All members of the department will automatically be assigned an e-mail address when they start. Before it can be used by new starters, it must be activated. See the New Starters section of the Introduction to Services page for more information on the activation process.
You can access your e-mail in a number of ways. You can access it via Microsoft Outlook on your DIDE desktop or laptop. You can access it on your personal home computer, and you can access it via Outlook Web Access.
Setting up your E-Mail Client
Instructions for setting up Outlook 2007/2010 can be found here.
Instructions for setting up other clients, such as Entourage and MacMail, can be found here.
Important Note
Please note that when you use Outlook to access your Imperial e-mail from a DIDE computer, you must prefix ic\ before your username when prompted for your credentials by Outlook. So in Outlook on Windows XP it should look like this:
Users of Outlook on Windows 7 should note that, by default, the first time you run Outlook on your DIDE computer it will attempt to use your e-mail address as your username, as shown here:
You must change this to ic\yourusername otherwise it will not authenticate, as shown here:
Outlook Cached Mode
By default, Outlook uses something called Cached Mode. This creates a copy of your entire mailbox onto the hard drive of the machine you are using. The benefits of this are:
- You will be able to access items in your mailbox faster, as Outlook doesn't need to continually exchange information with the e-mail server.
- You will be able to work offline, when you have no internet access. This means that if you have a laptop in an area with no internet connection, you can still use Outlook to read messages downloaded since the last connection. You can also send messages, and they will sit in your Outbox waiting for an internet connection, upon which they will automatically be sent.
As you can see, Cached Mode is extremely useful for laptops, as you can work with your e-mail wherever you are, even if you're not connected.
Outlook Web Access
Outlook Web Access allows you to access your e-mail from any computer in the world so long as it has internet access. This is useful in scenarios where you may be at an internet cafe, or you're using a colleague's computer. It has a familiar Outlook-style interface, so it's easy to use. The web address is https://exchange.imperial.ac.uk.
Public Folders
Public Folders are similar to the folders you have in your mailbox in that they can contain calendar, contact, and task items, as well as messages and other information. They are a convenient way to share information with multiple people, as well as restricting access to only certain people. They can be accessed via Outlook and Outlook Web Access.
The department has a set of folders within the Public Folders that contains information that you may find useful. This includes:
- The departmental contacts list containing the details of everyone in DIDE.
- The meeting room bookings calendar.
- The Administrative team diary.
- The PCD team diary.
Please note that whilst everyone has read only access to the departmental contacts list and the meeting room bookings, only certain people have the ability to modify the contents of these folders.
In order to access the Public Folders, click on the Folder List icon in the lower left hand corner of the Outlook window, as shown here:
Scroll down until you see Public Folders, and then click on the arrow next to it to show the subfolders. The full path to the DIDE section of Public Folders is:
Public Folders\All Public Folders\Faculty of Medicine Intranet\Divisions\Epidemiology Public Health & Primary Care\Departments\Infectious Disease Epidemiology
You can right click on a folder and choose Add to Favourites, and it will be added to your Favourites bar in Outlook, for easier access in the future.
This image shows you the structure of the Public Folders, where our folders are located & what they are, and how to add them to your favourites:
E-mail Forwarding
You can arrange for your e-mails to be automatically forwarded to an external e-mail account here (College login required). This is useful for those that will soon be leaving and want to continue to receive their College e-mails but at a personal e-mail account.
Please note that once you setup the forward, all items in your mailbox will be automatically deleted. So be sure to backup anything that you may want to keep for future reference. This guide shows you how you can backup your mailbox to a PST file, which can then be burned to disk or stored on memory stick or external hard drive. It can be opened in future from within Outlook.
Mailbox Sizes and Limits
To find out more information about mailbox sizes and limits, message size limits, and requesting additional mailbox space, please refer to the E-Mail FAQs.
