Difference between revisions of "Zimbra Basics"

Revision as of 12:39, 13 March 2008

Overview/Logging In

The Zimbra user interface is a browser-based utility that allows you to manage not only your email but the many collaborative tools available for your use.

To login to the Zimbra user interface, go to http://zimbra.xmission.com and login with your email address and password.

The tabs near the top of your screen indicate what area of Zimbra you will be working with. The different tabs have different features and tools available. They are as follows:

• Mail: Compose, delete, and manage your email.
• Address Book: Create, remove, and manage contacts for your email.
• Calendar: Create, remove, and manage deadlines, appointments, meetings, etc...
• Tasks: Create, remove, and manage tasks, including task or project priorities and progress.
• Documents: Create, remove, and manage documents.
• Briefcase: Create, remove, and manage items saved to your briefcase.
• Preference: Manage your user preferences.

Mail

Tagging

You can create up to seven different colored tags to help you organize your email, contacts, tasks, and documents. To create a new tag, right-click on the "Tags" section in the left-hand column and select New Tag and then complete the following:

• Tag Name: This is a description of the tag.
• Color: Using the pull-down menu, select the color you want associated with this tag.

To finish, click Ok.

You will now see the named tag you created beneath the "Tags" section in the left-hand column. To tag an email, simply drag the tag from the "Tags" section and drop it on the email you would like to tag.

Tagging is an extremely versatile tool for filtering your email. Once you have tagged a message or messages, you can filter to see only those tagged messages by clicking on the corresponding tag(s) under the "Tags" section. This will show all items and messages you have tagged throughout all folders.

For example, you may wish to create a tag for "Friends" and a contact for "Coworkers." Alternatively, you may wish to create a tag for "High Priority" and "Low Priority." Ultimately, the possibilities of tagging are limitless and can be created to suit virtually any need.

Searching

You can quickly search for an email or emails by typing in any text in the search field and clicking Search. Be sure the pull-down menu beside the text field is set to "Email."

You can also switch to advanced mode by clicking the Advanced button. To close the advanced search options, simply click Advanced again.

Simple searches can be done by just entering a word into the search field.

More advanced searches can be done by specifying a search operator. A search operator is a special keyword followed by a colon, followed by some other parameter specific to that operator. For example:

• in:inbox the operator is "in" and the parameter is "inbox" - this returns messages which are in the folder named "inbox"
• from:someone the operator is "from" and the parameter is "someone" - this returns messages which have the word "someone" in their email address

You can prefix any keyword with the word "not" to specify items that do not have that criterion, for example not in:inbox. Search is case insensitive, meaning that "in:inbox" is the same as "in:Inbox".

The following is a list of common search operators:

• content: Specifies text that the message must contain. For example, content:bananas finds all items containing the word "bananas".
• from: Specifies a sender name or email address that is in the From header. This can be text, as in "John Smith III", an email address such as "joe@acme.com", or a domain such as "@zimbra.com".
• to: Same as from: except that it specifies one of the people to whom the email was addressed in the To: header.
• cc: Same as from: except that it specifies a recipient in the Cc: header of the message.
• subject: Specifies text that must appear in the subject header of the message. An example might be subject:"new vacation policy". Use quotes to search for exact match.
• in: Specifies a folder. For example, in:sent would show all items in your 'Sent' folder.
• has: Specifies an attribute that the message must have. The types of object you can specify are "attachment", "phone", or "url". For example, has:attachment would find all messages which contain one or more attachments of any type.
• filename: Specifies an attachment file name. For example, filename:query.txt would find messages with a file attachment named "query.txt".
• type: Specifies a search within attachments of a specified type. The types of attachment you can specify are "text", "word", "excel", and "pdf". For example, type:word "hello" finds messages with attachments that are Microsoft Word documents and searches within those attachments for the word "hello".
• attachment: Specifies any item with a certain type of attachment. For example, attachment:word would find all messages with Word attachments.
• is: Searches for messages with a certain status - for example, is: unread will find all unread messages. Allowable values are "unread", "read", "flagged", "unflagged", "sent", "draft", "received", "replied", "unreplied", "forwarded", unforwarded", "anywhere", "remote" (in a shared folder), "local", "sent", "invite", "solo" (no other messages in conversation), "tome", "fromme", "ccme", "tofromme". "fromccme", "tofromccme" (to, from cc me, including my aliases)
• date: Use this keyword to specify a date, using the format that is default for your browser's locale (for US English the format is mm/dd/yyyy). For example, date:2/1/2007 would find messages dated February 1, 2007. The greater than (>) or less than (<) symbols can be used instead of after or before. >= and <= are also allowed.
• after: Specifies mail sent after a certain date. For example, after:2/1/2007 specifies mail sent after February 1, 2007.
• before: Same as after: except specifies mail sent before the specified date.
• size: Specifies messages whose total size, including attachments, is a specified number of bytes, kilobytes, or megabytes For example, size:12 kb would find messages that are exactly 12K in size. The greater than (>) or less than (<) symbols can be used instead of bigger or smaller.
• larger: Similar to size: except specifies greater than the specified size.
• smaller: Similar to size: except specifies smaller than the specified size.
• tag: Finds messages which have been tagged with a specified tag. For example, tag:amber will find message that have a tag called "amber" applied.

The asterisk (*) can be used as a wildcard in a search to find content that contains words that have similar spellings.

Use the asterisk * as a wildcard after a prefix. For example, the search string do* returns items such as do, dog, door, etc.

Dragging and Dropping

A powerful feature of the Zimbra user interface is the ability to "drag and drop" items. Not only can tags be dragged and dropped to tag email messages, but you will find many features of Zimbra can easily be moved around via "dragging" and "dropping." For example, you can drag-and-drop emails into different folders as well or even drag and drop folders into other folders, making them subfolders.

To drag an item, hold down the left mouse button on the item you wish to move. Then, move the mouse while continuing to hold down the left mouse button. When you wish to drop the item, release the left-mouse button.

Folders

Creating new folders with the Zimbra user interface is easy. If you wish to create a subfolder (a folder within a folder), right-click on the folder you want to create a new folder within and choose New Folder from the pop-up menu. Simply name your new folder and it will be created in the folder you had selected.

If you do not wish to create a subfolder but a base folder, right-click on the heading "Folders" and choose New Folder from the pop-up menu.

Alternatively, once you have created a new folder, you may move the folder around by simply dragging and dropping it on the location you'd like it to be.

If you would like to rename, delete, or share a folder, simply right-click on that folder and choose the appropriate option from the pop-up menu.

Address Book

Adding Contacts

There are a few ways to add a new contact to your Address Book.

If you receive an email from someone you'd like to add as a contact, simply right-click on the email and choose Add to Contacts from the pop-up menu. This will automatically bring you to the contact creation screen, where you can define more information for the contact if you wish. Once you are happy with the contact info you've entered, click Save near the upper left corner of the window. You will see a box that says "Contact Created."

If you'd like to create a contact from scratch, click on the "Address Book" tab near the top of your screen. Then click New and choose New Contact. This will also present you with the contact creation screen. Enter all the information you would like, and then choose Save near the upper left corner of the window. You will see a box that says "Contact Created."

Tagging

Just as you can tag your email, you can tag your contacts to help you filter through them.

You can create up to seven different colored tags to help you organize your email, contacts, tasks, and documents. To create a new tag, right-click on the "Tags" section in the left-hand column and select "New Tag" and then complete the following:

• Tag Name: This is a description of the tag.
• Color: Using the pull-down menu, select the color you want associated with this tag.

To finish, click Ok.

You will now see the named tag you created beneath the "Tags" section in the left-hand column. To tag a contact, simply drag the tag from the "Tags" section and drop it on the contact you would like to tag.

Tagging is an extremely versatile tool for filtering your email and contacts. Once you have tagged a contact or contacts, you can filter to see only those tagged by clicking on the corresponding tag(s) under the "Tags" section.

For example, you may wish to create a tag for "Friends" and a contact for "Coworkers." As with tagging email, the possibilities of tagging contacts are limitless and can be created to suit virtually any need.

Searching Contacts

You can quickly search for a contact or contacts by typing in any text in the search field and clicking Search. Be sure the pull-down menu beside the text field is set to "Contacts."

You can also switch to advanced mode by clicking the Advanced button. To close the advanced search options, simply click Advanced again.

Additional Address Books (Create, Add Contacts, Delete, etc...)

It is even possible to create multiple address books to help you manage your contacts. To create a new address book, select the "Address Book" tab and then select New and choose New Address Book. You will be prompted to name your new address book and select a location to store it. Once you click Okay, you will see your new address book listed under the "Address Books" heading on the left-hand column.

Alternatively, to create a new address book you may right-click on the "Address Books" heading on the left-hand column and select New Address Book.

Preferences

Auto-Reply

To set an "auto-reply" or "vacation" message, click on the "Preferences" tab and then select the "Mail" tab. Under "Receiving Messages," check the box enabled "Send auto-reply message." Then, be sure to fill in the box below with the message you would like sent when someone sends you an email.

http://wiki/images/4/4a/Autoreply.jpg

Be sure to click Save near the upper-left corner of the window to save your changes.

Filters/SPAM Filtering

Enabling SPAM filtering with the Zimbra user interface is quick and simple. First, click on the "Preferences" tab and then select the "Mail Filters" tab. If you have any previous filter rules, you will see them here. To create a rule that helps prevent most SPAM from making it to your mailbox, click on New Filter. You will see the following screen:

http://wiki/images/a/aa/Xspam.jpg

Enter the following information:

• Filter Name: This is a description of the rule you are creating. For this default SPAM rule, you may just wish to call it "X-Spam Level" or "Spam Rule."
• Choose "any" from the pull-down menu so that the first text reads "If any of the following conditions are met."
• Choose "Header Named" from the pull-down menu and enter "X-Spam-Level" in the text box that follows it.
• Choose "contains" from the second pull-down menu and enter five asterisks ("*****") in the last text box.
• From here, you can choose to have your SPAM messages either sent to your Junk Folder or discarded entirely. Beneath the prompt "Perform the following actions," select either "Discard" or "File into folder" depending on your preference.
• Finally, click Ok to save your changes.