Email Communication, Collaboration and Organiser

The department provides a system that incorporates not only e-mail communication but a personal organiser with calender, appointments, tasks and address book and supports collaboration between users and teams. This system is directly accessible via a web-interface while still being compatible with clients such as Microsoft Outlook, Apple Mail & iCal and Mozilla Thunderbird & Lightning.

What's my E-Mail Address?

Each person within the department has a short and long format email address, typically of the form;

Short format: @email

Long format: @email

In general the long format version is used in any official lists generated from departmental data.

Methods of Access

Web-based Client

The full featured web-based client is the simplest and most flexible way to access the system. This client can be accessed using a web browsers (e.g. Mozilla Firefox, Apple Safari, Google Chrome, Opera, Internet Explorer) which means it can be accessed across all major platforms such as Microsoft Windows, Linux, Apple Mac, Unix etc.

To access this web-based client all you you need to do, anywhere in the world, is go to:

https://zimbra.maths.ox.ac.uk/

Other common clients you might use when within the department

Mozilla Thunderbird with Lightning Calendar Add-on

Thunderbird is a graphical mail client with a rich set of features which has a calender Add-on called Lightning .

If you use Thunderbird on the departmental Linux systems it should be automatically configured for email.

By default the Lightning calendar will use a local calendar in your thunderbird profile. You can also configure Lightning to use your calendar on the departmental mail/calendar service:

• In the thunderbird calendar view right click in the calendar list and choose new calendar.
• Choose a network calendar, choose the CalDAV format and fill in the required CalDAV url which will is of the form https://zimbra.maths.ox.ac.uk/dav/username@maths.ox.ac.uk/Calendar
• At this point it will prompt for the username and password for the network calendar, i.e. your maths username and password.

You can also export a local calendar from thunderbird by right clicking the calendar name in the thunderbird calendar view and choosing export. This will export the calendar as an ICS file. You can import an ICS calendar file into Zimbra using the web interface, where the import option is in the preferences.

Mozilla also has a seprate calendar application call Sunbird, currently there is no documentation for configuring this and also is not installed as default so would have to be installed onto your Institute desktop. As far as we are aware the Sunbird application doesn't offer anything more then what is already in the installed Lightning add-on for Thunderbird.

If you are using Thunderbird on non Institute system you will need to enter various settings. See the remote email via IMAPS and SMTP page for further details.

Apple Mail and Calendar

To use the Apple Mail and Calendar applications, you will need to configure your client to use IMAP/Authenticated SMTP and CalDAV.

Text based mail client - Mutt or Pine

Mutt is a small but very powerful text-based mail client for Unix operating systems such as Linux and is installed as default on the Institute Linux desktops. This client should be already configured for you on departmental Linux desktops.

Pine is a very easy to use and fast text based email client still used by many people in preference to a graphical client such as Mozilla Thunderbird. This client should be already configured for you on departmental Linux desktops.

Microsoft Outlook

The departmental mail/calendaring system is fully compatible with Microsoft Outlook installed on the departmental Windows desktops. Microsoft Outlook should be automatically configured for users who have joined the Institute since February 2011. For existing Windows users outlook settings will be updated for you when your mail moves to the new mail system.

Other mail clients

Many other mail clients are installed on the institute Linux systems. See the Applications -> Internet and Applications -> Debian -> Applications -> Network -> Communication menus which includes mail clients, web browsers and instant messaging clients etc.

Remote Access

The simplest method is to use the web based client as documented above since the web-based client is full featured and only requires a web-browser to use, i.e. no additional local software or configuration is required. If you would rather use a different client then help can be found on the remote email via IMAPS and SMTP page.

Mobile Device Access

Due to the wide range of mobile devices out there and the range of possible methods of connecting them documentation for individual devices has not been produced. You can email @email or see a computing officer to ask for advice for your particular device.