Email

I'm a new faculty or staff member.  When will I receive my email account?

New members of the faculty and staff must fill out the required paperwork with Human Resources. Once that paperwork has been filled out and your information has been entered into Banner, IT will create your account and send your account information to your department via interoffice mail.

Are there any storage limits on my email account?

Faculty and staff do not currently have any limits on their email accounts.

Is there a limit to the size of the email I can send or receive through my PC email account?

There is a size limit of 10 MB for emails sent or received through your PC email account.  This includes all text of the email and any attachments.

I would like to create an away message notifying people that I will not be checking my email. Where is that located?

Log into Outlook Web Access. Click on Options on the upper right hand side of the screen. Use the Out of Office Assistant. Select the option for "I am currently out of the office," enter a message you would like recipients to receive and click Save and Close at the top of the screen.

If you use Microsoft Outlook, you can go to the Tools menu and choose Out of Office Assistant.

How do I address an email to more than one recipient?

When entering email addresses in the To section of a new email while using OWA, you should separate multiple addresses using a semi-colon (;) followed by a space.

What web browsers are supported by OWA?

Internet Explorer 5.5 or later (IE 6.0 or later recommended), Netscape, Mozilla, Firefox, Opera, Safari.

To get the full benefits and features of OWA, use Internet Explorer 6.0 or later, which gives you the Premium client. Other browsers (Netscape, Mozilla, Firefox, Opera, Safari) give you only the Light client.

What is the Light client?

The light client provides fewer features than the premium client but offers faster performance. Use light if you are on a slow dialup connection. The light client is the only option when using a browser other than Internet Explorer.

This option does not display on browsers other than Internet Explorer. Other browsers automatically use the light client.

What's the difference between "Public or shared computer" and "Private computer"?

OWA has improved security for the logon page. This security measure is especially useful for those who share a computer or those who access their email from a public computer in a lab or the libraries.

Your OWA session automatically logs you off after a certain amount of time. When you logon, you specify what kind of computer you are using. If you select "Private Computer", your session will timeout after 24 hours. If you select "Public or shared computer" your session will be closed after 30 minutes. After your session closes, even if you leave your browser open and someone tries to use it, they won't be able to access your account.

If you are accessing your email in your office, dorm room, home, or another private setting, it's recommended you use the Private setting.

Can I do a spell check in OWA?

OWA offers spell check functionality if you are running Internet Explorer on your Windows workstation. To enable spell check on all outbound messages, navigate to the Options screen and select Always check spelling before sending. Then click Save and Close to commit the new configuration.

Can I save a message to the Drafts folder so I don't lose it in the middle of writing a message?

To save a message to your Drafts folder, click on the Save button on the OWA tool bar. This is typically next to the Send button.

It is important to periodically save your message as you are composing it if you plan to be inactive for periods of time. If you do not save your message, you may lose it if your session times out due to inactivity.

How do I change my password?

Once you are logged into OWA, you can change your password by click on Options and then scrolling to the bottom and selecting Change password.

Alternatively, you can use the link on the login page before you log in to OWA.

How do I configure OWA to use a reading pane?

The new version of OWA offers several Reading Pane options. From the OWA toolbar at the top of the screen, select the drop-down arrow next to the icon and select if you want the reading pane to be to the right, on the bottom, or turned off.

You can also tell OWA how to treat messages in the reading pane by configuring options in the Options screen. Navigate to the Reading Pane Options area, configure your preferences and Save and Close your configuration changes.

How do I send an email to multiple contacts?

To send to multiple contacts entries at the same time, enter their names on the "To" line of your message, separated by a semicolon (;). Before sending your message, click on the "Check Names" button.

How do I setup a signature for outgoing emails?

OWA allows you to add a standard signature to all outbound email. Go to the Options screen and navigate to the Messaging Options section. Click Edit Signature to create or update your signature. Once you've created your signature, click Save and Close to save your signature in OWA.

If you want your signature to appear at the end of all your outgoing OWA messages, select to Automatically include my signature on outgoing messages. Then Save and Close the Options screen.

What does the Junk filter do?

OWA Junk Mail is enabled in the Options screen. You can use this preconfigured Junk Mail filter to help in the fight against spam. The filter will put suspected junk mail in the Junk E-Mail folder in OWA. You can also configure safe senders and blocked senders to customize your junk mail filtering rules.

Why won't my email username and password work?

Your password is set to expire every 90 days.  You should receive warnings via email when your password is about to expire.  When you see these, you must change your password.  If you do not change your password before it expires, you will not be able to access your email.

If your password has expired, you will need to contact the Helpdesk at 865-HELP (865-4357).

I just emptied my deleted items and it deleted an important email. Is there any way to retrieve it?

After you Empty Deleted Items from Outlook Web Access, those emptied messages go into a waiting area for 7 days before they are permanently purged from our systems. During that 7-day period, you can retrieve messages from the waiting area. Go to the Options screen and scroll down to the bottom to the Recover Deleted Items section. Click on the View Items button, select the messages you wish to un-delete and click on the Recover button. The message will be recovered into your Deleted Items folder.

I can only see 25 messages. Where are the others?

By default, OWA displays 25 messages in the browser windows. You can configure this value to display up to 100 messages. Go to the Options screen and looking the Messaging Options section. Change the Number of items to display per page value, then click the Save and Close button.

I can only see a few messages in my Inbox, but there had been dozens. Where did they go?

There are several view options for a mail folder. One option is to view only unread messages. Check the View options to see if you are only looking at unread messages, or some other subset.

When I create a new message or reply to a message, I am prompted to insert the Office 2000 CD-ROM. How can I stop this?

The error has to do with a control in Office's gallery of components that
OWA tries to invoke -- the HTML Source Editing component, which is part of
the Office Tools subset of features.

This component is not typically installed, but may be set to "Install on
first use" by default when Office is deployed.

The message should no longer appear once the Office 2000 CD is provided. If
the CD isn't available, try following these steps to alleviate the problem:

Open Control Panel -> Add or Remove Programs and select Office 2000. Click
Change.

In the Office 2000 Maintenance Mode menu, click Add or Remove Features.

Under Office Tools, select HTML Source Editing and choose Not Available from
the list of options.

Click Update Now to complete the changes.

I see a message that says my password is about to expire. What does this mean?

Your Providence College email password is set to expire every 90 days. The email system will start warning you 14 days before it expires. If you see a message that says your password is about to expire, you should change it at the prompt. If you do not change your password before it expires, you will no longer be able to change it on your own. Rather, you will have to contact the Helpdesk to have your password reset. If you are a student, this means visiting the Helpdesk with your student ID card.

I'm using Microsoft Outlook to check my mail and it says it's disconnected.

You are probably working offline. Go to the File menu in Outlook and make sure that Work Offline is not checked.