by Steve Galloway | Dec 5, 2015
This article explains the difference between Skype, Skype for Business, and how to link an existing Skype account to a Microsoft Account to communicate with the combined “Skype” user base.
Microsoft bought Skype $8.5bn in 2011, and its success at embedding Skype in its Office 365 and consumer products mean legacy users from the pre 2011 takeover have some housekeeping to do.
Skype and Skype for Business are separate products. Skype for Business users enjoy premium services which delivers telephony and meetings direct to Outlook. Microsoft recently completed a project enabling Skype for Business users to communicate with Skype users who use the consumer “as-is” offering.
Skype with “Skype” user names need to link their Skype accounts with either a new or existing Skype account to be visible to the combined Skype/Skype for Business Community.
Linking an existing Skype account to a Microsoft account might seem like a pointless task. However, Office 365 users increasingly turn to Skype for Business to conduct their telephony, and with Office 365’s newly released Cloud PBX service, which threatens to stand conventional office telephone systems on their head, it pays to bring your legacy Skype account and its credentials into Skype’s new “Directory”.
Even if you are minded to keep your existing Skype credentials, bear in mind that Skype is a Microsoft product, and in the same way that iTunes is little use without an Apple ID, Skype users who rely on existing old Skype credentials will eventually have to adopt Microsoft accounts to maintain Skype accounts in any event.
How to link a Skype account to a Microsoft account
Linking your Skype and Microsoft accounts means you can use the same sign-in details for Skype that you use for all of your Microsoft devices and services. Plus, if you forget your password it’s easier to recover it.
You can only link one Skype account with one Microsoft account, so if you have more than one you need to choose which ones to link.
To link your accounts:
- Start Skype, type your Microsoft account email address and password and then click Sign in.
- Click Yes to confirm that you already have a Skype account.
- Enter your Skype Name and password, then click the arrow.
- Your Microsoft and Skype accounts are now linked. Next time you sign in, just use your Microsoft account email address and password.
If you have more than one Skype or Microsoft account and you have linked the wrong ones, you can easily unlink them, and then link the Skype and Microsoft accounts you want.
If you do not already have a Microsoft Account, there is an option to create a new one. You can read more about what Microsoft Accounts provide more broadly here.
by Steve Galloway | Jun 5, 2015
Update your email account settings when your email account password changes, your mail server or the security settings change, or when you want to customize settings, such as how your name is displayed to other people.
The settings you can change vary by account type. For example, if you’re using an Exchange account, only the Exchange server admin can change your name as it appears to other people. To manage an email account:
1. Click File > Account Settings > Account Settings.
2. Select the email account you want to change, and then click Change.
Update your email account password
If you want to change the password used to access your mail server, follow the instructions provided by your email account provider. After your password for the mail server changes, then change the password saved in Outlook.
Under Logon Information, in the Password box, type your password.
If you don’t want to be prompted to enter your email account password each time you send and receive messages, select the Remember password check box.
If you select the Remember password check box, your account is accessible to anyone who has access to your Windows computer account.
Update your email address
Occasionally, your email address might change. For example, anne@contoso.com might become anne1@contoso.com. You can update the server setting in your account settings.
1. Under User Information, in the Email Address box, type your email address.
2. Click More Settings.
3. On the General tab, under Other User Information, if you specified an email address in the Reply email address box, make sure it’s still correct. If you leave Reply email address blank, when people reply to your email, the address you entered in step 1 is used.
With an Exchange account, only your Exchange admin can update your email address.
Update your email server
Sometimes the server you connect to in order to receive and send email might change.
For example, your ISP notifies you the outgoing mail server is changing from outgoing.example.com to smtp.example.com. You can update the server setting in the account settings. Your email provider can give you the correct server names.
- Under Server Information, in the Incoming mail server and Outgoing mail server boxes, type the server names. The name can be the same for both, but usually is different.
Change the way your name is displayed to other people
- Under User Information, in the Your Name box, type your name the way you want it to appear to other people.
With an Exchange account, only your Exchange admin can update your name.
Additional settings
- Click More Settings, and then you can change the following (options vary by account type):
- On the General tab, under Mail Account, type the name you want to show in the Folder Pane and the From box (if you have added multiple email accounts).
- If you are using an IMAP email account, you can control when items are deleted. Under Purge Options, check or uncheck Purge items when switching folders while online.
- On the Folders tab, you can choose where mail you send from this account is saved.
- On the Outgoing Server tab, you can specify whether your outgoing SMTP mail server requires authentication. This is almost always required if your ISP allows you to send email messages through your ISP email account when you are not directly connected to the ISP network. For example, if you want to send an email message with your home ISP email account and you are away from home connected to your work network, you usually must select this option.
- On the Connection tab, you can configure how Outlook connects to the mail server.
- If you are instructed by your ISP or email admin to change the port numbers or encryption method used by your email server, you can make the change on the Advanced tab.
Exchange accounts have these options:
- On the General tab, under Mail Account, type the name you want to show in the Folder Pane and the From box (if you have added multiple email accounts).
- On the Advanced tab, you can specify additional Exchange mailboxes to open. This can be used if another person has given you access to some of his or her Exchange folders or someone has granted you Delegate Access permissions.
- To reduce the size of your offline Outlook Data File (.ost), on the Advanced tab, click Outlook Data File Settings, and then click Compact Now.
- Security settings can be changed on the Security tab. Don’t change these settings unless instructed to do so by your Exchange admin.
- When you’re away from the office, Outlook Anywhere enables you to connect Outlook to your Exchange account from any Internet location without a using a virtual private network (VPN) connection. To turn on Outlook Anywhere, on the Connection tab, under Outlook Anywhere, check Connect to Microsoft Exchange using HTTP, and then click Exchange Proxy Settings. Your Exchange admin must enable this feature and provide you the proxy settings
by Steve Galloway | Dec 16, 2014
This article explains how to connect Outlook 2007 to Exchange Online email services on Office 365. Business Premium and Enterprise users should download Office 2013 App suite from the Office 365 portal. . Outlook 2007 can be connected to Exchange Online, however its architecture was not designed with any anticipation of Microsoft’s Cloud computing services in mind. Outlook 2010 was the first release of Outlook that included considerations for Office 365.
In this respect, Outlook 2007 is not an ideal solution for business users. Outlook 2007 users who do not want to purchase Outlook 2013 for desktop, or do not have access to Outlook 2013 App via their Office 365 subscriptions, should consider using Outlook Web Access (OWA). OWA is a fully specified browser-based alternative to desktop Outlook solutions, and we have experience of companies using OWA as their principle email client to save licensing costs.
Connect Outlook 2007 to Exchange Online
NOTE: Outlook 2007 supports only one Exchange connection per Outlook profile. If Outloo returns an error when you try to add a second Exchange connection to an Outlook 2007 profile, you may need to create a new profile before you can use an Exchange connection with Outlook 2007. For information, see “What else do I need to know?” later in this article.
- Open Outlook 2007. If the Outlook 2007 Startup wizard displays automatically, on the first page of the wizard, click Next. Then, on the E-mail Accounts page of the wizard, click Next again to set up an email account. If the Outlook 2007 Startup wizard does not appear, navigate to the Tools menu and click Account Settings. In the Account Settings dialog box, on the E-mail tab, click New.
- On the Auto Account Setup page, Outlook may try to automatically fill in the Your Name and E-mail Address settings based on how you are logged on to your computer. If the settings are filled in and they are correct, click Next so that Outlook can establish your settings. If the settings in the Auto Account Setup page are not filled in or are inaccurate or wrong, do the following:
- If the settings on the Auto Account Setup page aren’t filled in for you, type the correct settings based on the information that was provided to you by the person who manages your email account.
- If the name in the Your Name box is not correct, you may need to reset the options on the Auto Account Setup page before you can edit your name. To reset the options, select and then clear the check box next to Manually configure server settings or additional server types.
After you click Next on the Auto Account Setup page of the wizard, Outlook will perform an online search to find your email server settings.Outlook 2007 will display a message that asks you to allow a website to automatically set up your account. Outlook must connect to that website periodically to make sure your account is up to date. If you don’t want to see this message every time Autodiscover runs, select Don’t ask me about this website again, and then click Allow.
Outlook 2007 will continue setting up your account. You will be asked for your user name and password before Outlook 2007 can connect to your account. Make sure you enter your full email address (for example, tony@contoso.com) as your user name. You may be prompted to enter your user name and password several times before you connect.
- If Outlook is able to set up your account, you will see the following text: Your email account is successfully configured to use Microsoft Exchange. Click Finish.
- If Outlook is not able to set up your account, see “What else do I need to know?” later in this topic.
What else do I need to know?
- If your email account is the type that requires registration, you need to register it the first time you sign in to Outlook Web App. You won’t be able to connect to your email account using Outlook if you haven’t registered your account through Outlook Web App. After you sign in to your account, sign out. Then try to connect using Outlook. For more information about how to sign in to your account using Outlook Web App, see Sign in to Outlook Web App.
- If Auto Account Setup can’t successfully connect you to your account, do one or more of the following:
- Wait a few minutes and try again.
- If you need to connect to your email account immediately, use a Web browser or an email program that supports POP or IMAP to connect to your account using Outlook Web App. For information about how to connect using a Web browser, see Sign in to Outlook Web App. For information about how to connect using a POP or IMAP email program, see Use IMAP or POP email programs.
- If you know the name of the person who manages your mailbox (sometimes called an email administrator), contact them and report the error you’re getting when you try to connect with Outlook.
- Outlook 2007 supports only one Exchange email account per Outlook profile. If you try to add a second Exchange connection while Outlook is running, you may get the following error. You cannot add a Microsoft Exchange account to this profile while Outlook is running. Exit Outlook and use the Mail icon in the Control Panel to add a Microsoft Exchange account.
- If you already have an Exchange connection in your Outlook profile, you may need to delete the current profile or create a new profile before you can follow the steps in this topic. For more information about Outlook profiles, see Add or remove an email account at the Microsoft Office Online Web site.
by Steve Galloway | Nov 28, 2014
Shared mailboxes make it easy for a specific group of people to monitor and send email from a common account, like public email addresses (for example, info@companyname.com or contact@companyname.com). When a person in the group replies to a message sent to the shared mailbox, the email appears to be from the shared mailbox, not from the individual user.
Shared mailboxes are a great way to handle customer email queries because several people in your organization can share the responsibility of monitoring the mailbox and responding to queries. Your customer queries get quicker answers and related emails are stored in one mailbox. The mailbox delivers to users’ OWA and Outlook desktop clients. However, shared email accounts do not forward to mobile devices. The reason is that shared accounts are aimed at departmental use so that the first available person with office resources can deal with incoming mail.
A shared mailbox does not have its own user name and password. You cannot log into a shared mailbox directly using Outlook or Outlook Web App. You must first be granted permissions to the shared mailbox, and then you access it using Outlook or Outlook Web App. You don’t need to assign licenses to shared mailboxes, except when they are over their storage quota of 10 gigabytes (GB). If your shared mailbox goes over its quota of 10GB and you don’t assign it a license, after one month the shared mailbox will be locked. You can avoid having to assign the license by using archiving to avoid going over your quota.
by Steve Galloway | Nov 28, 2014
Exchange’s “Connected Account”s feature enables Exchange Online users to connect up to 5 external email accounts (like GMail, Yahoo, Live/Hotmail) to their internal email account in Exchange Online, and then use Outlook Web App to interact with all their messages in one place. Connected Accounts automatically synchronize upon sign-in to Outlook Web App; users can also manually synchronize the accounts from Outlook Web App. Administrators can enable and disable this feature for specific users or all users through the Exchange Admin Center.
