Web-Mail

SMBC IT Division currently provides the Web-Mail service at no cost to schools. The version of Web Mail introduced in 1998 became obsolete and is no longer supported; so earlier this year a new Web Mail service replaced it. The new version is an ‘Open Source’ software product. ‘Open-Source’ means that it is ‘free’ software rather than a commercial product. There was limited financial resource available for the procurement of a replacement Web-Mail system, which is why an ‘Open Source’ product was selected.

Following its introduction there were early ‘teething’ troubles but most of these were resolved. In September, there was an upgrade to give better support for address books but this led a period of instability, which was resolved by the end of September.

Since the beginning of October, we have received only seven calls to the Broadband Sandwell/EMU helpdesk requesting assistance with Web Mail. One of these was a request for the addition of a new user, two concerned ‘spam’, one concerned a corrupted user account and the remaining 3 appear to be logging in problems.

On Tuesday the 11th October, a network fault affected all email systems in our broadband network (not just Web Mail). Within a few hours of being reported, the problem was resolved. N.B. this was not a fault with the Web Mail service.

Intermittently, since the end of last week, there has been a problem with the Council’s ‘Group-wise’ email system. Web Mail users will have received error messages occasionally when they have attempted to send email to council email addresses (e.g. LEA officers). Once again, this is not a fault with the Web Mail service.

During the past few weeks, some High Schools have moved their email address identities to the Shireland Learning Gateway. Whenever an email address moves to a different service, there is a few days disruption to the email account whilst the details of the new location propagate around the Internet. This is a little like moving house, when it is usually necessary to arrange for post to be redirected for a period until your change of address is widely known. Email sent to the account during this period may generate error messages for a while. Once again, this is not a fault with the Web Mail service.

I understand that some schools have raised concerns about the reliability of the Web Mail service at recent cluster group meetings. Currently, the incidents indicated above are the only problems we have known of. We are unaware of any other problems with the service. Schools are asked to contact Broadband Sandwell/EMU on 0121 544 2001 or 0121 569 2414 (Helpdesk) and report faults so that we can investigate further and resolve them for you.

When you call our helpdesk, please note the call reference number given to you, (reminder: if you do not have a call reference number then your problem is not logged on our system and may take much longer to resolve).

At this stage, we can only guess at the nature of the problems raised at cluster group meetings. Problems that we have dealt with previously have often related to users not using the correct URL to access the mail service. The correct URL for your school can be found at http://www.schools.sandwell.net/email together with instructions to create a ‘Favourites’ shortcut link. It is possible that some users have old shortcuts in their favourites list that still point to the address used to access the old service, which no longer allows logins.

If you are still experiencing problems then please contact us.

If you are completely dissatisfied with the Web Mail service, you may prefer to consider an alternative. Most High Schools are in the process of migrating to the Shireland Learning Gateway, which provides Microsoft Outlook/Exchange email and supports their <schoolname>.sandwell.sch.uk email addresses. At some point in the future, Primary Schools may have the opportunity to transfer to the Shireland Learning Gateway but in the meantime, one suggested alternative for a Primary School is RM ‘EasyMailplus’. This product is a web mail service with a range of features and we believe it will be possible to set up users with similar email addresses to the council Web Mail service. RM EasyMailplus is available from RM, contact Broadband Sandwell/EMU for further information, assistance and advice on this and other similar products.