Primary Email Blog

New dashboard for the control panel

2010-09-08T17:00:00.000-07:00

Welcome back, we hope everyone had a relaxing break over the summer,

We have been busy making our control panel better for customers, we have added lots of new functionality and we would appreciate any feedback that you may have,

You can login to the control panel: https://crm.primaryt.co.uk

having trouble logging in or have feedback let us know: support@primaryemail.co.uk

Primary Email Team

Primary Email @ E2BN

2010-06-28T09:42:00.000-07:00

We are attending the E2BN conference, from 29Th to 30Th June 2010

http://conference.e2bn.org/

If you are attending the conference, please pop along and say hi, we are on stand 43.

Primary Email Team

The growth and development of e-mail and its effectiveness as a means of communication by Ben Silverstone

2010-04-08T11:25:00.000-07:00

Here is the Final document

Here are the Findings

Our thanks to Ben for making this available publicly.

Recent Glitches with the Primary Email System

2010-02-25T05:32:00.000-08:00

We don't have many but...

The Primary Email logon page was not working briefly this morning, this was fixed shortly after 8:50AM

Users may have seen emails returned with:
Delivery is delayed to these recipients or distribution lists

This problem is now resolved. If you received a email that indicated the email you just sent had been delayed, then the email will have now been delivered successfully.

These problems where not global and may not have affected all customers.

Primary Email Team

How to add your primary email school diary to your primary blogger blog

2009-12-28T15:32:00.001-08:00

Log into your Primary Blogger account
Click Appearance > Widgets
Drag the RSS widget over to the sidebar
In the URL box on the RSS widget type in: http://diary.primaryemail.co.uk/rss/THREELETTERS.diary.xml - Replacing THREELETTERS with your schools 3 letter code (first 3 letters of your email address)
Click save and you are done :)
Return to your blog to bask in your glory

Please get in touch if you want to publish your personal diary or free busy information.

Spam on the 23rd and 24th of December

2009-12-24T06:12:00.000-08:00

Christmas greetings all.

Our elves have been working hard improving the spam filter however over night on the 23rd some spam may have got through. We have resolved this today (the 24th) and we should back to normal.

These improvements should make it easier for users to manage their own spam settings in the not so distant future!

SPAM Filters

2009-10-20T07:45:00.000-07:00

We have been working on the SPAM filters today, some SPAM may have slipped through into users Inbox. The filters are back online and normal service has been resumed.

Reseting users passwords

2009-10-14T04:58:00.000-07:00

The Primary Email reset password tool is now working. Our web wizards have been working hard and have improved the search and filterable options.

This can be accessed through the Primary Email Portal. If you do not have access to the Primary Email Portal please contact Support@PrimaryEmail.co.uk.

Web Access

2009-10-09T06:28:00.000-07:00

Good News,

Our Primary Email logon box is now back and working correctly.

You mat have also noticed the My School Diary and Open Calendar buttons missing from the Web Access, these buttons have also been restored.

Primary Email Support Team

Todays Problems

2009-10-08T16:39:00.000-07:00

Our Outlook Web Access went down earlier today,

Good news, we restored all functionality and no emails or data has been lost.

You may notice a change when attempting to logon to Primary Email, you will be prompted by a different logon box, enter your username and password as normal and you will be be logged in, the usual logon box will come back shortly.

This was unexpected downtime and new measures are been implemented to make sure this does not happen again.

Primary Email Support Team

Todays issue

2009-10-08T08:42:00.001-07:00

Today a file went currupt meaning that some users are having problems accessing their email.

No email has been lost in this time and we are currently working on restoring the file from backup (it's a big file)!

We expect normal service to be resumed by 5:30pm - We will constantly update this page to keep you informed!

Thanks

A super busy Primary Email team!

Email not been delivered.

2009-09-16T02:55:00.001-07:00

Over the last few days, we had a problem with one of the online SPAM filtering sites blocking emails from School Email. We where wrongly categorised by the site and had to wait 48hrs to be unfiltered.

This has caused some users to experience bounce backs when sending emails to certain domains, this has been fixed now.

If you had an email bounce back please resend it now and it will be delivered as expected.

McWizard

2009-09-15T07:53:00.000-07:00

Our McWizard email account has not been working correctly over the last few days, if you have attempted to play the Primary Email game, you might have had some trouble with the emails received from McWizard not been in the correct format.

The McWizard account has been fixed and will now reply correctly to game emails.

New Feature - Pupil keyword fitering

2009-07-15T08:45:00.000-07:00

We where asked by one of our customers, can I stop certain keywords from been sent to pupils?

We went away and worked out a way to do this. So now all our customers can filter emails based on keywords. When a email is sent to a pupil if any of the words in the email match any of your filtered words the email will not be delivered.

The feature can be accessed via the Primary Email portal. If you are a current customer and don't have access to the portal please contact: support@primaryemail.co.uk

If you have any ideas for new features like this one please feel free to let us know: ideas@primaryemail.co.uk

Primary Email @ E2BN Conference

2009-06-24T13:10:00.000-07:00

This week Primary Email exhibited at the E2BN Conference in Bedfordshire.
We went down with Primary Games Arena,(http://primarygamesarena.com) and exhibited for two days Tuesday 24Th June and Wednesday 25Th June. More information about the conference can be found here: http://conference.e2bn.org

It was a great venue and very well organised, we would like to thank all the delegates who spoke to us and thank the E2BN for inviting us to a great conference.
We managed to speak to lots of great delegates and companies, we are looking forward to hearing from them soon!
We are hoping to exhibit at the E2BN next year, we will post more information when the next event is coming up.

More Features for Primary Email

2009-06-19T02:21:00.000-07:00

We have been very busy lately making Primary Email even better, we have now added 4 more fetaures!

Bulk reset pupil passwords - This allows you to change all your pupil passwords in one go.

Restrict Pupil email - pupil accounts can now be changed to only accept email from primary email accounts. Stopping pupils sending and receiving email from external people.

Disable an account - you can now turn an account on or off.

Delete an account - you can now fully delete an account which will remove the email account and delete all emails associated to it.

All these features are available now via the customer portal.

POP3 and IMAP connectivity now available

2009-06-12T15:07:00.000-07:00

Primary Email now offers additional connectivity, POP3 and IMAP connectivity is now available

These additional protocols now mean that Premium Customers can connect additional 3rd party email clients to Primary Email,
The settings are:

Inbound and Outbound server address for POP3 and IMAP:

exchange.primaryemail.co.uk

You will also need to select either SSL or TLS security (this ensures all your data stays secure) Unsecured connection attempts will fail.

NOTE: Please be aware that if you use POP3 connectivity, your client application may remove emails from the Primary Email servers.

More guides and help will be available shortly from the Primary Email website.

How to link to the Primary Email Login Page

2009-06-09T18:53:00.001-07:00

If you are in the UK then the URL to the Primary Email login page is

https://exchange.primaryemail.co.uk/owa

This will bypass the http://primaryemail.co.uk site.

Enjoy :)

Proceed to the Primary Email Login Page

New features avaliable for Primary Email customers

2009-06-09T09:01:00.000-07:00

We are pleased to announce two new features of Primary Email,

Custom Disclaimer, schools can now configure a custom disclaimer for their school.

Internal email for pupils, you can now configure your pupil email accounts to only allow internal emails!

Both these features are accessible via the Customer Portal.

We are always looking for ways to improve Primary Email, if you have any ideas for new features please get in touch:
ideas@primaryemail.co.uk

If you are a customer and don't have access to the customer portal, please contact us:
support@primaryemail.co.uk

Fixed the "RSS feeds not displaying correctly bug"

2009-05-03T09:56:00.000-07:00

This is now fixed, to access your RSS feed simply access

http://rss.primaryemail.co.uk/yourschoolscode.diary.xml

IE

http://rss.primaryemail.co.uk/dem.diary.xml

Don't forget you can view your weekly diary in HTML format too..

http://diary.primaryemail.co.uk/dem.diary.html

Enjoy :)

John (is done coding for today and is going out party 2nite (but not till too late cause I'm getting old))

Demo accounts "My school diary" bug

2009-05-03T05:09:00.001-07:00

The dem.pupil, dem.teacher, dem.admin and the rest of the trial.demo accounts had a broken function.

When you clicked "My School Diary" you received an error. You should of taken you to the school diary of demo primary school.

This is now fixed :) Enjoy!
John

Spam over the 1st and 2nd of May (Bank holiday weekend)

2009-05-03T05:06:00.001-07:00

Hi everyone,

I was doing some work on the spam filters on Saturday and Sunday of this week, some of the work I was doing stopped filtering working on one of the servers so about 7% of the spam we usually drop was not filtered and delivered to users mailboxes.

Do not panic! Everything is all sorted now :)

Sorry about the spam arriving in your inbox!

John

Spam on the 19th of April(Sunday) (AM)

2009-04-19T07:53:00.000-07:00

One of our spam processing servers had a glitch this morning and was rather lenient on what it classed as spam. For this reason between 7am and 1pm some spam got through our filters.

We have resolved the issue and put some additional code in place to ensure this does not happen again in the future.

Our fight against spam continues, even with this slight downtime we still have the best spam filtering in any school email solution by leaps and bounds.

Keep an eye on the blog for more info!

New presentation/slideshow explains features of Primary Email

2009-04-06T03:52:00.000-07:00

We had some downtime

2009-04-01T10:13:00.000-07:00

you may or may not have noticed that we have had some downtime over the past few days. We had a power problem with our servers at 23:35pm GMT on Monday 30Th April 2009 this was resolved at midnight when the service will have resumed as normal.

We also experienced a short outage at 22:10pm GMT 31st March 2009 when you may have not been able to access your mailbox. This was resolved within 10Min's and service will have resumed as normal.

We do make every effort to ensure that our service is always online, please be aware that the outages will not have caused any interruptions to email flow.

Save the Wizard Email Game Gadget now available

2009-03-31T10:21:00.001-07:00

So you want to put an email game onto your website or blog?

It's now even easier! Simple Add a new gadget and point the URL at http://primaryemail.co.uk/wizard.xml

To access the game directly simple click Here

Taking your corner in the fight against Spam/UCE!

2009-03-16T11:59:00.001-07:00

We have been fighting against spam email senders for the last few weeks!

A lot of schools have been receiving a lot of targeted/focused educational spam. This UCE/Most spam is illegal, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CAN-SPAM_Act_of_2003. We have slightly different laws to the US.

Most of it is what we called "Harvested". This means that a company or set of companies has set up a "spider" or "bot" that searches the Internet looking for school email addresses then sends emails out to your office or school email account pretending that you have registered.

So we got tough! We have been calling these spammers and asking them if your school has explicitly requested for the spammer to send email to the school. If they say no then we explain the Can Spam act to them and request that they change their UCE/Spam policies to a slightly more legal practice.

Any if they don't? After no response for 10 days we black list the servers they send email from. The fine to be un-blacklisted is £500.

Consider this a Spam/UCE wheel(email) clamp....

Many "marketing companies" will claim you have subscribed to their services by purchasing a product and that gives them a legal right to email you. Often these companies will give you an unsubscribe option, often this unsubscribe option encourages more spam of a certain nature and is well documented by a Spamhaus(trusted source). To read information on unsubscribe options click here.

Since I posted this blog and began blacklisting servers I have noticed my popularity drop with various suppliers and vendors who use this method to attract new customers. For this reason I am considering writing a new add on for our various applications which instead of spam creates a "Marketing" folder, automatically putting marketing into a nice quiet place.

Please vote on the blog if this is something you would be interested in!

If you do receive spam you may wish to let the "SpamCop" know

Primary Email Service Upgrades

2009-02-24T03:14:00.001-08:00

As time pushes forward we are constantly improving our service. During the school holidays (16Th -20Th Feb 2009) we have been upgrading our systems to provide an even better quality of service.
The upgrades are still on going and will be complete by the 1st of March 2009.

The good news...

This will increase the access speed of Microsoft Outlook and Primary Email OWA.

The upgrades will not interfere with any emails or the service that you curently receive from Primary Email.

Got SPAM - Don't Panic!

2009-02-24T03:10:00.000-08:00

Did you receive SPAM over the holidays..

Don't panic, we have been running tests on our Spam filters, this may have resulted in you receiving some SPAM. We have finished the tests and have now updated the SPAM filters to be even better!

My School Diary

2009-02-08T11:39:00.000-08:00

Users of Primary Email will now see the my school diary button to outlook web-access, this will show your school diary with just one click.

Ever wondered how to let the whole school know about upcoming events like parents evening? My School Diary is a very affective way of displaying these types of information and can be easily accessed by the whole school, so that everyone knows in advance whats going on around school.

Customised Non Delivery Reports should make life a little easier (5.1.1)

2009-02-08T05:32:00.001-08:00

Users of Primary Email now recieve simplified non delivery reports if an email address is type wrong. This is to simplify the teaching experience.

The new Non Delivery Reports read:

'Whoops, we could not find that person! Did you spell their email address properly? Please double check the email address and try to resend! Thanks, McWizard, PrimaryEmail.co.uk'

Primary Email Web-Access Tips

2009-02-01T09:42:00.001-08:00

We have put together a list of tips for using Primary Email in your web-browser. Also known as Exchange Outlook Web Access 2007 (OWA).

The tips provide a list of keyboard shortcuts as well as instructions for using OWA to it's full potential. Tips include using reminders, tasks, interacting with menus and OWA shared calendars; all helping to make schools more productive and more efficient!

Download: OWA 2007 Tips for Primary Email Web-Access

Primary Email @ Bett 2009

2009-01-22T01:41:00.000-08:00

We exhibited at the Bett show 2009, we would like to thank everyone who came to see us at stand N59. Here are some of our favourite pictures from the show

McWizard Arrives

He quickly makes some new friends

Stand N59

Some of our staff and McWizard giving demonstrations.

Some of the people that came to visit us.

Some more people that came to visit us.

BETT 2009 approaches! January 2009

2009-01-09T08:19:00.001-08:00

We are exhibiting at this year's BETT Show 2009 from 14th-17th January. If you would like a chat or a product demonstration, we will be residing in the Grand Hall Gallery at stand N59.

Find out more: click to view our BETT Show 2009 Listing

Onsite Training Available in Yorkshire. December 2008

2008-12-08T14:02:00.000-08:00

Training is now available for schools in Yorkshire. There are two training sessions, one covering the features of Outlook Web-Access (basic to intermediate level users) and one covering Office Outlook and Advanced shared calendars (typically for Admin/SMT staff).

User Video Guides. October 2008

2008-10-09T12:45:00.001-07:00

New User Video Guides are now online for Outlook Web Access Users. Great for teaching a class of pupils via the interactive whiteboard. Detailed and helpful guides to cover all aspects of QCA Unit 3E (view guides).

Teachers: hide your first name from pupils! July 2008

2008-07-01T12:32:00.000-07:00

After speaking with some of our customers, we realised teachers didn't want their first names known to pupils, so we decided to add the ability for all schools to choose the default email address for users. Simply login to the customer control panel and change the drop-down box to select either firstname.surname @school.town.sch.uk or Mrs/Mr/ Miss/Ms. surname@ school.town.sch.uk.

Pupils can always email teachers using the prefix mr/mrs/miss/ms. The customer control panel provides the ability to change the 'From' address of any emails sent by staff. This is for teachers that would like to email their class and keep their first name hidden.

Primary Email Calendar RSS feeds now available. June 2008

2008-06-02T08:34:00.000-07:00

Many Primary Schools now operate VLEs. Virtual learning platforms/Learning environments can now be integrated with Primary Email Calendars. Simply update your school diary using outlook or outlook web access, once you have completed this simply add your school diary as an RSS feed to your VLE.

If the above sounds confusing then be confident. It is very easy.
The correct URL for your RSS is http://rss.primaryemail.co.uk / Yourschoolcode.diary.xml e.g. http://rss.primaryemail.co.uk / wil.diary.xml
Simply copy the URL and paste it to the RSS feed location in your VLE (all VLEs accept RSS feeds)

If you require help on this matter then please visit our Help and Support Section or email us.

Customizable email address white list feature now available. May 2008

2008-05-02T08:34:00.000-07:00

Primary Email customers can now add safe senders to our spam filter. These safe senders will bypass our spam filter checks. Safe senders do NOT bypass curse word detection or our child protection system. If you have been notified by an LEA or colleague that email has bounced back as spam then this is the solution for you. Simply add the LEA/contacts email address to the safe senders list and they will bypass our spam filter. Our spam filter is very good, the likely hood of it marking non spam as spam is very low. The likely hood is the LEA/contacts email server configuration is incorrect, if you think this is the case then please contact our technical team to identify why we have flagged the email as spam., this will make it possible for the LEA/contact to resolve email problems in the future.

To add a safe sender simply login to the support section of the Primary Email website

To contact our technical team email support@primaryemail.co.uk

For more information on Primary Email visit http://primaryemail.co.uk/

Pupil Games Update. March 2008

2008-03-20T08:06:00.000-07:00

Teaching Email? Take the stress out of Unit 3E with Primary Email and McWizard. Fun games for pupils that meet all requirements for QCA. Lesson plans, slideshow and marking sheet all available.

Log into Primary Email to play the games or go straight to them

Primary Email now a member of the Global Gateway. March 2008

2008-03-02T08:34:00.000-08:00

Primary Email is now a service provider member of the Global Gateway. Global Gateway is a government funded resource for schools looking to contact other schools (usually internationally) via email.

Please see our Global Gateway page: http://www.globalgateway.org/Default.aspx?page=4351
For more information on Global Gateway see: http://www.globalgateway.org/
For more information on Primary Email see: http://primaryemail.co.uk/

Primary Email bandwidth doubled. February 2008

2008-02-02T08:33:00.001-08:00

McWizard just doubled the size of his magic Mojo so now things should happen twice as fast. The crowds outside the Primary Technology head office rejoiced upon hearing the news. Please feed back to us with your experience.

To check out the new even speedier Primary Email log into your Primary Email account at http://www.primaryemail.co.uk/

Primary Email now has increased child protection checks. February 2008

2008-02-02T08:33:00.000-08:00

Our Primary Email team have spent the last 12 months developing a new way of detecting sexual predators who try to solicit children using text based chat/email/mobile phone texts. This new method is ground breaking. The method consists of using a Scoring system which looks at the following:

1. Identifying certain key phrases
2. Identifying the target recipient (child or teacher)
3. Identifying the sender (if this sender is trusted or not)

If Primary Email feels a child is at threat then copies of any risk emails are sent to the school office account.

For more information on Primary Email please visit http://primaryemail.co.uk

New Themes for Primary Email available. January 2008

2008-01-02T08:33:00.001-08:00

McWizard has been busy creating new themes and looks for Primary Email, to change your theme login to your account as normal and click Options – General Settings, then select a theme that matches your personality.

To view the new themes log into your Primary Email account at http://www.primaryemail.co.uk/

Primary Email gets tough on cursing. January 2008

2008-01-02T08:33:00.000-08:00

If a child sends or receives a curse word then the school office will receive a copy of this email. We are encouraging schools who use Primary Email to have an internet safety policy and a clear strategy to deal with children who abuse the Email system.

For more information on Primary Email please visit http://primaryemail.co.uk/

Primary Email now includes a self password reset feature. September 2007

2007-09-02T08:32:00.000-07:00

Any Admin/SMT member of staff can now reset teachers/pupils passwords using an online web interface. We call this feature Self Password Servicing (SPS).

To access this tool please visit

MX record an SPF record check tool now available for Primary Email – August 2007

2007-08-02T08:32:00.000-07:00

Problems sending or receiving emails? This may be due to an incorrect MX or SPF record. We have created a tool which resides under the support section.

To access the Primary Email support section please visit http://www.primaryemail.co.uk/ and click support.

Primary Email games now available from the inbox page – May 2007

2007-05-02T08:32:00.000-07:00

You can now access your games even more easily simply by clicking on Games in the bottom left of your email (once you have logged in).

To view the new feature log into your Primary Email account at http://www.primaryemail.co.uk/
If you would like to login using a trial account then please visit http://www.primaryemail.co.uk/ and click try or buy.

Primary Email is upgraded to Exchange 2007. January 2007

2007-01-02T08:32:00.000-08:00

We have been working extremely hard to upgrade Primary Email to Exchange 2007. This upgrade gives Primary Email new licensing models and should hopefully reduce the costs to Primary Schools. On top of this there is new support for mobile devices.

If you would like more information on Primary Email please visit http://primaryemail.co.uk/

Primary Email goes mobile! January 2006

2006-01-02T08:31:00.000-08:00

You can now access your email/calendar/tasks using Microsoft Activsync on Windows mobile smart phones. We also support push technology which means you will constantly be up to date without any need to push that send/receive button.

If you would like more information on Primary Email please visit http://primaryemail.co.uk

Primary Email. An email service for Primary schools based on Microsoft Exchange is launched. May 2005

2005-05-02T08:30:00.000-07:00

Primary Technology is proud to officially launch Primary Email to Bradford Primary Schools. During this initial launch period we will be offering Primary Email as a replacement for the current failing LEA email system. Primary Email is based on Microsoft Exchange 2003 and is therefore extremely rich.

If you would like more information on Primary Email please visit http://primaryemail.co.uk/