EMAIL POLICIES

Your email account is a work account. ESRL does not impose any usage policies, but be aware that your individual workplace may. Please protect your password and remember to "Sign Out" when you are done in order to keep your account private.

Zimbra is not free for ESRL to operate, we pay on a per-account basis. You should not expect to keep your email account if you leave employment.

EMAIL

Summary
We provide email for our member libraries. In order to access your email account, visit zimbra.esrl.org and log in with your email address and password. If you do not have this information please contact your libraries IT staff or ESRL.

How to find the help
The email system has built in help. There is a down arrow in the upper right hand corner of the interface, next to your name. Clicking on that arrow will create a menu, including the option "Product Help".

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Alternatively, you can visit the help link directly here: https://zimbra.esrl.org/zimbra/help/en_US/advanced/zimbra_user_help.htm

Solving most common issues
The email system is web based. The majority of problems you may experience can be resolved by closing out of your browser and reopening it. In some cases it may also help to clear your browser's cache as well. Finally, ensure that you are using an up to date version of either IE9 (or higher), Firefox, Safari or Google Chrome.

Logging in for the first time
The first time you log in to your email, the system will ask you to change your password. This can be slightly confusing - the change password screen looks very similar to the login screen if not read carefully.

Spam
Spam happens. We use two, redundant, anti-spam systems to reduce the amount of junk that gets into your inbox. At the time of this writing, approximately 75% of all email coming into the system is blocked as spam. An occasional piece of spam getting through is not cause for concern. Very occasionally, legitimate email may be blocked by the spam filter. If you have not received something important that you know should have arrived please contact us so that we can investigate.

A somewhat common spam tactic is to attempt to impersonate the IT staff in a generic way - sending scary emails as "mail administrator" or similar. With the exception of emails that are returned-to-sender from outside systems these sorts of emails aren't likely to be legitimate. ESRL IT Staff will always send any of these kinds of emails from their own ZIMBRA account. Also, ESRL IT staff will never ask you for your passwords or similar information in an email.

Setting up an email client
ESRL staff does not provide support for thick email clients (Outlook, etc) or personal smart phones. That being said, if you prefer that type of client and wish to pursue it on your own you will need the following information.

Full clients (Also know as 'thick clients' such as Outlook)
Phone clients

Filtering Too Much Email
Incorrectly created email filters are the most common cause of "I'm not getting my email" type problems. If you are having this problem and have recently created or changed some filters please double check that you haven't filtered out more than you expected.

Nested Folders can seem to disappear
Email can be organized in folders along the left hand side. These folders can be expanded or collapsed by clicking the small gray arrow to the left of the folder. See the "Archive" folder, below:
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A common issue happens where a user who is not aware of the arrow collapses their folders by accident and fears that they may be lost.

Bad Address Book Entries
There are several types of address book in Zimbra. The first, named "Contacts" by default, is filled only with contacts that you added manually. A second type, named "Emailed Contacts" fills up automatically as you send and receive mail. Sometimes "bad" entries will appear in the "Emailed Contacts" book, usually via someone having a typo somewhere. If you notice bad data being autocompleted when you create an email you can usually find the bad entry in "Emailed Contacts" and delete it.

Sending bulk mail
Please do not use the email system to send bulk email or newsletters. This sort of thing can cause our email system to be blocked by spam filters, regardless of how legitimate the mailing is. As an alternative, ESRL provides a Constant Contact subscription for each county. Please call ESRL for more information.


ACCOUNT SECURITY


ESRL requires that your password for the Zimbra system be unique to the Zimbra system. You may not use your Zimbra password as a password for other websites or services.

No one will be able to read your email if you remember to log out and keep your password secure. That being said - it is a work account - your library director has ultimate authority to access it if necessary.

For technical reasons, there is an attachment size limit of 10 MB.