record voice memos and attach them to email messages, save them to their WorldClient Documents folder, or save them to the desktop.
WorldClient Voice Recorder
Simplified Folder Management Options
WorldClient users can now perform the following folder management tasks without having to go to the Options | Folders menu:
Move folders from one parent folder to another via drag & drop.
Add folders to Favorites via drag & drop.
Rename folders in the Favorites list by clicking on the folder name.
Show folders by type in the LookOut theme (previously only available in the WorldClient theme).
WorldClient Folder Drag & Drop
Export a Contact in vCard 4.0 Format
WorldClient users can now export individual contacts in VCard format, a file format standard for electronic business cards supported by a wide variety of email clients. VCards contain various details about a contact, including name, company name, email address, postal address, phone number, and additional comments. They can be downloaded locally or sent to a designated email address, and then imported into any email client that supports the VCard format.
WorldClieint – Export Contact in vCard Format
Password Protected Chat Rooms
For added security, WorldClient Instant Messenger users can now chat with others via password protected chat rooms. When creating a new chat room via the WorldClient Instant Messenger application, simply enter the password that is required to join in the new Password field.
In addition to all of this, other improvements include:
By default, messages that cannot be scanned by SecurityPlus are quarantined. The antivirus quarantine exclusion settings have been improved. In previous versions, administrators could configure exclusions from antivirus scanning based on attachment file type. Now, administrators can also configure antivirus scanning exclusions based on the sender or recipient address.
When using the WorldClient theme, the look of WorldClient Notes has been updated. An option was added that allows users to change the color of the note by clicking on the note icon in the top left corner of the note.
When using the LookOut and WorldClient themes, WorldClient users can now search for attachment names using advanced search.
For more information please refer to the following resources:
Note: July 27 – A fix to Outlook that was caused by the Windows Creators Update is now available by upgrading to most current version of OutlookConnector – version 4.5.1. Click here to download the update.
The Creators Update for Microsoft Windows 10 has introduced various technical issues. One of the issues is that it may cause Outlook to become unstable when Outlook Connector is used. The issues with Outlook are not isolated to Alt-N products.
Our technical team is working to find a solution to address the issues as soon as possible.
Who is affected?
Customers using Outlook Connector with the Windows 10 Creators Update are affected.
What is the issue?
After installing the Creators Update, Outlook may, under some circumstances, crash or stop working. We have also had reports of searches not returning results.
How do I fix it?
There are a number of workarounds available but the only solution at this time is to uninstall the Windows Creators Update and install the Windows 10 Anniversary Update (version 1607). Using older versions of the Windows operating system can put your system at risk; please use caution.
How do I install the Microsoft update – version 1607?
Additional information, including updates & fixes, will be published to the following knowledge base article, so check back often for the latest updates.
With the recent release of Outlook Connector 4.0, I wanted to review with you some guidelines for improving the performance of Outlook Connector. Outlook’s performance is affected by many things, including the amount of data it has to keep track of, any add-ons that are installed, how often it checks for new mail, and various other factors. The following guidelines will help ensure you get the best performance out of Outlook when using Outlook Connector.
With each new version of Outlook Connector, various performance enhancements are made, thus, we recommend using the latest version of Outlook Connector on the MDaemon server and the latest Outlook Connector plug-in on each client. On the MDaemon server, you can check the version of Outlook Connector that’s installed by navigating to Help – View the release notes for your version of Outlook Connector. Users can verify their version of the Outlook Connector plug-in by clicking on the “About” tab on the Outlook Connector toolbar in Outlook. Click here to download the latest version of Outlook Connector. On this page, click on the “Download Now” button to download Outlook Connector on the server. There are also links to download the 32-bit and 64-bit versions of the Outlook Connector client.
We recommend using Outlook Connector with MDaemon 14 and above. Newer versions of MDaemon also have various performance enhancements. You can get the latest version of MDaemon here.
We recommend disabling all Outlook Add-ins except the Outlook Connector plug-in. In Outlook 2016, 2013 & 2010, add-ins are located under File – Add-ins. In Outlook 2007, they’re located under Tools – Trust Center – Add-ins.
Regular defragmentation of the MDaemon server’s hard disk is recommended. Server performance can be further improved by reducing the amount of logging MDaemon is doing (Setup – Server Settings – Logging – Settings) along with moving the Logs folder and User, Public and Queues folders to a physically separate disk. When moving logs, queues, or public folders to a separate drive, simply map a drive letter to the drive, then update the Directories section of the MDaemon.lni file (located in the MDaemon/App directory) with the new path to these directories.
Where MDaemon stores mail, queues, logs, etc.
We recommend periodically purging and compacting the Outlook Connector database file (local cache). Follow these steps to compact the local cache file:
Make sure Outlook is shut down, and navigate to the Windows control panel.
Click on the Mail control panel.
Click on Email Accounts.
Double-click on your Outlook Connector account.
Click on the Database Management tab.
Locate the Purge Database section and click on the Purge button.
Locate the Compact Database section, and click on the Compact button. You can also check “Compact database on Outlook shutdown” to compact the database each time Outlook is shut down.
Outlook Connector Database Managemen
The local Outlook Connector cache file should be excluded from real-time scanning by third party desktop antivirus applications. By default, the local Outlook Connector cache is located at C:/Documents and Settings/-username-/Application Data/Alt-N/ Outlook Connector 4.x/ProfileName/account-name/User’sEmail@YourCompany.com.
Outlook should only be configured to use HTML or Plain Text format for sending emails. Depending on the version of Outlook you are using, these settings can usually be found via Tools – Options – Mail Format tab. Outlook should not be configured to use Word as its email editor or to use Rich Text Format (RTF). Both of these methods result in emails which do not adhere to Internet standards.
We recommend configuring Outlook Connector’s Send/Receive tab (located under the Account button in the Outlook Connector toolbar) to only check the Inbox folder for new items at each Outlook send/receive interval.
Outlook Connector includes the option “Download Headers Only” under the Send/Receive tab of the Outlook Connector Client configuration screen. When this option is enabled, Outlook only downloads the information needed to show messages in the message list, and not the full content of each message. When you click on a message, the rest of the message is downloaded for viewing. Users may experience a slight delay in viewing messages in the preview pane when “Download Headers Only” is enabled because Outlook has to download the rest of the message when it is selected.
We recommend configuring the Send/Receive schedule to check for new mail every 3 minutes.
We recommend performing these housekeeping tasks regularly:
Delete any email messages, calendar items, and contacts that are no longer needed.
Empty the Deleted Items folder by right-clicking it and selecting Empty Folder.
Delete unwanted items from the Sent Items folder.
Move items out of the Inbox to other mail folders.
Archive old messages. Mail server administrators can implement a server-wide archiving solution such as MailStore to help cut down on the amount of data stored in user mailboxes.
Following these guidelines will help ensure that Outlook Connector continues to run smoothly. For more information, please see our Outlook Connector how-to guides. As always, I’m available if you have questions!
Outlook Connector for MDaemon makes collaboration easy for Outlook users, with folder sharing for email, calendars, tasks, contacts and notes. There’s also an out-of-office auto-responder with custom scheduling options.
Until now, Outlook Connector users needed to manually check for and download updates to the Outlook Connector plug-in. Now, with the release of Outlook Connector 3.6, auto-update will notify the user that a new version is available for download. This helps to ensure that all users are able to take advantage of the latest features and performance improvements.
MDaemon users can use Outlook Connector to share their groupware data – Outlook calendars, contacts, tasks and notes with other Outlook Connector or WorldClient (webmail) users. Users can grant custom folder permission levels to authorized individuals, display their Contacts folder as an Outlook address book, configure an out-of-office auto-responder, and more. In this webinar, we walk you through installation and configuration of Outlook Connector, and discuss best practices for best performance.
