Mail with NHS.net

Thanks - that's got it working. I'm very grateful.

Tom

Having just been migrated across to the new exchange platform, my thanks to previous posters for advice on the Beta program. However, for those that follow, a few words of caution and advice, based on reconfiguring Entourage on my two home machines.

1. Although the Beta program indicates they will reply within 48 hours, mine took a week. I suggest patience since the mac BU team is likely being deluged by NHS mac users who have found this thread.
2. It can take several minutes (I'd guess about 5) for Entourage to detect the correct settings after entering you email address, give it time before thinking it hasn't worked.
3. Read the installation pdf that comes with the Beta BEFORE installing it. I had a scary moment when after launching Entourage it had lost all my other accounts and saved emails. The installer does create a new main identity folder so you can import all your old emails. It would be prudent though to back up your main identity folder.
4. Even after importing your old identity, Entourage didn't seem to have imported my Junk mail training since it decided several hundred of my NHS mails were junk. I do have my protection level set to High so this may not apply if you are not using this degree of filtering. This moves any 'suspect' messages in your NHS mailbox into the Junk folder. If your email is organised into folders, this isn't very helpful since it's time consuming to put them back into the right folders. I suggest making @nhs.net an always accepted domain to minimise the erroneous junking of mail. In retrospect and in future, I could have done this before enabling the exchange account.
5. If you are using POP for any other accounts, after importing my old identities, Entourage re-downloaded all the messages that had been left on the server resulting in several days of duplicate unread messages to filter and remove. This will only apply if you are using POP mail with the 'leave message on the server' option.

It took about 2 hours to install the Beta then sort out all the junk mail and duplicate mail problems. It has been worth it though to have my NHS mail back at home. Interestingly compare that to the 2 minutes to add the new account to my iphone!

wouldnt it be easier to install VMware and a version of outlook and connect that way?

Might as well add my experience, as it may reflect the position a lot of people are in. I've not been an Entourage user, instead favouring Apple Mail and iCal. If you've never used Entourage, setting up NHS mail is completely trouble-free using the Beta release. I have added in my other IMAP accounts, and will hopefully complete the process by importing my calendars. My eventual aim is to move my iCal calendars onto the NHS.net server, which may be a little trickier. No problems to report so far though...

Yes, that would work, but I have multiple POP/IMAP/Exchange email accounts all handled in Entourage along with various folders, contacts, rules, filters, etc and I need my nhs.net email to be in the same place!

The beta works a treat...many thanks to all the helpful comments on this thread 🙂

Hi Steven,
Access to NHS.net email via entourage is only possible via an NHS.net connection and then you will be limited to IMAP/POP connections. The big leap forward to Outlook Web has been a giant leap backwards for me as it has cut off both my mac and my blackberry. I'm contemplating forming a pressure group pushing for better access to the service.
Best wishes
Sam

Hi Sam. As a Mac fan, I am pleased to say that you aren't correct about getting your mail on a mac. You can access your migrated NHS mail on any internet connection using the Entourage Beta which talks fully to an Exchange server and not via IMAP/POP. If you read the full thread above, you will find out how to do it. Wishing you luck. John

for iphone do this

Select Exchange
Enter full email address
leeave out Domian
Username = full email address
enter your password

Save then for the server enter eas.nhs.net
(EAS may be different - might be for East Scotland??)
and that it 🙂

Completed my migration to Entourage without any problems. NHS.net now hosts my email, calendars and contacts. I migrated the calendars across from iCal using Entourage sync services. I did the same with my contacts in Address Book. Over the air syncing with my iphone works very quickly and smoothly (changes made to calendar items in Entourage appear on my iphone almost immediately!)

If anyone wants detailed instructions on the above, let me know.

It seems likely to me that Apple Mail, iCal and Address Book will gain Exchange 2007 functionality at some point, and when that happens, I'll switch straight back again...

i have managed to access my nhs email via entourage following the instructions in this thread (many thanks for all the useful comments)

However, I dont seem to be able to access the global address book which is visible when i am in outlook at work - i can only see my own personal contacts in entourage. i have changed the port to 636 as described above, but to no avail.

Am I missing something - if someone could email me the settings for the directory I would be very grateful
regards
steven

It seems they have all the people using the beta that they require and are not permitting any further downloads. Is there any other way of obtaining this?

Donald

It can be found in the usual places...

I had an email from Microsoft yesterday advising me not to use Microsoft AutoUpdate for Office products if I was using the Entourage Beta. I guess it might break something. I have truned AutoUpdat off by opening an Office programme/Help/Updates and switched Auto Update to Manual.

John

i would very much value any extra instructions on how to publish my ical calanders to nhs mail if possible

do changes made in ical dynamically change the respective calander on nhs net?

many thanks in anticipation
steven