We know exactly how difficult it can be to perform complete migration in an Exchange-to-Exchange scenario. Things get even more complicated when the source and destination servers are located in separate forests, or when it comes to migrating from Exchange 2003 directly to Exchange 2013.  Having all these difficulties in mind, we developed and launched our Exchange Server migration tool back in May 2013. Our goal was to deliver software that can be helpful for an administrator performing Exchange Server migration. What we came up with is a migration tool that allows for quick and hassle-free mailbox migration between Exchange Server forests. Download free migration guide Migrating Exchange Server isn’t just about moving/copying mailbox data. Especially when upgrading to Exchange 2013, an administrator has to take care of many other things, like hardware setup, server infrastructure design, new Exchange Server installation and configuration and so forth. Bearing all that in mind, our Exchange Server specialists teamed up with Konrad Sagala (Microsoft Exchange Server MVP) to create a PDF migration guide covering all the difficult aspects of upgrading to Exchange 2013. Our goal was to give you as much useful information as possible about migration planning and making a smooth transition to Exchange 2013. Did we succeed? Find out yourself!

As the New Year is knocking at the door, we don't put our feet up and prepare for the celebration but continue to work on improvements in our Exchange Server and Office 365 migration tools. As promised in our recent blog post, we have just implemented new features in CodeTwo Exchange Migration and CodeTwo Office 365 Migration. New updated versions of both applications are already available for download on our website. The biggest improvement is the user-desired Scheduler feature, allowing you to schedule time frames for your migration batches.

In the olden days, we often had large paper calendars hanging on the wall in the central point of the office. This way everyone was able to see the current work schedule and also check the upcoming months. Today, when offices are often spread over many locations, not only inside one building, but also all over the globe, using the wall calendar is not practical anymore. That’s why we’ve all switched to digital calendars, which enable us to add or change appointment and make notes in a blink of an eye. But we still need the ability of sharing Outlook calendars with others. CodeTwo Public Folders is an easy to use application that allows everyone in your office to share Outlook calendars with each other. You can share data between two or more computers in a local network or over the Internet. All in a secure, reliable way, without using the Cloud.

UPDATE: We are sorry, but CodeTwo Task Workflow and CodeTwo Public Folders mentioned in this article have been discontinued. You can check the list of currently available CodeTwo products here. The main advantage of group work in the office is that things get done faster. In comparison to individual work, team goals are achieved quicker and projects are run with greater efficiency. To achieve this, however, groups need an effective task sharing tool. CodeTwo Public Folders enables you to manage group tasks directly in Outlook. Task sharing is not limited to just the default Tasks folder created automatically in all Outlook profiles. Our program allows you to also share any additional task folder created e.g. for a specific project. You can then share access to this folder with your co-workers, so they are able to review the task list. The task description might include such information as a detailed specification, the name of the person responsible for the completion of the task, due date, priority, percentage of completion, etc. This way, since all tasks are stored in one group folder, the manager of the project has easy access to them, can track their progress and react to the situation when necessary.

It has been almost half a year now since the release of our migration tools for Exchange Server and Office 365. During the last few months we have gathered a lot of feedback about what can be done better and what new features to implement. Thanks to the hard work of our programmers CodeTwo Exchange Migration and CodeTwo Office 365 Migration have now become well recognized tools among Exchange Server and Office 365 administrators. The effort we put in developing our migration software into its current state has been also recently appreciated by two Microsoft Exchange MVPs - J. Peter Bruzzese (TechGenix, previously MSExchange.org) and Ratish Nair (MSExchangeGuru.com). Their in-depth product reviews have been just published on the Internet. Let's find out more about their opinions below.

Just a few hours ago a new version of CodeTwo Email Signatures was published. The program, designed to enable central management of signatures and disclaimers in Office 365 and Google Apps (Gmail), is constantly being improved by CodeTwo programmers. The new version (1.2.8) includes a number of bug fixes users requested recently. It has been also successfully tested for full compatibility with Windows 8.1 and Exchange 2013 OWA. Feel free to download the new version and to update your current installations. The update is free for all valid license owners.

UPDATE: We are sorry, but CodeTwo Out of Office Manager mentioned in this article has been discontinued. If you are looking for an alternative for Exchange Server, take a look at the auto respond feature in CodeTwo Exchange Rules Pro. As the speed of life and the number of our daily tasks increases, we search for ways to organize the chaos of our everyday duties. We try to automate as many things as possible to save up some time, or we delegate tasks to others in order to be able to take care of other important things. Microsoft Outlook, OWA and Office 365 have some useful options that help us manage our timetable in a more efficient way. The calendar, reminders and recurrence editor are certainly among them. But what about Out of Office messages? Is there a way to manage these items centrally so that users don't have to think about setting auto replies every time they leave the office? Can we set recurring Out of Office messages centrally on Exchange or Office 365, without doing anything on the client machines and bothering our busy employees? The answer is yes, as long as we have CodeTwo Out of Office manager onboard.

Microsoft will be soon withdrawing support for Exchange 2003 and some other related products, like Outlook 2003, or Windows XP. The extended support phase for these platforms ends April 8, 2014. If you still use Exchange 2003 as a base of your email system it is right about time you thought about upgrading to Exchange 2013 or Office 365.