Brian Fitzgerald
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09:46:49 am on November 29, 2010 | # |
You’ll be hearing the word “Zimbra” a LOT in the coming weeks and you will come to know it as the new Mail and Calendar system at Lincoln Public Schools when we switch over to it in January.
Zimbra is WebMail
Enjoy the convenience of logging into your mail from anywhere that you have a computer and an internet connection? Zimbra Web Mail takes the webmail experience that you are accustomed to and turns it into an experience that anybody could feel comfortable using as their primary way to send and receive messages. Here’s some of the features that will be new with Zimbra Web Mail:
- Conversation View: See messages that are part of a single conversation grouped together
- View your reading panel under the message list (traditional) or to the right (outlook-style)
- Automatically hyperlinked terms like “tomorrow” let you mouse over them and see what is on your calendar for that day
- Drag and drop: Drag multiple messages into a folder to keep them OR drag a message onto the mini calendar to create a new event with the recipients of the message
- Tagging: Sometimes a simple folder structure doesn’t cut it. Use tags to assign keywords to messages that you can sort on later
- Multiple Interfaces: Using an older computer that is having a hard time with Zimbra Web Mail? Maybe you are using a portable device like an iPod Touch? Zimbra offers multiple interfaces, selectable at login to fit the device you are using. Choose from Advanced (Ajax), Standard (HTML) and Mobile.
Zimbra is E Mail
Do you currently use an email client like Thunderbird? You will find that things will largely continue to work as they always have. The biggest improvement you will notice is that Zimbra supports what is called IMAP IDLE. With IMAP IDLE, you will no longer receive messages on a defined schedule (like every 5 minutes) but will now receive message as soon as they are available. You will find that email will have the instantaneous of instant messaging when sending to and receiving from people on our own system. Of course if this is too much of a distraction to you, you can choose to receive your messages on a defined schedule instead.
Zimbra is Calendar
While personal calendars are nothing new, they have not been widely used by LPS staff. We expect that this will change with Zimbra Calendars. Zimbra offers a very nice calendar that is tightly integrated with your mail. You can create your own calendar (or calendars), subscribe to other public calendars, make your calendars available for others to subscribe to, integrate your calendar into your website and even use them to manage rooms and building resources.
With Zimbra Calendars, it is easy to pick a room and some attendees and, assuming that they are maintaining their own calendars, see when everybody (including the room) is available to get together. If you are trading emails with some others and you decide to schedule a meeting, you can drag the message right onto the calendar and have a meeting automatically created with the participants of the message—just pick a time and a place and you are set.
Those that manage calendars for multiple people will appreciate the schedule view that let’s you see multiple calendars in a parallel view to instantly see what everybody is up to.
Zimbra is Mobile
Mobile access is no longer for edge-living geeks. For many, mobile internet access is their primary way to access the web and if you are one who carries a smartphone or iPod Touch in your pocket, Zimbra is ready for you. While most mobile internet devices have had no problem accessing our mail in the past, accessing your calendar and address book were another matter. With Zimbra, you will have always-in-sync contact with your LPS Mail, Calendar and Address book!
Wrap-up
Zimbra will offer many things that folks have been asking for for a long time. It offers many conveniences that will make day-to-day tasks easier to perform. These are a few of the new things that we have noticed while preparing it for rollout. Are there things that are interested in knowing about? Let us know in the comments!