Accessing email whilst away from the office

The problem

A user needs to access their email both from their machine at the office, and from home.

The 'conventional' solution

Send a copy of all email received at the office to a Hotmail ™ account, and access that from home.

Problems:

1. The Hotmail account is of limited size, so can only contain the last few days messages, making it impossible to search the archive for relevant historic emails.
2. The Hotmail account doesn’t easily show sent messages, just received messages. Likewise, back at the office, the office email program doesn’t show emails sent from the Hotmail account.
3. Sending email from the Hotmail account has other problems:
   • They let the corporate image down by virtue of their address.
   • They may not get the appropriate legal disclaimer added to the bottom of the message.
   • The correspondent may reply to the Hotmail address – which may not get checked again for some time.

The Mailtraq solution

Hold all mail within Mailtraq, and make it available from there:

• Use the IMAP interface to allow the user to use their normal email client (Outlook, Outlook Express, etc) whilst in the office.
• Use the Webmail interface to allow the same mail – including sent mail – to be viewed via a web browser from anywhere else.

Benefits:

1. Mail is not being duplicated
2. Regardless of location, all mail, including sent mail, is available
3. Regardless of location, mail folders are available, keeping messages organised
4. Corporate and personal address  books are available at all times.
5. As all outgoing mail is routed through Mailtraq too, copies of sent mail can be properly archived, disclaimers can be added if appropriate, and the recipient sees the correct corporate email address.