IT/Revelations

Foundational Element 2 – Hosted Microsoft Exchange

After you’ve taken sufficient measures to ensure that the e-mail you receive is spam-free, things like push e-mail begin to make more sense. Along with push e-mail, you will have the added benefit of automatic, wireless sync of your calendar, contacts, and tasks when you add Foundational Element #2 to your toolbox – Hosted Microsoft Exchange.

I’ve run in to many business professionals who have a BlackBerry or Smart Phone, but they are still using POP e-mail and wired sync through their desktop. They are always amazed when I demonstrate the features of hosted Exchange with wireless ActiveSync.

Up until recently, the benefits of running an Exchange environment were reserved for companies that were large enough to justify the cost of a dedicated server, software licenses, and maintenance. Now, with hosted Exchange, it is possible to get all the same benefits as the big guys in pieces as small as one user seat – for a very reasonable monthly fee.

Here are some of the useful features available with Hosted Exchange:

Data on the Cloud

Within a non-hosted Outlook set-up, all of your calendar, contact, task, and e-mail data is stored on your PC. If you have multiple PCs or need to access your data from somewhere else, you’ll quickly hit a wall.

Things get worse if you want to receive and reply to e-mail on a mobile device. You can either send a copy of every e-mail to a separate account that is checked by your mobile device or you will have to configure Outlook to leave a copy of your e-mail messages on the server. Both solutions leave you with a mess of e-mail that will be frustrating.

With Hosted Exchange, all your data is stored in a central place. All of your computers and your mobile device connect to the central source to send and receive updates. When an e-mail message arrives, it will be instantly sent to your computer in Outlook and to your mobile device. If you delete it in one location, it will be deleted in all locations. If you reply to it from your phone, your reply will appear in your “Sent Items” in Outlook.

Further, you will be able to access all your data through any web browser via Outlook Web Access.

Instant Automatic Sync

With Hosted Exchange there is no need to worry about manually synchronizing your data between multiple computers and your handheld device. Once a change is made to your data, that change will be automatically reflected on all your configured computers. Gone are the days when you had to use a cable and software to keep your data current. In addition, if you use the group collaboration feature described below, changes made to your data by others will nearly instantly be reflected on your wireless device or remote PC. This is helpful when you have someone else who can schedule appointments on your behalf.

One of the most popular features supported by Instant Automatic Sync is push e-mail. Beyond the value of having e-mail messages instantly delivered to your inbox on your desktop and mobile device, push e-mail is a building block that will allow you to use some new productivity enhancers which will be discussed in the near future.

At the same time, push e-mail would be less useful if it wasn’t for the first Foundational Element, good spam filtering.

Group Collaboration

If you work in an environment where it is helpful to share information about your appointments and contacts, then you’ll appreciate the group collaboration aspects available with Hosted Exchange. You will be able to set-up calendar sharing that will allow other members of your organization to view, modify, edit, or create new items in your calendar. The same goes for tasks, contacts, and even e-mail. Everything is controlled by permissions so you can only grant the required level of access.

This feature is what bridges the divide between the corporate uses and personal uses of Hosted Exchange. Busy families can enjoy the benefits of knowing each other’s appointments and scheduling events on every-one’s calendar. The ability to add common contacts between multiple individuals is a handy feature.

Conclusion

Overall, the bottom line is that the valuable benefits of Microsoft Exchange that were once reserved for companies of a certain size are now available to small business, individuals, and even families thanks to the advances in Hosted Exchange. I highly recommend you at least try it out. Once you add this tool to your set-up, you’ll open the door to even more interesting productivity enhancements.