Webmail Tutorial - Information Technology Department

What is Webmail?

Webmail is a web-enabled email client that lets you compose, send, receive, and manage your Ohlone email messages and account settings, from a web browser. This allows you to access your College email messages using a web browser from your workstation or from another location where you have access to a web browser and a connection to the college network, including your home.

Important things to know about Webmail

• Webmail is accessed by entering the following URL in your web browser:
  • https://mail.ohlone.edu
  • It is recommended that you add this URL to Bookmarks or Favorites in your web browser for future reference.
• Your username and password for Webmail is the same one you normally use when accessing your college email account.
• Webmail provides a web interface to your college email account. It is not a separate or additional email account, it's just a different method of accessing the same college email account you normally use.
• Webmail allows you to access your Inbox on the email server. When you read your messages using the Webmail interface, your messages stay in your Inbox on the email server, they are not downloaded to your local workstation.
• When you use your regular email client program (i.e., Netscape Messenger), it will download your messages from your Inbox on the email server to the Inbox on your local workstation. Some of these may be messages you have already viewed using the Webmail interface.
  • Note: Once downloaded to your local workstation, these same messages are no longer visible through Webmail, as they no longer reside on the email server.
• Your vacation messages, password changes and other personal account settings are managed through Webmail, using the “Options” link.
• Webmail is currently not accessible off campus. We are working to enable secure connectivity to Webmail. When this is complete then off campus access will be made available to all users with a college email account.

Learn how to set your Vacation Message.

Understanding Webmail Screens

The Ohlone Webmail interface is used to manage your Ohlone email account. Through this interface you can change your email password, set a vacation message, and change personal information associated with your account.

Login Screen

Ohlone Webmail can be accessed at https://mail.ohlone.edu using your web browser. Login to Webmail using the same email username and password you use with your regular email client program.

Inbox

The first page displayed after login is your Webmail Inbox. The following is an example of a Webmail Inbox that does not yet contain any messages.

Below is an example of an Inbox with messages waiting to be downloaded via your Netscape, or other, email client.

Account Management Screens - Options

Use the “Options” link to access the user account management functions. These functions allow you to set vacation messages, change you password, and make other changes to your college email account.

Account Summary

After clicking on the Options link, the Account Summary screen is displayed. This is where user account management features can be accessed for setting up vacation messages, resetting your email password and a couple of other functions.

Please reference the online Help in Webmail for detailed instructions on how to use these features.

Personal Information

This is the Personal Information page. Using this page you can fill in contact information and choose to have this included with each message you compose.

Password

You can change your email account password using the Password page. Changes made here are effective upon your next login attempt.

Appearance

This is the Appearance page. Here you can make some changes to the appearance of your Webmail interface, including colors, number of messages, and toolbar options.

Vacation Message

This is the Vacation Message page in Ohlone's Webmail. Use this page to set automated vacation messages while you are away.

• Enable automatic vacation reply - You can setup your vacation notice in advance and enable it just before your vacation starts by selecting this checkbox.

• Set the dates for "Start vacation notice on [date]" and "Stop vacation notice on [date]".

• Number of days between replies to repeat senders - Enter the number of days after which you would like a reply sent to a repeat mail sender. The number of days entered here is the number of days between automatic replies to a repeat mail sender. This means a sender will receive one vacation reply, no matter how many messages he sends to you, during the time period you specify.

  • 0 - send a vacation reply to every message received
  • 1 - send a vacation reply to a repeat sender once every day [RECOMMENDED]
  • 2 - send an automatic reply to a repeat sender every 2 days (every other day)

The new email system requires that you separate your automated vacation messages into two types:

1. The first allows you to automatically respond to people who send you messages from the Ohlone email system ("internal senders") , and
2. A separate automated response to people who send you messages from outside of the Ohlone email system, i.e. Hotmail, AOL, SBC/Yahoo, etc.

If you want the same vacation message to be sent in response to both internal and external messages, enter that message in both textboxes.

Please reference the Webmail online Help for more detailed instructions on how to use these features.