it's not just email any more

by Jim Yarrow

traditional email messaging is a straight-forward transaction. you get the mail, you read it, perhaps you save the contents to a text file. but it can be so much more. FirstClass Intranet Server (FCIS) lets you use your email system as a knowledge warehouse. Here's how.

FCIS is a server-based messaging system. what this means in short is that all messages, instead of being on the email server until you download them, actually live on the email server. your internet service provider (ISP) will not do this, because this would require much larger hard drive space, and much more maintenance, and they're not going to offer that for free. on an FCIS server, you keep messages as long as you want, and they live on the server.

this actually provides two advantages. if you've ever tried to access your mail from a location other than your primary mailbox, you know what happens. since a typical ISP downloads the mail to your computer, all the mail you have downloads to that computer. if you're out of town and don't have that computer with you, you're out of luck. with an FCIS system, the messages live on the server. so this means, no matter where you are in the world, if you can log in to your server, you can get to all of your mail, both new and old.

if you've ever tried to share attachments over email, you know what unpredictable results can occur. with an FCIS system, files are encoded properly for being sent across the system. which means in short that you never have to "bin-hex" another attachment again. just drag and drop the attachment on top of your message, and it gets attached.

but what happens if you have a large file attachment? first of all, most ISPs limit the size of file attachments. this means that if you need to send more than a few megabytes in an attachment, you have to break it into pieces and send it in mulitple attachments. with an FCIS system, attachment size is limited to your link speed and your hard drive space on the server.

but what happens if you're uploading a large attachment, let's say 20 megabytes, and your connection drops for one reason or another? no problem. just reconnect to the server, and reattach the uploaded file. in most cases, FCIS recognizes the file, then picks up where it left off, resuming the upload. this reduces wasted time "reloading" failed attachments.

this isn't ordinary email either. FCIS ships with several custom email forms, including standard message, image message, while you were out form, phone call form, equipment request, room request, quick message, quick note, request for information and file transfer. and if there isn't a form to meet your needs, you can create one with the FirstClass Designer tool that ships with every FCIS server.

seamless integration within FCIS means that you can link FCIS message forms to your web page, sending data in both directions. for example, the page you are reading now was composed in a special email form within FirstClass, and when it was sent to this folder, it automatically generated the needed HTML to render the page as you see it. you can also link forms that people fill in on your web site into custom FirstClass forms you can read on your system.

this means that rather than receiving information from the web as unformatted raw text, you can receive it in legible, printable formats that are easy for you to use, categorize and store. once stored, you can use FCIS search functions to find the data you need. with additional software, you can even link data input from the web into customized databases for further use.

if FCIS messaging abilities were its only capability, it would be an excellent value. however, it's not. next, we will review FCIS excellent collaboration tools.

Next: Collaboration: Helping Teams Get Work Done

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