Preparing your office router

The first task is to configure your office router so that it can receive incoming traffic on port 8110 and redirect it through to the Softalk Share Server host computer within your LAN. You will need to consult your routers manual for this. Look under "Port forwarding" or "NAT" (Network Address Translation).

You will need to know the external IP address of the router.

If the external IP address is not static you may need to use a dynamic DNS service such as dyndns.org which gives you a hostname and keeps track of your dynamic IP address.

You can test if your configuration has worked by attempting to connect to the Softalk Share Server from outside your LAN using a windows command line application called "Telnet". If you are using Vista you may need to install it from Programs and Features.

You will need to bring up the run dialog by clicking on the Start button and selecting "Run…". Type "cmd" and click OK. This displays a command window.

Use the command "telnet your_ip 8110" replacing "your_ip" with the actual IP address of the router. Notice there is a space either side of the IP address. The example here is using a fictitious IP address.

Press the return key when you are ready. You may see a message saying it is trying to connect as in the example to the right.

Once connected, you will see a message that reads something like "OK Softalk Share Server 1.3.4 server ready".

After a few seconds the connection will drop and you will see a message saying "Connection to host lost.", which is perfectly normal.

This means that you can successfully connect to the server from outside your LAN.

If you get a message such as "Connection failed" as in the example below. Then you will need to investigate further.

It will either be the IP address you are trying to use or the router configuration. You may have a firewall that is blocking the connection on port 8110.

Assuming you can connect to Softalk Share Server you can now install the client at the remote user's location.

The client software setup can be found under the Softalk Share Server installation folder in a folder called ClientSetup.

This folder and all the files within should be compressed to a single file using Winzip or a similar compression tool and emailed or sent to the remote user.

The remote user should unzip the file on their computer in an appropriate folder and then run the file called ClientSetup.exe which starts the client installer.

The image on the right shows the installer asking for the address of where the server can be found. The external IP address of the office router should be entered.

You can either use a computer host name or an IP address.

If you have a domain that points to your router you can use it instead of an IP address. It would be of the form "companyname.com"

If a connection is successfully made setup will ask for a user name. Be sure to choose the correct user.

The installer will then ask what sort of message store you would like to configure. If you need to share personal folders then you need the first, "Default store" option. If the remote user will only need to view Softalk Share Server shared public folders then choose "Public folders only".

If you have chosen the "Default store" option the next page asks if you want to transfer the remote users existing PST content in to the Softalk Share Server data. Performance of transferring data over the internet is difficult to estimate. It will depend on the amount of data, the upload speed of the connection, and the reliability of the connection. Depending on these factors it can be wiser to not transfer data at this time but do it manually over the LAN. If you only have a 150Mb PST, an upload speed near to 1Megabit and a reliable connection then it is probably best to transfer data now. If you have an "ADSL" broadband connection, bear in mind that the "A" stands for "asynchronous" which means the upload speed will be considerably less than the download speed. This may also be true for cable connections. If you decide to transfer your data now you will see a progress bar, which progresses and then disappears when it is finished.

Once you have got this far you are currently connected to the Softalk Share Server service and you could actually work like this if you have a fast and reliable connection.

Most remote users do not have a fast enough connection to the Internet and so prefer to work "offline" and regularly synchronize changes over the internet.

Using the offline feature

First of all you need to decide which folders you want to take offline so we need to configure our offline settings.

In this case you would want to take all your folders offline. You do this in Outlook by clicking on "File" and selecting "Offline Settings…"

This dialog allows you to select which folders you want to take with you. In this case we have chosen all folders by clicking on the "Select All" button.

You can choose what happens if there are any conflicts on the next tab.

If you have not configured this before you may not see the "Work Offline" and "Synchronize" options in the File menu to the left.

The next step is to actually go offline by clicking on "File" and "Work Offline". A progress bar should pop up like the one on the right.

The first offline synchronization may take some time. Subsequent offline sessions will be much faster. The speed of this operation is dependant on the quality of your internet connection.

When finished it will tell you that you need to restart Outlook to work offline. You can now work with Outlook as normal. You can also collect and send your email as you normally would while away from the office. You can go back online at any point and any changes you have made while offline will automatically synchronize to the main store the next time you connect to the office network and go back online. Just click on "File" and "Work Online". You will see the progress bar again while it replicates all of your changes to the server.

The next time you go "offline" it will only update the offline store with any changes since your last offline session.

Rather than going back online it may be more convenient to stay offline and simply synchronize with the main server. Just select "Synchronize" instead of "Work Online".