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15/05/15 Update
We’re excited to announce the BETA of the next version of our popular Windows mail server: SmarterMail 14.x!
Over the last few major releases, we focused on building upon our incredibly powerful email platform and improving upon the features and tools that System Administrators need. With this latest release, we focused on bringing the features that users love and that improve their day-to-day use of SmarterMail. In addition, SmarterMail 14.x brings several new features, server side optimizations and fixes that continue to make SmarterMail compatible with the latest Internet trends. As with all releases, we worked closely with customers and partners, and while we couldn’t incorporate everyone’s ideas into this release, we prioritized our users’ wants to create a new version of SmarterMail that we think you will really like.
Let's take a look at what's new!
SmarterMail 14.x allows administrators to create unique login screens for every domain. Small businesses using SmarterMail on their own servers, or even companies using SmarterMail from their hosting provider, will benefit from the ability to customize the SmarterMail login page to add a company logo, provide additional branding text, or simply adjust the default “Login to SmarterMail” text to be more in line with an overall brand message. Imagine that Howie’s Home Design has 100 employees who regularly use SmarterMail. By adding custom login text, Howie’s can aid employees having trouble accessing their mail by providing links to their own documentation or adding information on how to contact support – directly from the login page!
Additionally, these customizations are especially beneficial for Web hosts and ISPs, where each domain represents a separate entity. Because administrators can decide which domains are able to override the login page settings, Web hosts and ISPs can choose to offer this customization for free or to use it as an upsell opportunity for their hosting plans. They can give their customers the choice of whether users see the default SmarterMail login page or one customized to that company’s brand. Furthermore, since hosted domains are able to provide their own contact information and support links, Web hosts and ISPs will see a reduction in calls and support requests from users who belong to a company they host.
A powerful brand identity is a vital component of any company. For this reason, SmarterTools allows companies to white label SmarterTools products at no additional charge. This can be done in conjunction with the customized login page mentioned above and the recent change to the End User License Agreement allowing administrators to completely remove the SmarterTools copyright information from the Web interface. Whether you’re creating your own private email platform or attempting to market email as your brand or service, you can present to your users a completely customized experience! Add to this the ability to include custom text in the Help menu, that can direct users to your own help documentation or contact page, and you’ve got an entire email platform dedicated to your company’s brand, from login all the way to support resources!
Multiple Calendar Support
SmarterMail 14.x introduces the ability to add multiple calendars to a single user account. Do you prefer managing personal and work appointments separately? Do you have a separate project that you want to track alone? Well now you can by creating a new SmarterMail calendar for your account! Along with being able to add as many calendars as needed, users can add their own custom color to the calendars they have available. When viewing all calendars together, the customized color can help dictate the calendar for the appointment being viewed. Even better, users can sync their additional account calendars using Exchange ActiveSync, Exchange Web Services, CalDAV and SharePoint. This means they have access to all of their personal appointments, not only within the SmarterMail Web interface but in their preferred email client or application as well. (For the initial BETA, users can sync multiple personal calendars through EAS alone. However, the additional protocol support for EWS, CalDAV and SharePoint will be added throughout the BETA.)
We take file storage to the next level by adding support for Dropbox and Microsoft OneDrive! File storage was adopted early on in SmarterMail, making file sharing a breeze. Continuing to build upon that, and similar to the Google Drive file sharing that was made available in an earlier version, we’ve added the ability to connect SmarterMail to your Dropbox and Microsoft Onedrive accounts.This means you can link to files two ways: using SmarterMail’s built in file storage or linking to files you’ve stored in your preferred cloud storage account. Even better – you don’t have to manage the permissions for your files with any of the integrated services as SmarterMail will automatically modify the file share so that anyone with access to your linked file can easily open it, view it or work with it!
SmarterMail 14.x adds support for a more recent version of Exchange Web Services, a data synchronization protocol that allows communication between an email client and the mail server. Support of this updated version means users can seamlessly sync SmarterMail messages, contacts, calendars and tasks to third-party email clients like Microsoft Office 365 for Mac. (Though currently not available in the initial BETA release, SmarterMail 14.x will include support for this newer EWS version in the final version release or the minor immediately thereafter.)
SmarterMail has always included Plus Addressing, a variation of your email address that allows you to automatically filter incoming mail into folders without first creating a content filtering rule. This is a useful way to sign up for newsletters and subscriptions without cluttering your inbox. But what about those times when you only need a temporary sign up or don’t want to give out your email address and get inundated with spam messages? With SmarterMail 14.x, you can now create a Disposable Address!
A Disposable Address is a randomly generated address, completely independent of a user’s current email address. This address acts as a timed alias, forwarding mail to the designated folder for however long the user specified. When the time limit has been reached, the address is no longer valid and mail will not reach your mailbox. You get what you need from the newsletter or service and can rest easy knowing you won’t receive an increase in spam messages.
In this version, we bring collaboration to the next level by adding the ability to view all calendars – shared and native – in one calendar interface. The same holds true for viewing contacts, tasks and notes as well. This is an easy way to have all of your similar data presented together without having to switch between what’s natively in your account and what is shared to you! By simply checkmarking the resources you want to view, you can check out your own calendar appointments along with any that have been assigned on your Domain shared calendar, easily compare your own tasks with a coworker’s shared list and so much more! The ability to view like-items together gives you less time managing displays and more time focusing on what’s important.
Of course not! SmarterMail 14.x offers many more features and improvements. You’ll find them in the release notes we’ll post in the SmarterMail 14.x BETA category in the SmarterTools Community, but here are a few more that might be of
interest:
To get your hands on the BETA simply visit the SmarterMail 14.x BETA Information thread, where you'll see how to: