Outlook and IMAP

[Todd]

At our office we made a change from POP to IMAP because of all the
Blackberries and iPhones. Outlook (2003 moving to 2007)is our standard email
client on all desktops, but Outlook is very different on IMAP. My users are
very frustrated and I am looking for the best approach to address thier
issues.

1..Deleted Messages. I know you can purge or hide deleted messages, but
they want the messages moved to the deleted items folder as before. I have
put a button for purging messages, but is there anyway to move the messages
upon deletion and then let them purge them?

2..New INBOX. The users have a group of folders from thier old POP account
with a deleted folders and sent folders. The emails appears to be in that
sent folder versus the IMAP area. They are confused where to look for mail.
Can I have one group of folders with INBOX, OUTBOX, SENT, DRAFT etc instead
of all the two groups which includes the second group of IMAP folders?

On another note, Outlook is very sluggish upon startup. Our roadwarrior
sales guys use the evdo cards such as the cingular and verizon cell cards.
Outlook becomes unresponsive for about 10 minutes and them seems to work
fine. We had no issues pulling pop down with these cards, but IMAP seems to
be much more intense. On the vista users, the screen white's out untill
email is syncronized. any suggestions?

 

[Brian Tillman]

1..Deleted Messages. I know you can purge or hide deleted messages,
but they want the messages moved to the deleted items folder as
before.

Can't be done. IMAP doesn't work that way.

I have put a button for purging messages, but is there
anyway to move the messages upon deletion and then let them purge
them?

Outlook 2007 has an option to purge upon exit, I believe.

2..New INBOX. The users have a group of folders from thier old POP
account with a deleted folders and sent folders. The emails appears
to be in that sent folder versus the IMAP area. They are confused
where to look for mail. Can I have one group of folders with INBOX,
OUTBOX, SENT, DRAFT etc instead of all the two groups which includes
the second group of IMAP folders?

No. Each IMAP account gets its own set of folders that act as a cache for
reflecting what's on the server. An IMAP folder set can never be the
default fodlers. You can, however, create a rule that moves outgoing
messages sent by the IMAP account to one of the IMAP folders. You can, of
course, create a folder named "Sent Items" on the IMAP server and use that
as the move destination.

On another note, Outlook is very sluggish upon startup. Our
roadwarrior sales guys use the evdo cards such as the cingular and
verizon cell cards. Outlook becomes unresponsive for about 10 minutes
and them seems to work fine. We had no issues pulling pop down with
these cards, but IMAP seems to be much more intense. On the vista
users, the screen white's out untill email is syncronized. any
suggestions?

IMAP seem more I/O intensive than POP, especially if you have Outlook query
all of the IMAP folders to determine what's in them. It must copy the
contents of the IMAP folders to the local cache. The problem can be
ameliorated by some of the send/receive group settings. Additionally, I
don't think Outlook is one of the better IMAP clients, but that's just my
opinion.