E-mail: Faculty & Staff

CIT supports Novell GroupWise for faculty and staff as their e-mail, calendaring, task management, and contact management system.

How do I access GroupWise from on-campus?

Windows:
Start > All Programs > Novell GroupWise > GroupWise

Mac:
Click on the GroupWise icon in your dock or load the Finder > Applications > GroupWise

Web (any computer with Internet access):
http://webaccess.calvin.edu

Can I change my e-mail address?

You have been assigned an e-mail address that corresponds with your unique Calvin username. Your username cannot be changed unless you have gone through a legal name change (contact Human Resources and the HelpDesk if this is the case). You have also been assigned one default e-mail alias first.last@calvin.edu (ex. john.calvin@calvin.edu). You can also select a third e-mail alias. Please contact the HelpDesk if your alias is not working.

How do I change my GroupWise password?

Your GroupWise passphrase is now the same as your Calvin passphrase (the same thing you use to login to the computer, access Novell servers, print, etc). Before you change your passphrase, you might want to read about the requirements and get some advice about what makes a passphrase strong.

What are the size limitations on my GroupWise mailbox?

As part of our plan to control the cost associated with file server storage, CIT implemented a size limitation of 500 MB on your GroupWise file server storage space.

Also, if you are using a third-party e-mail client to access and send Calvin e-mail, once your quota has reached the 90% threshold (the threshold at which GroupWise automatically begins warning), you will not be able to send mail, only receive it.

What is the size limitations on my file attachments?

100MB is the largest email that you can send, which includes all attachments.

What file types are restricted as attachments?

You cannnot receive emails with files containing the following extensions: bat, cmd, com, cpl, exe, pif, rar, scr, vbs. If necessary, have the sender change the file extension before sending the file to you.

What happens if I exceed my mailbox size?

When you get close to your mailbox size limit you'll see a Mailbox Storage Size Warning window every time you send e-mail.

Once you are over the limit you will receive a similar message says you are no longer able to send messages. You will still be able to receive new e-mail and appointments, but you need to reduce your mailbox size before you can send items.

What's an easy way to reduce my mailbox size?

The most obvious way to reduce the size of your GroupWise mailbox is to delete items. If you want to delete multiple items, you can select them by clicking on the first item, holding down the <SHIFT> key, and then clicking the last item. All items in-between will also be selected. Then simply press <DELETE> on the keyboard. Holding down the <CTRL> key lets you select multiple items that are not together in the list. You may also want to do one or more of the following:

Empty your Trash and/or clear out your Sent Items. By default, these folders never get emptied out and they do count towards the quota. If you want to empty your Trash completely, simply right click on it and choose Empty Trash. To empty out all or part of the Sent Items, you have to go into the folder and select which items to delete. If you want to select multiple items individually, hold down the Control key and click. If you want to select a range of consecutive items, click the first one, then hold down the Shift key, then click the last one. Right click on top of the selected items and choose Delete and Empty. If you want your Trash to automatically clear itself out, go to Tools > Options > Environment > Cleanup tab and you can specify after how many days an item in the trash gets emptied.

Save attachments to your network drive rather than keeping the e-mail with the attachment. Your network drives have a much larger quota than the GroupWise mailbox. Also it is a better practice to save the actual file outside of the e-mail client, since the e-mail client is more like a database and is a slow, cumbersome way of storing actual files. When you save the attachment to a network drive instead, you can access the files without using the GroupWise client and they will open with their native application instead of trying to load with the GroupWise viewer. Once you've saved the attachment, then you can delete the original e-mails to free up space (and then empty the Trash to get rid of them for good).

If you are on a PC/Windows computer you can use the Mailbox Size Tool.

Click the button and a new window opens. In the Mailbox storage Size Information window you can select the folder you want to view and then you can sort mailbox items by size, date, subject, etc., by clicking on the column name.

Once you have the items sorted, double-clicking an item opens it for you to review before deleting.

Once the files are selected you have the option to Delete or Archive.

The tool usually sorts by size but if it is not, click on the Size column header to re-sort. This tool is nice because it shows you the size. Often if one deletes the top 10-20 items, that allocates a large percentage of space. Most e-mail messages that do not contain attachments are very minuscule in size. Messages with attachments end up taking up a bulk of the space but sometimes get buried if your mailbox has years of mail or thousands of items. This tool sorts by size so you can easily find the large items without scrolling through years of mail chronologically. You can select messages and use the Delete button from within the tool to clear out the offending items.

If you are on a PC/Windows computer and you have messages that you need to save but don't refer back to on a frequent basis, you can use the Archive function. This moves the mail out of your mailbox to a default location on your network drive. To archive a message, simply right click on it and choose Archive (or click the message to select it and go to the Actions menu > Archive). If you archive something that is in a Cabinet folder, the archive will automatically re-create this folder structure for you when the item is archived. To view the archive, click the Online button at the top of the folder list and switch to Archive. It will look the same as your normal mailbox but only display archived items. To switch back, click on the Archive button and then choose your name. Remember to do #2 first (save attachments out of your mailbox, we do not recommend archiving e-mails with attachments in order to save files because these are not GroupWise files yet the archived items can only be access via the GroupWise client).

Where is my GroupWise archive stored?

the default GroupWise archive location has been set to H:\groupwise\archive. We selected this location because files stored on network drives are backed up on a regular basis and accessible from any computer on the network. There is no size limit on the archive folder on your H:\ drive (but there is a 20GB size limit on your entire H: drive).

How do I access GroupWise from off-campus?

To access GroupWise from off-campus, go to http://webaccess.calvin.edu.

Can I access GroupWise on my iPad?

There are a few ways to access GroupWise e-mail on an iOS device like an iPad....

The simplest is to use the browser and use WebAccess (load Safari and go to webaccess.calvin.edu). This doesn't require any setup, but might not be the easiest on the eyes since you are logging into e-mail using the web browser.

Another popular way is to use the Mail client that comes with the iPad and have it connect to your GroupWise account. CIT provides the settings you need in order for the Mail application to download and send e-mail from your GroupWise account.

We also have a utility called GWSync. This uses more of our system resources than the previous two options so we do not recommend it for temporary use (those who are borrowing a loaner iPad for a short period of time, or those that need to access e-mail infrequently), however if you plan to access e-mail constantly and/or would like the ability to access your GroupWise calendar as well as e-mail, you may request GWSync.

I'm getting a lot of spam. What can I do?

If you receive a lot of spam and want to further control it, you might be interested in the Barracuda Spam Firewall, provided by Calvin. The spam firewall gives you the control to quarantine and block spam beyond what Calvin is automatically filtering. Also please read this page on spam to learn more about how to prevent being "phished".