Installation of OWA For PDA / OWA For WAP
Requirements:
Windows
NT4 Server running IIS4 with Outlook Web Access 5.5, or
Windows 2000 Server with Outlook Web Access 5.5, or
Windows 2000 Server running MS Exchange 2000
Using OWA For
PDA / WAP with Windows NT4 Server running IIS4 with Outlook Web Access 5.5
OWA For PDA / OWA For WAP require IIS with Active Server Pages
and CDO/MAPI support. Under Windows NT4 Server, this is generally only
available on a machine that already has a working Outlook Web Access 5.5
installation. If these requirements are met, installation is as described below
in the 'Installation' section.
Using OWA For
PDA / WAP with Windows 2000 Server running IIS5 with Outlook Web Access 5.5
OWA For PDA / OWA For WAP require IIS with Active Server Pages
and CDO/MAPI support. Under Windows 2000 Server (without Exchange 2000 Server)
this is generally only available on a machine that already has a working
Outlook Web Access 5.5 installation. If these requirements are met,
installation is as described below in the 'Installation' section.
Using OWA For
PDA / WAP with Windows 2000 Server running IIS5 with Exchange 2000
OWA For PDA / OWA For WAP are compatible with Exchange 2000, but
there are a number of extra configuration tasks you will need to complete that
would normally be done during the installation of Outlook Web Access 5.5. You
can do these either before, or after, the procedure described in the
'Installation' section.
You will
need to give the 'Everyone' group the 'Log On Locally'
right in the Windows 2000 'Local Security Policy' Control Panel applet, or in
the 'Domain Controller Security Policy' applet for an Active Directory Domain
Controller.
CDO (as
supplied with Exchange 5.5, but also supplied with Exchange 2000 for
compatibility) will attempt to store temporary .mmp
files in C:\WINNT unless another directory is specified as a string value in
the registry key;
HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows
Messaging Subsystem\ProfileDirectory
If you do
not make this modification, only Administrators will be able to open their
mailboxes. Since you need to modify the registry, you need to back it up, and
proceed with extreme caution. There are three stages.:
1. Create
a directory i.e. C:\WebTemp using Windows Explorer. Make sure that the
'Everyone' group has at least change permissions on
the directory.
2. Create
a string type registry key as specified above. Set it's
value equal to the name of the directory you created in step 1. A .reg file to help create this entry is included in the OWA For PDA / OWA For WAP package. It contains the directory
name C:\WebTemp. You can edit it if you want to use a different directory. Note
that the backslash character must be doubled (like this; \\ )
if you need to enter one as part of a registry key value in a .reg file.
3. Stop
and restart the World Wide Web Publishing Service when it is next convenient to
do so.
Remember
that you only need to do this for Exchange 2000.
Installation:
First, use
Explorer to create a folder to contain the package ASP files. In the example
described, the folder is named OWA-PDA and is located in the root of the IIS
server's C: drive. Copy the ASP files into the folder and close Explorer.
Using
Notepad, edit the file named DEFINE.INC so that the line beginning CONST
SERVERNAME contains the computer name of your MS Exchange server. Do not make
the mistake of entering the name of your IIS server unless they happen to be
the same machine. In this example, the server is called MYSERVER. Remember to
retain the double quotes " ". If your are
using Exchange 5.5, set CONST EX5P5 = True. Save the file and close Notepad.
Start the IIS
Manager and expand the tree in the left-hand pane to reveal the Default Web
Site.
Create a
new Virtual Directory under the Default Web Site and configure it as shown in
the following diagrams. In this example, the Virtual Directory is called
OWA-PDA and the source files have been copied to C:\OWA-PDA
Having created
the Virtual Directory, check its properties and make a few more adjustments as
shown in the following diagrams. You probably won't need to change anything on
the first page, but it's a good idea to double-check it.
Make sure
that there is an entry for DEFAULT.ASP in the list of default documents for the
Virtual Directory. If it is not in the list, add it.
Select
Basic Authentication and de-select Anonymous Access. In Windows 2000, deselect
Digest Authentication and Integrated Authentication so that only Basic
Authentication is enabled. In Windows NT 4.0, deselect Windows NT
Challenge/Response so that only Basic Authentication is enabled.
If your
OWA server is a Member Server, click the button labelled 'Edit' next to the
Basic Authentication option and set the Basic Authentication Domain to your
Windows NT domain name. In this example it is called MYDOMAIN.
Finally,
check the IP Address and Domain Name restrictions to make sure that no unwanted
restrictions have been inherited from the Default Web Site (unless, of course,
you want to retain any such restrictions).
And that's
it. You can now access the site using the Virtual Directory name. So, for
example, if your IIS server is called MYIISSERVER, and your Virtual Directory
is called OWA-PDA as in this example, you can open the site with
HTTP://MYIISSERVER/OWA-PDA .
After Installation:
There are
additional options that you can configure within DEFINE.INC ,
these are described below:
SERVERNAME
– This must be the computer name (or NetBIOS name) of your Exchange
server (not the IIS/OWA server if they are different machines). It should be in
double-quotes “” . You can also use an IP
address if you prefer. If your OWA server is also your Exchange server, you can
use the special localhost IP address “127.0.0.1” .
EX5P5
– Set to True if your Exchange server is version 5.5 .
CDO is almost identical in Exchange 5.5 and 2000, but a few small differences
have been found, and the application code will need to take this into
consideration.
BANNERTEXT
(PDA only) – If you put some text in here, it will be displayed on the
login page. You can use HTML tags here, too, e.g.:
CONST
BANNERTEXT = “<b>MY COMPANY NAME</b>”
HEADERTEXT
(PDA only) – If you put some text in here, it will be displayed at the
top of each page. You can use HTML tags here, too, e.g.:
CONST
HEADERTEXT = “<b>MY HEADER TEXT</b>”
FOOTERTEXT
(PDA only) – If you put some text in here, it will be displayed at the
bottom of each page. You can use HTML tags here, too, e.g.:
CONST
FOOTERTEXT = “<b>MY FOOTER TEXT</b>”
USECSS
(PDA only) – If you set this to True, the application will use the CSS
(Cascading Style Sheets) include file OWA-PDA.CSS to format the output.
Unfortunately, at the time of writing, not many PDA browsers can interpret CSS.
If you are able to use CSS, you can edit the CSS file to format the output.
BODYCOLOR
(PDA only) – You can use this to specify a background colour (using an
HTML literal) for all the application output, e.g.: “RED”,
“blue”, “#F1F2F3”, etc.
FONTFACE
(PDA only) – You can use this to specify a font face for all the
application output, e.g.: “Arial”, “Verdana”, etc.
FONTSIZE
(PDA only) – You can use this to specify a font size for all the
application output, e.g.: “8”, “10”, etc.
TABLEROWCOLORA,
TABLEROWCOLORB (PDA only) – You can use these to specify alternate row
colours in the table (message, folder listings) output, e.g.:
“RED”, “blue”, “#F1F2F3”, etc.
CHARSET
(PDA only) – You can use this to define a character set for the
application output, e.g. “UTF-8”
USELOGINNAME
– If you set this to True, the application will
assume that your mailbox names are the same as your network login names. This
is usually the case in Exchange 2000.
MAILBOXPROMPT
(PDA only) – If you set this to False, the application will bypass the
Mailbox Name screen.
LOGOFFLINK
– If you set this to True, the application will
display a Log Off link at the bottom of the Mailbox page. Please note that it
is not possible to make a browser ‘forget’ a set of Authentication
credentials once they have been entered, until the browser is closed (and PDA
browsers are often always running). This facility is meant only to allow users
to share the same device, if you cancel the second login prompt, it will
continue with the previous logon credentials.
ADDRESSESPERPAGE
– This defines the number of entries to display in address book lists.
APPOINTMENTSPERPAGE
– This defines the number of appointments to show in appointment lists.
EXPANDFOLDERS
(PDA only) - Set to True if you want to be able to select any mail folder from
the main folders page. If you try to list too many folders in the WAP version,
the 'phone's browser may crash, so for WAP it is recommended to set this value
to False, and that any mailbox subfolders be selected after first selecting the
top-level folder.
EXPANDPFOLDERS
(PDA only) - Set to True if you want to be able to select any Public Folder
from the main folders page.
FOLDERDATEWIDTH
(PDA only) – This defines how many characters are reserved for the date
in message listings.
FOLDERSENDERWIDTH
– This defines how many characters are reserved for the sender’s
name in message listings.
FOLDERSUBJECTWIDTH
– This defines how many characters are reserved for the subject in
message listings.
MAXPAGESIZE
- This controls how much of each message is displayed per page in the mobile
device browser. How much you can safely display depends on the capabilities of
the device you are using. This value is especially critical for the correct
operation of WAP devices which have a total maximum page size (including markup etc.) of approximately 1500 bytes. The current
recommended maximum message page size for WAP is 400 bytes.
MESSAGESPERPAGE
- This defines how many messages are shown on each page in a message listing.
It is largely a matter of personal preference with a PDA device, but again the
value is critical for WAP devices.
MULTIPLEMOVE
(PDA only) – If you set this to True, the application will display a
‘Move Marked’ button and a folder list alongside the
‘Delete’ button in message listings. It is off by default to save
screen space and reduce the page size.
NOTESPERPAGE
– This defines how many notes are displayed in a Notes listing.
OPENATTACHMENTS
(PDA only) – This defines whether or not the application will display
links to message attachments. Not all PDAs can
display attachments.
PREVIEWSIZE
(PDA only) – Set this to a non-zero value if you want the application to
display so many characters of the message body below the subject in message
listings.
SENDERSUBJECTBREAK
(PDA only) – If you set this to True, the application will display the
sender name above the message subject, instead of beside it. This will allow
you to show more of the name and subject, but it will take up more screen
space.
SHOWDATESINFOLDER
– Set this to True if you want to show the
message date in message listings.
SHOWINDICATORS
(PDA only) – If you set this to False, the application will not display
any icons.
SHOWPUBLICFOLDERS
– Set this to True if you want the application
to display Public Folders.
TASKSPERPAGE
– This defines how many Tasks are displayed in a Task listing.
TEXTAREASIZE
(PDA only) – This defines the HTML settings for the message TEXTAREAs (where the message body is typed). You can define
a number of rows and columns. Some PDA browsers will ignore it, though.
HTMLBODYCONTROL
(PDA only) – Use this to define whether or not the application will
display HTML message bodies. Please remember that it is not always safe to
display HTML messages from unknown sources. Here are the settings:
0 = Show TXT
1 = Show HTML
2 = Default to TXT, with a link to HTML body
3 = Default to HTML, with a link to TXT body
PASSWORDACCESS
(PDA only) - Set to True if you have configured your OWA server to allow Web
clients to change their passwords, and you want to extend this functionality to
PDA clients. Set to False otherwise.
USEADOATTACHMENTURLS (PDA only) – Set to True if you are
disabling the CDO Renderer. This option will use WSS URLs to
locate message attachments in Exchange 2000.
USETABLES
(PDA only) – Set to False if your device can’t display HTML tables.
I-Mode devices, for example, are unable to do so.
USERENDERER
– The application uses the CDO ‘Renderer’
for much of its output, however this may not be available (in Exchange 2003,
for example). You can use this setting to disable it.
AMPCHARS
– The correct HTML representation of the “&” character
throughout is “&”. Unfortunately,
some PDA browsers get confused if they encounter this in a hyperlink. If you
come across this problem, you can revert it to
“&” by changing this setting.
RANDOMURLPARAM
– If this is set to True, the application will
add a random, unused parameter to the end of each hyperlink it displays. This
is an attempt to prevent over-aggressive browser caching by ensuring that
successive URLs to the same object always appear different.
SHOWERRORS
– Occasionally, the application will encounter message/folder object
errors that prevent them from being displayed. If you set this to False, the
application will attempt to continue past these errors to display remaining
objects.
Attachments (PDA only):
OWA For PDA can be configured to deliver attachments to your
mobile device, but whether or not you will be able to open them depends
entirely upon the client platform. PocketPC devices
will normally be able to save attachments to the file system for subsequent
opening. Palm devices will probably have only limited success.
If you want
to configure the application to deliver attachments you need to set the value
of OPENATTACHMENTS in Define.inc to True
CONST
OPENATTACHMENTS = True
You will
also need to configure a Custom Error message for the error '404 - Not found'
on your OWA-PDA Virtual Directory. Mobile browsers do not understand content
types as comprehensively as desktop browsers and need to believe that the
attachment exists as a file on the server (which it does not - it's embedded in
the message). When the browser requests the file, the custom 404 error page extracts the attachment and delivers it.
The
configuration you need to make is to define /OWA-PDA/AT2.ASP as the URL for the
404 error (assuming that OWA-PDA is the name of your Virtual Directory). Open
the properties of the OWA-PDA Virtual Directory and click the 'Custom Errors'
tab. Select error 404 from the list and click the 'Edit Properties...' button.
Select 'URL' from the 'Message Type:' drop-down list, and enter /OWA-PDA/AT2.ASP . Finally click 'OK' and 'OK' once more to save your
changes.