The Entourage Help Blog

Why would I not always use my company’s OWA address? Using the Internet webmail address from inside a company network may result in sluggish activity and long delays sending or receiving mail. Depending on the network topology Entourage may be leaving the company network to go to the Internet and connect to the OWA server, which in turn must connect to the internal Exchange Server that contains the email account. That’s a lot of hops. Connecting directly to the back-end Exchange Server is usually faster.

This is a script in progress and I’m asking you for some input into how it will eventually work and be documented. My goal is to make it easy for anyone to understand and use but since my technical writing skills are from the viewpoint of a technical analyst working in IT I can make a non-techie’s eyes cross in just a few sentences if not careful. Fresh eyes make anything better.

First, how should the script work? I thought of three scenarios for how the end user would interact with the script:

1. Each time Entourage is launched ask which server address settings should be used.
2. Automatically and silently change the server address settings based on the computer’s IP address.
3. Ping each server to see what is available and then to use that server. Then automatically and silently change the server address settings based on the computer’s IP address.

The third scenario is my favorite but after testing it with my own company’s OWA server I found that the server is set not to respond to pings for security reasons. The first or second scenarios may be better.

Next, copy and paste the script code below into a new Script Editor window. The Script Editor application is found in the /Applications/AppleScript folder. I suggest saving the script in your Microsoft User Data folder in your home folder ~/Documents/Microsoft User Data/Scripts with a name like “ExchangeServerSwitcher.scpt”.

(* This script automatically changes an Exchange account's server properties based on network location. It is intended for a laptop user who moves between a work location and a home (or offsite) location and needs to change the email server's address depending on his location. 1. Using the Script Editor customize the 10 network and server properties below with information appropriate to your Exchange Server connections. 2. Save this script as a "script" file and store it with your other saved scripts. I recommend storing it in your home folder with your Entourage 2004 identity such as <em>~/Documents/Microsoft User Data/Scripts</em> where " ~ " is your home folder. 3. In Entourage 2004 select Tools --> Schedules and create a new schedule. Name the schedule something like "Switch Exchange Servers". Set it to run "At Startup". Set the Action to "Run AppleScript" and click the Script... button to select the saved script in ~/Documents/Microsoft User Data/Scripts. *) -------------------------------------------- -- Begin network and server properties -------------------------------------------- property workExchangeServerAddress : "exchange1.domain.com" property workExchangeServerSSL : false property workExchangeServerPort : 80 property workNetworkIP : "10.1." property workPublicFolderServerAddress : "publicfolders.domain.com" property workPublicFolderServerSSL : false property workPublicFolderServerPort : 80 property OWAServerAddress : "webmail.domain.com" property OWAExchangeServerSSL : true property OWAExchangeServerPort : 443 -------------------------------------------- -- Determine the current network -- and set the appropriate server -------------------------------------------- if IPv4 address of (system info) starts with workNetworkIP then tell application "Microsoft Entourage" set theAccount to Exchange account 1 set Exchange server settings of theAccount to {address:workExchangeServerAddress, requires SSL:workExchangeServerSSL, port:workExchangeServerPort} set public folder server settings of theAccount to {address:workPublicFolderServerAddress, requires SSL:workPublicFolderServerSSL, port:workPublicFolderServerPort} end tell else tell application "Microsoft Entourage" set theAccount to Exchange account 1 set Exchange server settings of theAccount to {address:OWAServerAddress, requires SSL:OWAExchangeServerSSL, port:OWAExchangeServerPort} set public folder server settings of theAccount to {address:OWAServerAddress, requires SSL:OWAExchangeServerSSL, port:OWAExchangeServerPort} end tell end if

10 properties just below the instructions must be specified in the saved script. The first seven describe your company server settings and the last three describe your OWA server. The workNetworkIP property is tricky to describe. It should simply be the first part of your company’s IP address range. If the script detects your computer’s address as 10.1.22.30 then it will compare that to workNetworkIP property and set Entourage to use your company’s back-end Exchange Server. If the script detects your computer’s address as 192.168.1.5 then it will compare that to workNetworkIP property and set Entourage to use your OWA server. The rest of the settings should be fairly straight forward but I'll document these in detail later.

Finally, create a schedule in Entourage that points to the script. It should execute at Startup and trigger the Run AppleScript action. Click the Script… button to select the saved script. The script is ready to run the next time you launch Entourage. If you’re able to access your Exchange account while connected to your company network and home network and never have to change server settings then it has accomplished its mission.

This script should not destroy or lose any of your Exchange information but it also hasn’t been thoroughly tested. Practice safe testing and back up your identity found in your MUD first.

Please post your comments, problems and suggestions here so that all interested folks can learn from your thoughts or experiences. The final script and documentation will be posted later in the Exchange section of The Entourage Help Page.