> Network Administrator Guide > Adding User Mailboxes

8.2.3b

Chapter 3b - (2/4)

Adding User Mailboxes

You can add user mailboxes to a cc:Mail post office using the Manage Mail Directory dialog. There are several prompts when a new user is added. At the "Add new name or select existing name" prompt, type in the name of the user you want to add. I recommend entering names last name first as in "Smith, John." Enter the last name, a comma, and then the first name (Figure 3.4). Other naming conventions such as first-name-last-name ("John Smith"), initials ("JS") or first initial and the first seven characters of the last name ( "jsmith") are allowed. As with post office names, you should avoid using characters other than alphanumeric characters. Names will be automatically sorted in the directory according to the language sort order you selected when you first created the post office.

Figure 3.4: Creating a new user

TIP: If you plan to exchange mail with users of SMTP or Internet mail, you should stick to the "Last, First" naming convention. This convention is compatible with the cc:Mail Link to SMTP Gateway’s Smart Addressing feature.

Populating the cc:Mail Directory from an existing user list

As an alternative to entering the cc:Mail user names manually, you can use an existing list of user names from a mainframe host or other system as the basis for constructing a cc:Mail Import file to populate your cc:Mail directory. The cc:Mail Import file format is a simple ASCII text file format defined in the cc:Mail Import/Export manual. A list of user names, one per line, can be converted into a cc:Mail Import file in a variety of ways, such as using a UNIX shell script or a small program.

If you are using a version of cc:Mail prior to Release 6 and you are using Novell NetWare or Banyan VINES you can also populate your cc:Mail directory based on the user list for your network using the cc:Mail Directory Services program (refer to the documentation that came with your cc:Mail products for more information).

Location Status

The terms local and remote are relative to the post office where the administration program is running. The term "local post office" is used in this text to refer to whatever post office the administration program is running on.

The most important thing that the location status determines is whether the cc:Mail messages of a user will be stored locally, or at another post office. As displayed in the post office directory, locations of "L" and "R" indicate that the messages for a particular user are stored locally while the lower case location statuses "l" and "r" indicate that messages are stored at another post office.

If you’re already familiar with the location status, you may want to skip to the tables at the end of this section.

Location Status for Local and Mobile Users

When you type in a new directory entry such as a user name, you are prompted to enter the Location Status. Initially, there are four location status options including Local, Remote, Post Office, and Other.

A local user is signified by the letter "L." A local user is a user whose mailbox is in the local post office. In other words, the e-mail messages of a local user are stored in post office where the administration program shows the user’s location as "L." The default location status in the administration program is "L". To create a user’s mailbox in the local post office, simply press the Enter key when prompted for the location status.

A remote user is signified by the letter "R" when you enter the location status. Usually, a remote user is a user whose mailbox is not in the local post office.

Adding Local Users

Select Manage Mail Directory from the administration program Main Menu. At the "Add new name or select existing name" prompt, type in the name of the user you want to add. If you are using the recommended last name first naming convention, enter the last name, a comma, and then the first name and press the Enter key. You will then be prompted for location. "L" for local is the default, so if you are adding a user who will directly access their mailbox on the local post office using one of cc:Mail’s LAN-based mail user applications, just press Enter to accept "L" as the location status for the user. You then can add comments for the user which will show up in the Directory and will be visible to other users when they view the Directory. The comments field is typically used to reflect the department or job title of the user, but can be used for other purposes as well.

Adding Full-time Mobile Users

In spite of the general meaning of the letter "R" to mean remote or not local, there is one case where the letter "R" is used for a special type of user whose mailbox is in the local post office but that does not access a post office on a LAN file server. This is called a full-time Mobile user. In general there are two ways for a user to access their cc:Mail messages. The first is to directly access the post office files on a LAN file server. The second is to download messages from a cc:Mail Router. The cc:Mail Mobile programs allow users to store messages in a Mobile post office. The Mobile post office database is stored on the workstation where the Mobile program is installed. Users of cc:Mail Mobile can access a post office on a LAN file server or download messages from a cc:Mail Router.

You may have some users who are rarely or never in the office and who will always use cc:Mail Mobile rather than the LAN-based user mail applications for exchanging e-mail messages with other cc:Mail users. This situation is typical of people in Field Sales organizations, for example, or for someone who telecommutes from a home office where they do all their work on a standalone computer with a modem. You will want to designate these users as Remote or "R" users.

A full-time cc:Mail Mobile user is a user that never accesses their mailbox from a LAN and that only downloads their e-mail from a cc:Mail Router. When a Mobile user downloads their mail using one of the cc:Mail Mobile products, a copy of each message gets delivered into the user’s mobile mailbox on a laptop or other mobile computer. The "R" mailbox acts as a a temporary storage location for messages until the user connects with Mobile to download the messages. The messages of a full-time Mobile user are permanently deleted from the post office after they have been downloaded by the user.

To create a full-time Mobile user’s mailbox, enter the user name just as you would for a local user, but this time specify the location as "R". You will be prompted to specify an address, but since the Mobile user typically initiates the connection to the post office to exchange mail, no address is needed. Press the Enter key to leave the address blank.

Figure 3.5: A cc:Mail Directory with local and mobile users

Note: If a user designated as "L" becomes a full-time Mobile user, they will be able to exchange mail using one of the cc:Mail Mobile products just as if they were an "R" user but the messages addressed to this Mobile user will not be deleted after they download a copy. As a result, the messages in this user’s local mailbox will build up over time to consume a lot of unnecessary space in the local post office. One reason you might want to designate a full time mobile user as "L" is if you wanted to keep a backup copy of all the Mobile user’s messages in the post office.

Part-time Mobile Users

Part time Mobile users are really just local users. They have a location status of "L." The only thing that makes a user a part-time Mobile user is the use of the cc:Mail Mobile product. Unlike those of full-time Mobile users the e-mail messages of part-time Mobile users are not deleted from the post office. When a part-time Mobile user is again connected to the LAN, they can access their mailbox and all of their messages normally.

Although full-time Mobile users cannot log in to their mailbox on a LAN file server, the cc:Mail Mobile products themselves have the capability to access a post office on a LAN file server like the other user mail applications. This allows users of portable and notebook computers to download any new messages that arrive in their cc:Mail mailbox when they cannot log in to a LAN file server. For example, when they are traveling away from the office. The cc:Mail Mobile products can download mail from a cc:Mail Router using a modem-to-modem connection or a network protocol in conjunction with a dial-up network connection such as NetWare Remote or PPP.

Adding Other cc:Mail Post Offices to the cc:Mail Directory

If you already have or if you are creating more than one post office, you’ll want to enter the names of other post offices into your cc:Mail Directory. Also, before you add users at other post offices to the local cc:Mail Directory, you’ll want to add the names of the post offices where the remote users’ mailboxes are located. Post offices are designated as "P" or "p" in the cc:Mail Directory. A post office entry is a special mailbox which acts as a message queue for messages addressed to any user who is listed with that post office as an address. When a user’s mailbox is at another post office, any messages addressed to that user are placed in the mailbox of the user’s post office where they await transport by the cc:Mail Router. After the queued messages have been picked up by cc:Mail Router, they are deleted from the post office mailbox.

TIP: If you add the users with the address of another post office before you create the Directory entry for that post office, the address will be invalid and an unnecessary mailbox file will be created for each user. This will clutter up the cc:Mail data directory and slow down the setup process.

To enter a post office name at the "Add new name or select existing name" prompt within the Manage Mail Directory dialog, simply type the post office name and press the Enter key. After entering the post office name enter the location status as "P" for post office.

Figure 3.6: Adding a post office entry to the cc:Mail Directory

Specifying the cc:Mail Address of Post Office Entries

To move messages from one post office to another, a cc:Mail Router either reads and writes messages directly from one post office database to another (a type I connection) or communicates with a cc:Mail Router at another post office (a type II connection). The cc:Mail address of a post office for a type 1 connection is usually an OS/2 or DOS drive and path representing a file server volume and directory. For a type 2 connection, the post office address may be a telephone number or another type of address, depending on how Routers on your various post offices communicate. TCP/IP and IPX network addresses are specified when configuring cc:Mail Routers to communicate through a LAN or across a WAN. A post office address may also be the name of another post office listed in the local post office directory. You can leave the post office address blank initially and then come back and change the address later when you set up your Router.

Location Status for Users Located at Other Post Offices

After you have entered the names of other post offices into the cc:Mail Directory, you can then enter the names of remote users who are located at those post offices. Location status of remote users appears in the directory as either "l" or "r".

Administrators sometimes find cc:Mail the location status for remote users confusing because the same letters actually mean different things at different points in the administration process. The main culprit is the overloaded letter ‘R’.

When you create a new user, you are prompted for location status. If you select "R", this can mean the user is either a full-time Mobile user or any user at another post office. The difference is determined by whether you specify a post office as an address for the user. If you designate a user as "R", you are prompted to enter an address for the user. If the user is a full time Mobile user who picks up their mail from the local post office, then the address is left blank because no message routing is required and the location status is displayed in the Directory as "R".

Adding Directory Entries for Users at Other Post Offices

At the "Add new name or select existing name" prompt, type in the name of the remote user you want to add and press the Enter key. You will then be prompted for location. Select "R" for the location (not case sensitive). For remote users at another post office, the address field should contain the name of the post office where the user is listed as "L" or "R". The post office specified in the address field must be listed in the cc:Mail Directory of the local post office or mail cannot be routed to this user.

Once you have specified a valid post office in the address field, you will be prompted to enter the location status of the user as they are listed in the Directory of the other post office. You would answer "R" if the user is a full-time Mobile user at the other post office, or "L" if the user is a local user at that post office. Once you have finished this process, the location status as displayed in the local cc:Mail Directory should be "r" for a full-time Mobile user who accesses their mail from another post office, or "l" for a user who is listed as a local user at another post office.

Warning: If you specify as a user’s address the name of a post office that doesn’t exist in the cc:Mail directory, the administration program will not warn you that the address is invalid. If, for example, you make an error when typing the address, the only way you will be able to tell is that you will not be prompted for the location of the user at the other post office and the user will be displayed in the cc:Mail Directory with a location status of "R" rather than "l" or "r".

To summarize, when adding remote users to the cc:Mail Directory, entering the location status is a three step process. When prompted for the location status, follow these steps:

Figure 3.7: A directory entry for a user located at another post office

Aliases Defined

Locations "A" and "a" indicate that an entry is an alias or alternate name for a user. Other users can address messages to a user with an alias either by addressing messages to the alias name (location "A" or "a"), or by addressing messages to the actual user name. An alias may be a nickname, or a functional designation, such as "Facilities Manager" (see Figure 3.8).

Figure 3.8: Directory entry for an alias

The "A" and "a" location status cannot be entered directly. To create and alias enter the alias name and enter "R" or "O" for the location status then enter the user’s real name in the address field. By putting a user’s name in the address field, you have made this entry into an alias for that user,and the location status will automatically change to "A" or "a". If the user name entered into the address field is listed in the cc:Mail Directory as an "L" or "R" user, the location status will become "A." If the user name entered into the address field is listed in the cc:Mail Directory as a "l" or "r" user, the location status will become "a." All mail addressed to the alias will be automatically sent to the user in the address for this alias.

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