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Email Service Release Notes

Mac Version 3.7 - December 3, 2009

What's new

• Enhanced the Bulk Account Migration Tool to include migration histories and improved usability.
• Added a Domain Admin settings panel to webmail allowing users who are designated as Domain Administrators to perform certain domain administration tasks without using the Mail Adminstration Center (MAC).
• Added a report that shows recent provisioning events.

Mac Version 3.6 - October 1, 2009

What's new

• Bulk account migration tool: Upload a specially formatted .CSV file to perform migrations of email accounts including email data into OpenSRS Email Service. Available via the Mail Administration Centre (MAC)
• Disable/Enable all accounts on a Domain: Bulk enable or disable all accounts under a single domain. Available via the MAC and API.
• Apply account limit on a Domain: Set a limit on the number of individual accounts that can be created under a single domain. Available via the MAC and API.

Webmail Version 5.5 - August 27, 2009

What's new

• A Spam settings panel was added to webmail.

Webmail Version 5.5 - July 23, 2009

What's new

Webmail version 5.5 is now the default webmail application for all users.

• Added an optional RSS Feed Reader.
• Added an optional Calendar.
• Added Dashboard hiding feature.
• Improved folder icons for better usability.
• Added/reorganized message list columns.
• Improved Search.
• Improved email composition.
• Improved the Address Book.
• Improved the General Settings area.
• Added Secure POP3 Mail retrieval.

Webmail Version 5.5 - April 24, 2009

What's new

• Webmail version 5.5 is now available in a 'preview' mode for all Resellers.

MAC Version 3.5 - March 26, 2009

What's new

• Added the ability to tune the spam filtering aggressiveness to increase the probability that the spam filters will identify an incoming message as spam. This setting can be changed at the Company, Domain and Account level.
• Added the ability to message users directly on a Domain or Company level from within the Mail Adminstration Center (MAC)
• Added an error message that is displayed on login to webmail when the user has disabled cookies in their web broswer.
• Added Single Sign On (SSO) token login to the Mail Adminstration for support staff use when logging into customer mailboxes to troubleshoot.
• Improved the organization of the Mail Adminstration Center (MAC).

December 11, 2008

What's new

Webmail:

• Added Dutch language support
• Added search to the web-based Spam Quarantine used by filter-only accounts
• Improved the Webmail and Spam Quarantine (standard interface) to allow for 100, 250, 500, or 1000 emails per page.
• Increased login speed for webmail
• Added the ability for email resellers to include a custom message on the Webmail login page

Mail Administration Center (MAC):

• Resolved a bug where the header in the daily snapshot csv files was inaccurate.
• Changed the Spamtag or Spamfolder fields to disallow the ';' character
• Increased the allowed length of the Spamfolder field to 128 characters
• Increased the MX Host field for Filter-Only accounts to allow for MX records upto 1024 characters in length.
• Added pagination to the mailbox restore page.
• Added search to the mailbox restore page.
• Resolved an issue so that allow/block lists set via the MAC now work as expected
• Changed the monthly stats view to show the last 30 days instead of the previous month

Infrastructure/backend:

• Resolved further minor issues and improved performance overall

October 23, 2008 (PTE)

What's new

• Users can now specify the folder to which mail thought to be spam will be delivered. Previously, such mail was always sent to the Spam folder. Users can also specify a "tag" to be inserted at the beginning of the subject line of mail thought to be spam, such as [SPAM] or {Bulk} or -----. This feature will be particularly useful for users who primarily access email via POP, as it allows them to receive spam in their Inbox where it will be downloaded along with their non-spam mail, removing the need to review spam email by logging in to Webmail.
  • These settings are configurable by the user at a new settings page which is found at http://mail.yourdomain.tld/settings.
  • These settings are also configurable by administrators, via the MAC.
  • The Spam folder continues to have special treatment: messages in it are not counted against the user's mailbox quota, messages are deleted after 30 days, and messages can be reported as not actually spam ("false positives") via the Not Spam button in Webmail.
  • While it is up to you whether to inform your users about the new settings page, it is a standard feature of the system and will be available to all users. In another upcoming release we will be introducing Email General Help, and it will include mention of the new settings page.
• For 'Filter-Only' users, the Spam Quarantine now reflects the branding for the domain (if branding has been done).
• User-specified filtering behaves exactly as before, but the user interface (in Webmail, 'Mail Settings' >> 'Filters') now describes it more clearly. Specifically, the message "Each of the following filters will be applied to each incoming message" is displayed above the filter list. Additionally, the label "Send notification (to address X)" has been changed to "Forward to (address X) and delete".
• There is now a level of protection against phishing emails that ask your users to click Reply and disclose confidential information such as their passwords and credit-card numbers. If you become aware of such a phishing attack against your users, please forward an example of the phishing email to OpenSRS Support, including the email headers. Our Network Operations Center staff can add the Reply-To address(es) to a list of known phishing addresses, and from that point onward any users who are fooled into responding to the phish will be blocked from sending their reply.

The remaining improvements below are all for Webmail.

• Search now runs much faster, and no longer times out when searching large folders. Previously, search included the full message body of every message in a folder being searched. This caused significant performance issues (including the failure of search on folders with many messages). Searches are now performed on header information only, resulting in near-instant results even on large folders.
• It is now possible to export contacts. Contacts can be exported, from the Standard Interface only, in one of three widely used formats: Outlook 2000, Outlook 2003, and Outlook Express 6. The resulting file can be imported into a wide variety of desktop address book and contact manager applications. In addition, the Import Contacts functionality now works across a wider range of computer platforms.
• When entering subject lines, it is now possible to include non-English characters, such as accented letters.
• In the Standard Interface, choosing 'Reply-all' no longer puts the user's own email address into the 'Cc' recipient list.
• When attaching multiple files in the Standard Interface, if each file is under 25 MB but the total size of the message is over the 25 MB message size limit, a specific error message is now shown instead of a generic Application Error.
• If the user has disabled JavaScript in their web browser, logging into Webmail is now prevented and an error message is displayed. Previously, the user was logged in and Webmail failed in a manner that depended on which browser they were using.
• For the benefit of users on slower connections, if a message body is very large then Webmail displays it as an attachment, which the user can optionally access. Previously this was done if the message body was larger than 50 KB; now it is done only over 250 KB.
• When forwarding a message in the Standard Interface, removing one attachment no longer removes all of them.
• On IE6 over a SSL connection, downloading a large attachment no longer causes it to be saved under the name "driver" instead of its actual name.
• In the Standard Interface, when attaching more than one file with the same name (from different folders on the hard drive), each file is now properly attached, instead of multiple copies of the last file.
• When composing a message in the Standard Interface, copying and pasting text from Microsoft Word no longer inserts font formatting information.
• There are various other minor bug fixes.

July 27, 2008

What's new

Spam handling functionality was enhanced:

• Spam tagging: it is now possible to choose to "tag" the subject line of messages detected as spam.
• Spam delivery: it is now possible to choose which folder spam messages are delivered to.

Both settings can be applied at the mailbox, domain and company level. In addition, the functions to modify these settings have been added to the API.

Spam messages delivered to folders other than the 'Spam" folder will count towards the total storage quota for that user. In addition, only messages in the 'Spam' folder are automatically deleted after 30 days. Spam outside the 'Spam' folder will not be automatically deleted. Automatic deletion of messages in the 'Trash' folder continues to occur after seven days.

April 29, 2008

What's new

Improved Administrative tools have been added:

• Restore Deleted account: Mail Administrators can now restore a deleted account within 45 days of deletion.
• New Usage Statistics: Administrators can now view extensive Usage Statistics detailing email account usage including login type, number of logins, message sizes, storage use, and more.

Further details can be found within the updated documentation for OpenSRS Email Service.

Service Release (Test Environment) - April 29, 2008

What's new

A revised webmail login page is available for testing and preview. To improve usability, the language selectors have been relocated to a dropdown menu and the basic/standard interface selector has been changed to more clearly indicate interface choice and the default selection. The login screen is available in the test environment at https://mail.test.hostedemail.com/.

March 4, 2008

The updates made to the Test environment on February 28, 2008 are now available in the Live environment. Expanded Branding features are now available in both Test and Live.

Service Release (Test Environment) - February 28, 2008

The following updates and enhancements have been made to the OpenSRS Email Service:

Webmail (standard version)

• Users are no longer prompted to confirm that they wish to logout
• Email messages with links will now be clickable
• Users may now choose to block images in the message view pane. The choice is remembered across sessions through the use of a browser cookie. Within the spam folder, images are always blocked by default.
• The link to webmail help is now displayed with a more universal question mark (?).
• The mailbox quota indicator has been moved into the mail settings area.

Expanded Branding (available in Test and Live on March 4, 2008)

More branding flexibility and features have been added to the standard version of webmail, and the branding tool has been updated to provide for:

• The webmail login page will now display the logo from webmail, and colours selected for the brand
• Browser title bar is now brandable
• The ability to add a "support link"
• The ability to add headers/footers into the webmail supporting iframes and/or images
• Automatic sizing of the webmail header to accommodate any size of image file for the logo
• The ability to have a logo plus an advertisement in the header and the ability to have up to two images in the footer, and one image in the left hand column
• The help & logout links and the welcome message are now below the header to allow for full header branding

Single Sign-on

• Resellers who choose to use single sign-on functionality will be able to connect to a page within the Mail Administration Center (MAC) using their domain administrator (or mail administrator) credentials to generate a token for the user they wish to authenticate. The webmail application will then accept either the users' password, or this token to complete the sign on process. Tokens expire after 24 hours for security reasons.

Bulk User Provisioning

• A new Bulk Upload Tool allows for the creation of any type of Tucows Email Service account (full mailbox, filter only, forward, mailing list, or alias), along with most of the settings. The Upload Tool accepts a specifically formatted text file to provide a quick way to provision multiple accounts without requiring API integation.

Administration

• Additional support functionality has been added to allow Mail Administrators to troubleshoot user account issues.

January 31, 2008

Filtering Only

• A new account type that provides filtering only has been added. Filtering Only accounts can be set to reject spam, or resellers can choose to provide access to a spam quarantine.
  The Spam Quarantine features:
  • AJAX-enabled interface.
  • Generic branding.
  • The ability to release email from the quarantine, and create and manage safe- and blocked sender lists.
• Resellers can create and manage safe- and blocked sender lists for filtering only accounts at the domain level.

January 29, 2008

The following improvements have been made to the OpenSRS Email Service:

Reseller Tools:

• Domain Aliases at the Company level are now available. This will allow an email account to receive messages sent to multiple domains (e.g. user@example.com is the same as user@example.net).
• Company Administrators are now able to suspend accounts. A suspended account is one which is limited by the reseller, but still existing and still billable. There are five levels of suspension - no sending, no receiving, no POP access, no IMAP access and no webmail access. The suspend function can be accessed by Company Adminstrators, OpenSRS Support and/or Abuse. In the event suspension is set by either OpenSRS Support or Abuse, it can not be overridden by a Company Administrator. Company Administrators will also have the ability to suspend an entire domain, in which case email will bounce for all users.
• Mail Administrator account level has been created. This allows for management of all accounts under a specific domain with a number of notable exceptions. Mail Administrators will be able to add out of office messages with expiry dates, change passwords, and set forwarding accounts. Mail Administrators will not be able to create or delete accounts, or add storage to existing accounts, as this has a billing impact.

Webmail Enhancements:

• Users are now able to sort messages in the Read/Unread column.
• POP mail accounts (if added by the user) are checked automatically during webmail check. The drop-down selection has been removed.
• Contacts can now be dragged into and out of groups.
• Users can choose between plain text and HTML email composition.
• The add contact group button in the contact area of the sidebar has been replaced by a pair of icons. The single person icon creates a new contact, the double person icon creates a new contact group.

WAP/Mobile Email Client:

• We now support a WAP client for customers who wish to provide email access via mobile phone. Resellers can create a CNAME to wap.hostedemail.com if desired. The WAP client is compatible with over 5,000 different phones.

November 11, 2007

• Webmail users now have the ability to choose between the standard AJAX-enabled webmail interface, and a new, basic HTML interface which is compatible with screen readers and older or alternative web browsers. Webmail will auto-detect browsers which aren't compatible with the standard AJAX interface and present the basic interface instead. Users may also choose the basic interface at login.
• Users are now able to view the full headers of emails within webmail.

October 15, 2007

• Improved Spam management. A new "spam" folder has been created and all messages flagged as spam will be redirected to this folder. The spam folder/quarantine is viewable via webmail and IMAP. POP3 users will have to login via webmail to review spam. Users have the ability, within webmail, to report both messages incorrectly marked as spam (false positives) and missed spam. This reporting helps to improve the overall accuracy of our anti-spam filters. In addition, webmail users can now create and manage sender white and blacklists at the single email address level, or across an entire domain.

• Added ability to import contacts in a standard CSV format.

August 9, 2007

• Support for French, Italian, German and Brazilian Portuguese has been added.

May 23, 2007

Webmail Interface

• New AJAX-enabled webmail interface featuring:
  • Drag and drop folders.
  • Message preview pane.
  • Rich-text message compose.
  • Multimedia support with slideshows for photos and audio player for MP3 attachments.
  • Multi-language support (English, Spanish).
• Calendar integration
  • Calendar functionality has been removed. It will be re-introduced in the fall.

Branding

• A new web-based tool has been created to facilitate branding changes.

Support Tools

• New diagnostics are available to our Support team to assist in resolving customer issues on a first call.

Spam/Virus Filtering

• In-bound and out-bound spam and virus filtering is now included as part of the service.

Reliability

• Overall system reliability and performance has been improved