Show Unread Mail Count at Logon

[EduTech]

Evening,

 

This has just sprung to mind and i wondering weather anyone has done it or knows if it is possible at all.

 

I was wondering if it is possible for an alert to popup at logon that informs the logged on user how many unread emails they have in there MS Exchange Inbox?

 

I think if they get prompted about how many they have then more staff might look at there inbox, where as at the moment i am finding lots of staff don't check there work email even though i have blocked gmail,hotmail etc **there now getting it on there phone!!** will have to ban that next lol!

 

Any help/advice appreciated

 

Many Thanks,

 

James.

[localzuk]

How about something like this? OWANotify.exe - The Outlook Web Access Tray Icon (Freeware)

 

If not, I think PowerShell could be used - as .NET has various libraries related to Outlook and Exchange.

[powdarrmonkey]

I think Dos_Box or possibly Grumbledook was investigating this a while ago, maybe prod them.

[rh91uk]

Would be very interested if anyone has done this.

[mac_shinobi]

Depending on your version of Outlook; Tools | Options | tab Preferences

| E-mail Options | Advanced E-mail Options. Under 'When new items

arrived in my Inbox' check 'Show an envelope icon in the notification area'.

[Edu-IT]

Depending on your version of Outlook; Tools | Options | tab Preferences

| E-mail Options | Advanced E-mail Options. Under 'When new items

arrived in my Inbox' check 'Show an envelope icon in the notification area'.

This only works if you have Outlook running though, I beleive?

[EduTech]

Depending on your version of Outlook; Tools | Options | tab Preferences

| E-mail Options | Advanced E-mail Options. Under 'When new items

arrived in my Inbox' check 'Show an envelope icon in the notification area'.

 

I believe that only works when outlook is running mate, as most of our staff dont use outlook it would have to query the exchange server without that.

 

I will give DB or GD a prod, know DB is busy at the moment with BETT and GD with FITS stuff so my luck might be out the window there hehe

 

I'll have a look out that OWA Notify localzuk

 

Regards,

 

James.

[Edu-IT]

Say again James.

 

Could you not just remind staff that they need to check their emails once every couple of days as it's one of the main methods for communication within school?

[EduTech]

Say again James.

 

Could you not just remind staff that they need to check their emails once every couple of days as it's one of the main methods for communication within school?

 

Ooops sorry fella half asleep this morning and sat at the new message screen for ages lol

 

Yeah tried that and they just dont check it regular enough, just trying to make it better for them so they get reminded as we all know how they forget with all the stress there under

 

[Edu-IT]

just trying to make it better for them so they get reminded as we all know how they forget with all the stress there under

Can you not set a script to run at log on which pops up a balloon saying "Have you check your emails today?". If you could kill the baloon when outlook.exe is opened, or whatever they call it now, then that would work?

[mac_shinobi]

Can you not set a script to run at log on which pops up a balloon saying "Have you check your emails today?".

 

Maybe warn them that if they dont read them within 2 weeks then they will be deleted hehe lol

[Edu-IT]

Maybe warn them that if they dont read them within 2 weeks then they will be deleted hehe lol

If only we could delete staff.

[EduTech]

Yeah These are ways i have already looked at and yes they would work. i was just wondering about this way

[ajbritton]

Are you talking about Staff or Students here? If it's staff, then I would say that there should be a policy requiring staff to check their email on a regular basis. Leave it up to them.

[EduTech]

Yeah i am talking about staff, and there is a policy but some of them just don't check it maybe 2 times a week if they can be bothered at all. Suppose it is lack of support from Higher Management but just thought it might help.

 

I don't mind it being there which is why i was just asking if it could be done.

 

I know that in theory i shouldn't have to do that but hey! just trying to do what i can

 

I'll ask my boss nicely to put it in his large pile of documents somewhere hehe

[srochford]

Provided that you only have one Outlook profile on your machine and that the user doesn't need to enter a username/password (shouldn't need to if your staff machines are domain joined) then it's easy(ish!)

 

Add this to the login script

 

 

set oOutlook=createobject("Outlook.Application")
set oNameSpace= oOutlook.GetNamespace("mapi")
iCount=oNameSpace.GetDefaultFolder(6).unreaditemcount 'folder 6 is inbox
if iCount<>0 then msgbox "You have " & iCount & "unread email message(s)"
set oOutlook=nothing

 

The difficulty with email is always getting a balance of what people receive; if they typically get dozens of messages a day which are not relevant to them then they're just going to ignore all of them. If they rarely get any email (so they don't check it because there's never anything there) then this might help.

[EduTech]

Thanks Steve,

 

I will give that a go in the morning, most of the staff unless there admin/slt dont have the option to use outlook they just use OWA i am guessing the above wont work for them?

 

and i am guessing it is .vbs

 

Many Thanks,

 

James.

[srochford]

It is .vbs (sorry; should have said that :-)) and no, it won't work for OWA but will work if Outlook is installed and there's a profile there (or would be auto-generated)

 

Out of interest, why not use Outlook? If this is just a user preference (they get used to being able to use OWA everywhere and "fat" Outlook doesn't add that much) but Outlook is there if they want it then the script will still work.

 

The other alternative is to use webdav to query the server - this would work even if Outlook isn't installed. I googled and found quite a few example bits of code but I can't get any of them to work :-(

 

I'm not in work today and the sun has just come out so I'm going to get some fresh air; if I get time tomorrow, I'll try again to get this to work because it ought to be easy :-)

[EduTech]

Cool thanks steve, i have run it on my machine this morning and it does not seem to do much other then well nothing i am runing windows 7 / outlook 2007.

 

The main reason for us not giving it to staff generally is because we dont use roaming profiles, and therefore everytime a member of staff moved around they would want outlook setting up so we just thought it would be ideal if they just used OWA. none of them mind using the OWA it's just getting them to check it regular enough.

 

Ok no problem, yeah that would be great if you could...

 

Cheers,

 

James

[jamesreedersmith]

Just put outlook as a startup item and then it will show them how many messages and remind them every time they logon to read it!!

[EduTech]

Just put outlook as a startup item and then it will show them how many messages and remind them every time they logon to read it!!

 

As stated before, they do not have outlook we do not give them that to use as they do not have roaming profiles.

 

what i was asking in my OP is weather there is an option for it to get this information back from the Exchange Server using there username. i.e. logon

 

As much as i appreciate your input, might be worth reading the posts before replying so that the actual question is discussed rather then someone giving me other ways which i am aware of; but not actually answering my question.

 

James.

[elsiegee40]

Make exchange the browser home page for staff, so it's the first thing they see when they use your web browser.

 

We did that with EasyMail here. Annoys the staff no end, and you will have to endure "I can't log on to the internet" calls as they don't go straight to Google, but they do now check their emails more regularly.

[EduTech]

Make exchange the browser home page for staff, so it's the first thing they see when they use your web browser.

 

We did that with EasyMail here. Annoys the staff no end, and you will have to endure "I can't log on to the internet" calls as they don't go straight to Google, but they do now check their emails more regularly.

 

lol, yeah we had this for a few weeks once we made there homepage the intranet.. and as that pops up first when they logon it annoys the hell out of them but they still dont click on the EMAIL button they just minimize the window.