Frequently Asked Questions

The following are the the server address addresses and ports used for portals hosted by HyperOffice. Please contact your service provider for more information or to see if your mail is configured with different addresses and ports.

To help protect your computer, the portal does not allow you to receive files of certain types (such as .exe files) as attachments, because of their potential for introducing malicious content into your computer. Email with attachments that look suspicious are held on the mail server and a message is sent to your Quarantine folder.

While most senders never intend to circulate potentially dangerous files, when senders use a mail client (e.g. Microsoft Outlook), if their computer is infected with some kind of virus or malware, dangerous files can be attached to outgoing email without the sender's knowledge. One major advantage to webmail like that through your portal is that potentially harmful attachments aren't downloaded to your computer. 

Common filetypes such as .doc, .docx, .xlsx, .pptx, etc., though potentially dangerous, are typically delivered to your Inbox. Check with your service provider to see which filetypes may be blocked from incoming email. This may include files embedded in other files, such as macros in Excel spreadsheets. Common filetypes, though not always, include:

• .ani

• .bat

• .bin

• .cab

• .ceo

• .cer

• .chm

• .cmd

• .cnf

• .com

• .cpl

• .cur

• .exe

• .hta

• .ico

• .ins

• .its

• .job

• .jse

• .lnk

• .mau

• .mhtml

• .pif

• .prf

• .pst

• .reg

• .scf

• .scr

• .sct

• .shb

• .shs

• .ws

Error Message When Loading the Login Screen

While not very common, your Internet Service Provider (ISP) may be having Domain Name System (DNS) problems preventing you from being routed to your web portal. When a DNS server is down or is experiencing problems, it means that when you type a domain like "http://portal.hyperoffice.com," the server responsible for finding where "portal.hyperoffice.com.com" is located is either not responding or not responding properly. Some ISPs provide a site statistic for when they are experiencing DNS problems (i.e. Comcast).

While using your ISP's DNS is usually fine, in cases like these, you may want to consider using DNS alternatives. DNS can specified on your computer's network settings or on your router. A very common alternative with a very good reputation are Google's Public DNS. Here are instructions taken from the Using Google Public DNS page on how to specify DNS on Windows and Mac:

Microsoft Windows

DNS settings are specified in the TCP/IP Properties window for the selected network connection.
Example: Changing DNS server settings on Microsoft Windows 7

1. Go the Control Panel.
2. Click Network and Internet, then Network and Sharing Center, and click Change adapter settings.
3. Select the connection for which you want to configure Google Public DNS. For example:
   • To change the settings for an Ethernet connection, right-click Local Area Connection, and click Properties.
   • To change the settings for a wireless connection, right-click Wireless Network Connection, and click Properties.
   • If you are prompted for an administrator password or confirmation, type the password or provide confirmation.
4. Select the Networking tab. Under This connection uses the following items, select Internet Protocol Version 4 (TCP/IPv4) or Internet Protocol Version 6 (TCP/IPv6) and then click Properties.
   
5. Click Advanced and select the DNS tab. If there are any DNS server IP addresses listed there, write them down for future reference, and remove them from this window.
6. Click OK.
   
7. Select Use the following DNS server addresses. If there are any IP addresses listed in the Preferred DNS server or Alternate DNS server, write them down for future reference.
8. Replace those addresses with the IP addresses of the Google DNS servers:
   • For IPv4: 8.8.8.8 and/or 8.8.4.4.
   • For IPv6: 2001:4860:4860::8888 and/or 2001:4860:4860::8844
9. Restart the connection you selected in step 3.
10. Test that your setup is working correctly; see Testing your new settings.
11. Repeat the procedure for additional network connections you want to change.

Mac OS X

DNS settings are specified in the Network window.
Example: Changing DNS server settings on Mac OS 10.9

1. From the Apple menu, click System Preferences, then click Network.
2. If the lock icon in the lower left-hand corner of the window is locked, click the icon to make changes, and when prompted to authenticate, enter your password.
3. Select the connection for which you want to configure Google Public DNS. For example:
   • To change the settings for an Ethernet connection, select Built-In Ethernet, and click Advanced.
   • To change the settings for a wireless connection, select Wi-Fi (Airport on older OS), and click Advanced.
     
4. Select the DNS tab.
5. Click + to replace any listed addresses with, or add, the Google IP addresses at the top of the list:
   • For IPv4: 8.8.8.8 and/or 8.8.4.4.
   • For IPv6: 2001:4860:4860::8888 and/or 2001:4860:4860::8844
     
6. Click Apply and OK.
7. Test that your setup is working correctly; see Testing your new settings.
8. Repeat the procedure for additional network connections you want to change.

There are a number of reasons you may be unable to log into your portal. Here are some of the common reasons and remedies:

Login Issues

• Make sure you are at the right web address, or URL, for your portal. "Web searching" for your portal may not bring you to the right login screen. More often than not, your business name will appear on the login screen; if it doesn't, you are likely on the wrong site. Ask your portal administrator or refer to your welcome email for the correct URL for your portal.
• The username to log into your portal is just your username. This means that your username to log into the web portal does not contain a "@domain.com." Be sure to enter only the username portion when logging into your web portal.
  
• If you receive an "Invalid password" message when trying to log in, this means that the password your browser has saved or you've entered is incorrect. Contact your portal administrator to reset your password.

Loading Preferences Gets Stuck

If you have successfully logged in, you will see a series of loading preferences screens. If you browser gets stuck at this stage and never fully loads your portal, here are some things to try:

• Clear cache and cookies.
• Try logging in with another web browser. If any of Chrome, Firefox, Safari, or Internet Explorer, the problem is most likely related to a local (your computer) problem. On the preferred browser, clear cache and cookies, restart the browser, and try again.
• If still unable to log in, you may have malware (i.e. spyware) preventing you from logging into your web portal. We recommend running an anti-virus scan (i.e. Norton, Avast, AVG, etc.) and an anti-malware scan such as Malwarebytes.

Error Message When Loading the Login Screen

While not very common, your Internet Service Provider (ISP) may be having Domain Name System (DNS) problems preventing you from being routed to your web portal. When a DNS server is down or is experiencing problems, it means that when you type a domain like "http://portal.hyperoffice.com," the server responsible for finding where "portal.hyperoffice.com.com" is located is either not responding or not responding properly. Some ISPs provide a site statistic for when they are experiencing DNS problems (i.e. Comcast).

While using your ISP's DNS is usually fine, in cases like these, you may want to consider using DNS alternatives. DNS can specified on your computer's network settings or on your router. A very common alternative with a very good reputation are Google's Public DNS. Here are instructions taken from the Using Google Public DNS page on how to specify DNS on Windows and Mac:

Microsoft Windows

DNS settings are specified in the TCP/IP Properties window for the selected network connection.
Example: Changing DNS server settings on Microsoft Windows 7

1. Go the Control Panel.
2. Click Network and Internet, then Network and Sharing Center, and click Change adapter settings.
3. Select the connection for which you want to configure Google Public DNS. For example:
   • To change the settings for an Ethernet connection, right-click Local Area Connection, and click Properties.
   • To change the settings for a wireless connection, right-click Wireless Network Connection, and click Properties.
   • If you are prompted for an administrator password or confirmation, type the password or provide confirmation.
4. Select the Networking tab. Under This connection uses the following items, select Internet Protocol Version 4 (TCP/IPv4) or Internet Protocol Version 6 (TCP/IPv6) and then click Properties.
   
5. Click Advanced and select the DNS tab. If there are any DNS server IP addresses listed there, write them down for future reference, and remove them from this window.
6. Click OK.
   
7. Select Use the following DNS server addresses. If there are any IP addresses listed in the Preferred DNS server or Alternate DNS server, write them down for future reference.
8. Replace those addresses with the IP addresses of the Google DNS servers:
   • For IPv4: 8.8.8.8 and/or 8.8.4.4.
   • For IPv6: 2001:4860:4860::8888 and/or 2001:4860:4860::8844
9. Restart the connection you selected in step 3.
10. Test that your setup is working correctly; see Testing your new settings.
11. Repeat the procedure for additional network connections you want to change.

Mac OS X

DNS settings are specified in the Network window.
Example: Changing DNS server settings on Mac OS 10.9

1. From the Apple menu, click System Preferences, then click Network.
2. If the lock icon in the lower left-hand corner of the window is locked, click the icon to make changes, and when prompted to authenticate, enter your password.
3. Select the connection for which you want to configure Google Public DNS. For example:
   • To change the settings for an Ethernet connection, select Built-In Ethernet, and click Advanced.
   • To change the settings for a wireless connection, select Wi-Fi (Airport on older OS), and click Advanced.
     
4. Select the DNS tab.
5. Click + to replace any listed addresses with, or add, the Google IP addresses at the top of the list:
   • For IPv4: 8.8.8.8 and/or 8.8.4.4.
   • For IPv6: 2001:4860:4860::8888 and/or 2001:4860:4860::8844
     
6. Click Apply and OK.
7. Test that your setup is working correctly; see Testing your new settings.
8. Repeat the procedure for additional network connections you want to change.

Your portal may log you out requiring you to log back into your portal. Here are some reasons this may have caused this to happen:

• Loss of Internet connectivity. If your network had a connection dropout, you may lose your active session. If your computer loses network connection when put to sleep, you may love your active session as well.
• Cookies disabled. The portal requires cookies to be enabled. Without cookies enabled, you will likely not be able to sustain an active session.
• Server down. While this is rare, you may be forced out if your portal's service provider's network is down. In this case, your portal service provider will post information on their public site.
• Multi-login on the same browser. The portal is designed to have active login at a time per browser. Logging in as one user and then another on the same browser will log-out the first user prompting the relogin screen.

A user may find incoming email messages being placed directly into their Trash Folder on the portal if the user has configured their email account using POP3 on a mail client while not leaving messages on the server. POP3 typically downloads an email to a mail client and then removes it from the mail server unless told otherwise. The setting is commonly found in the advanced settings for the POP3 account created in the given mail client. 

To leave messages on the server and not delete them automatically, select the option to leave a copy on the server and not to remove from the server after so many days.

For Outlook, it looks something like this:

For Apple Mail, it looks something like this:

For iPhone, the setting looks something like this:

The portal is designed to be flexible and cross-platform without compromising functionality.

Check the memory requirements for the operating system used; in general, 4GB or more is recommend for 64-bit operating systems. For Mac users, OS 10.5.x, Leopard, was the last operating system available in 32-bit. Like with any web application, Internet connection speed will greatly affect overall performance. The ability to download documents from a portal and upload documents to a portal is directly related to the Internet connection speed the computer is operating under.

For Web Folders (e.g. HyperDrive), 5Mbps U/L and and D/L is the minimum requirement. 

For Outlook synchronization, Windows 7 or newer is recommended and Oulook 2007 or newer is required.

For a complete desktop experience, we recommend at a minimum:

*Microsoft will no longer support Windows XP SP3 after April 8th, 2014. We recommend using Windows 7 or newer.

**This information is current as of November 18th, 2013.**

If sending an email through the portal yields an "Error - Unparseable Message" message, make sure there is an address in the "To" field of the email. Emails that are sent without recipients in the "To" field are not recognized as legal in the mail RFC. Even if there are addresses in the "CC" and "BCC" fields, but nothing in the "To" field, the email will not send.

This is a qualified email:

This is an unqualified email:

Every company portal created includes a postmaster account. The postmaster is a system account which cannot be deleted and does not count towards a portal's total number of users.

Usage Guidelines
The postmaster account has the following features:

• It is one of the main administration accounts in a company account.
• By default, it duplicates all the administrator information entered at sign up. Once logged in as "postmaster," all personal fields can be edited (password, first name, last name, etc.).
• It uses the same password as the administrator account created at sign up, however, it is not affected by any modifications made to the password of the administrator account.
• It cannot be deleted as it is used by the system for email processing.
• It is the only account that can grant a user 'Level 1 Administrator' privilege.
• It is the only account that can log in as any user in it's portal. (Level 1 Administrators, unless all users are set to report to him/her, can not log in as other Level 1 Administrators)
• The "postmaster" account is not recommended for daily user use. It is meant to serve as a "back-end" user for creating Level 1 Administrators and administering workspaces where necessary.

NOTE: Please note the postmaster account does not count towards a total user count in a given portal.

Temporary internet files, or cache, include web page content (images and links) stored on a computer for quicker viewing. This cache permits different web browsers to download only the content that has changed since last viewing a web page, instead of downloading all the content for a page every time it is displayed.

Cookies are small files which are stored on a user's computer. They are designed to hold a modest amount of data specific to a particular client and website, and can be accessed either by the web server or the client computer. This allows the server to deliver a page tailored to a particular user, or the page itself can contain some script which is aware of the data in the cookie and so is able to carry information from one visit to the website (or related site) to the next.*

These files may need to be deleted in order to simply refresh the web page to be viewed.

Here is a helpful third-party link with information on how to clear cache on several web browsers:
http://www.wikihow.com/Clear-Your-Browser%27s-Cache

Here are instructions on how to clear cache and cookies from popular current web browsers:

Firefox
(version 21 for Mac/Windows)

• Click on History from the Menubar
• Click on Clear Recent History
• For time range to clear, select Everything
• Select Cookies and Cache
• Click on Clear Now
  
  

Google Chrome
(version 27 for Mac/Windows)

• Click on the settings button (top right)
• Click on History
• Click on Clear browsing data...
• Select the beginning of time for "obliterate the following items from..."
• Select:
  • Delete cookies and other site and plug-in data
  • Empty the cache
• Click on Clear browsing data
  
  

Internet Explorer
(version 10 for Windows)

• Click on the Tools menu in the menu bar
• Click on Delete Browsing History...
• Select:
  • Temporary Internet files and website files
  • Cookies and website data
• Click on Delete
  
  

Safari
(version 6 for Mac)

• Click on the Safari menu
• Click on Reset Safari...
• Select:
  • Remove all webpage preview images
  • Reset all website notification warnings
  • Remove all website data
• Click Reset
  

*Taken from http://www.whatarecookies.com/

The portal provides custom business email hosting with access anytime and anywhere with an Internet connection. If there is existing email on a previous host's email server or locally in a mail client on the computer, here are two ways to migrate email over into the portal.

1. Migrate Manually with a Mail Client
   • If email has already been downloaded into an email client like Microsoft Outlook or Apple Mail, add your newly portal-hosted email account and drag-and-drop your email over. When switching to portal business email, while your email address is the same, the account information will be different from the provider you previously hosted through.
     • In this scenario, set up the portal-hosted email account as IMAP (as opposed to POP3) so that any folders created in the mail client are created on the server as well.
     • When moving email over, especially from another IMAP email account or Exchange account, there are some factors involved such as the speed of your ISP and the speed of the mail servers involved. Start with a small number of emails, for example, 50 emails, and wait for the moving to complete. Move up to a few hundred at a time but be sure to monitor it's success and move in smaller increments where necessary.
     • Mail migrated to folders other than the Inbox may require manual indexing. To do this on the portal, go to the very last page of the folder to index and refresh the mail viewer while moving forward in pages.
   • As usual, it is advisable to backup data prior to any kind of data migration.
2. Professional Services Migration
   • A Professional Services team is available to migrate existing email into the portal.
   • The Professional Services team can assist in migrating mail stored on previous mail servers or locally on the computer. Please contact your Account Manager for more information on our professional services.

Email, like snail mail, can go through a few hand-offs before actually arriving in the Inbox. Email headers provide information on when an email was sent, which server it was sent from, if the mail went anywhere else from there, and when it was eventually handed off to the mail server for delivery.

While delivery to an Inbox can sometimes be delayed by the mail servers, it is important to note when email left the sender's server and when it was handed off to the portal mail server.

The portal's mail viewer gives the option to view full mail headers and even the option to download raw messages in .eml format. When in the mail viewer, click on "Show Full Headers" which gives a pop screen displaying the headers of the given email including a link to download the raw message:

Here is an example of how email headers can look:

From This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. Thu Jun 27 14:28:14 2013
Received:from mail-wi0-f195.google.com (mail-wi0-f195.google.com [209.85.212.195]) by mail6.hyperoffice.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id 84F4CC06C1 for ; Thu, 27 Jun 2013 14:28:07 -0400 (EDT)
Received:by mail-wi0-f195.google.com with SMTP id hj3so387995wib.6 for ; Thu, 27 Jun 2013 11:28:54 -0700 (PDT) DKIM-Signature:v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=gmail.com; s=20120113; h=mime-version:date:message-id:subject:from:to:content-type; bh=amoquqk+TJ4vjooTc9SLtZMfpqroZuEoWgOA9M+Eqvk=; b=0kmmouhKiS+oYnwr/fl5Pg8rm7jXVgEX04ZhEDynxiM5sIg4SvmNi2RGB/7MFYSTPK qDFOSIWdkT39Bqv8PTFxyXl7ZABTFXndKvlPorLijnoHbnDjFYYf5HjFIgnSJOonTkoY AotrXCkDc8qYt3oKhS9KI5H2KAkHpW5e5NHlEqSa+3ZNhqCzN4eVRaQLkxLe3qxlEsiB YETNoy5PNtI9T1uDJwM6dm7fsoXYTUiOwjUcNjrQ5+K5oan4fMGNVQq25pVKlXG2gxh9 Ab5TVvm9oI9z9v6tw1IzrW+T/BG9dNPrfvD7B4c4XYdv44ox4XOyMAFFhRkMoBm0ydTh f5lg== MIME-Version:1.0
X-Received:by 10.194.121.65 with SMTP id li1mr7521736wjb.24.1372357734215; Thu, 27 Jun 2013 11:28:54 -0700 (PDT)
Received:by 10.194.22.70 with HTTP; Thu, 27 Jun 2013 11:28:54 -0700 (PDT)
Date:Thu, 27 Jun 2013 14:28:54 -0400
Message-ID:
Subject:I Love Mail Headers
From:\"HyperOffice Support [External]\" 
To:HyperOffice Support 

The best way to read email headers is from the bottom up; here's what we can see from this example:

1. Date:Thu, 27 Jun 2013 14:28:54 -0400
   Message-ID:
   Subject:I Love Mail Headers
   From:\"HyperOffice Support [External]\" To:HyperOffice Support
   • This section shows us that "HyperOffice Support [External]" composed this email to "HyperOffice Support" which was sent on June 27, 2013 at 14:28:54 -0400 with a subject of "I Love Mail Headers." This section more or less is like the front of the envelope of a letter.
2. Received:by mail-wi0-f195.google.com with SMTP id hj3so387995wib.6 for ; Thu, 27 Jun 2013 11:28:54 -0700 (PDT)
   DKIM-Signature:v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=gmail.com; s=20120113; h=mime-version:date:message-id:subject:from:to:content-type; bh=amoquqk+TJ4vjooTc9SLtZMfpqroZuEoWgOA9M+Eqvk=; b=0kmmouhKiS+oYnwr/fl5Pg8rm7jXVgEX04ZhEDynxiM5sIg4SvmNi2RGB/7MFYSTPK qDFOSIWdkT39Bqv8PTFxyXl7ZABTFXndKvlPorLijnoHbnDjFYYf5HjFIgnSJOonTkoY AotrXCkDc8qYt3oKhS9KI5H2KAkHpW5e5NHlEqSa+3ZNhqCzN4eVRaQLkxLe3qxlEsiB YETNoy5PNtI9T1uDJwM6dm7fsoXYTUiOwjUcNjrQ5+K5oan4fMGNVQq25pVKlXG2gxh9 Ab5TVvm9oI9z9v6tw1IzrW+T/BG9dNPrfvD7B4c4XYdv44ox4XOyMAFFhRkMoBm0ydTh f5lg== MIME-Version:1.0
   X-Received:by 10.194.121.65 with SMTP id li1mr7521736wjb.24.1372357734215; Thu, 27 Jun 2013 11:28:54 -0700 (PDT)
   Received:by 10.194.22.70 with HTTP; Thu, 27 Jun 2013 11:28:54 -0700 (PDT)
   • This section tells us where the email was through. In this case, the message was sent through mail-wi0-f195.google.com on June 27, 2013 at 11:28:54 -0700.
3. From This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. Thu Jun 27 14:28:14 2013
   Received:from mail-wi0-f195.google.com (mail-wi0-f195.google.com [209.85.212.195]) by mail6.hyperoffice.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id 84F4CC06C1 for ; Thu, 27 Jun 2013 14:28:07 -0400 (EDT)
   • This section tells us that at 14:28:07 -0400 on June 27, 2013, mail-wi0-f195.google.com handed-off this email to mail6.hyperoffice.com, a service provider's mail server.
   • This also tells us that the mail server delivered the email to the Inbox at 14:28:14, seven seconds after it was handed-off to the portal's mail servers. 

Spam happens so much more that we'd like - and probably more often than we even care to know about! The portal does a lot on the backend to prevent spam email from even arriving to Inboxes and have filters in place to sort mail to spam or quarantine where necessary.

Mail settings provide deep controls to fine-tune user's spam threshold (sensitivity) and other settings, including whitelisting.

So why does "good" email sometimes arrive in spam or quarantine folders? Here are a few explanations:

• The sender's domain or IP could be currently blacklisted on popular spam monitoring services. If a sender's IP or hostname has been blacklisted, it would be very likely that most server providers would mark email sent by said IP or hostname as spam. To check, go to http://mxtoolbox.com/blacklists.aspx.
• The subject or mail content could contain commonly popular terms found in spam such as, "online casino," "mortgage," "reduce your debt," etc.
• The email may contain an attachment that contains a virus or commonly red-flag extension type such as .zip, .exe, .msi, etc.

How to make sure legitimate email goes to the Inbox and not into the spam folder? Here are a few suggestions:

• Add the email address to contacts
Add the email address to whitelist
• Go to Mail Settings
• Click on White/Black
• Type the email address into the address field
• Click on "Add to Whitelist"
• Set up a filter to move email from a certain sender to go to the Inbox
  • Go to Mail Settings
  • Click on Filters
  • Type the email address into the "the phrase" field corresponding to the "From Field: Contains" row
  • Set the "Move messge to: Inbox" and click "Add"

If the email is in quarantine, follow the provided instructions on how to retrieve attachments at your own risk. 

A bounced email is an email that never made it to the recipient's Inbox. It's the equivalent of getting a "return to sender" letter from the post office.

Why did you receive a bounceback message? When an email is sent, the mail server looks up the domain and username of the recipient and attempts to hand-off the email. If the recipient's server rejects the mail, the sender will receive a bounceback email. Here are a few of the most common reasons:

Soft Bounces (messages sent back after it was accepted by the recipient's server)

• The recipient's email server is experiencing technical difficulties (e.g. busy and cannot handle the request).
• The recipient's account is full and cannot receive new email.
• The recipient's email server is busy and cannot handle the request.
• The username portion of the email address was mispelled (e.g. This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.). A bounceback saying "User does not exist" or something to that effect is typcially sent to the sender.
• The recipient's email server has a file size limit or does not accept certain types of file attachments attached to your email.

Hard Bounces (messages sent back without being accepted by the recipient's server)

• The domain portion of the email address was mistyped (e.g. This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.) which means no such server exists.
• The mail server is on a blacklist and the recipient's email server is rejecting email from us.
  • This is fairly uncommon but you can check your hostname (domain name) at http://mxtoolbox.com/blacklists.aspx 

The portal does not support catch-all addresses.

Spammers often try to guess email addresses in a domain and when incorrect, receive a bounceback message - which usually thwarts the spammer from sending to that address again. In the case of a catch-all, a bounceback is not sent and the email is delivered.

This could lead to an uncontrollable amount of spam email sent to a domain which may result in the freezing of your email domain causing legitimate email to be deferred, delayed or bounced.

When using Web Databases with Internet Explorer 9, a prompt asking to enter a Username, password and Cobrand ID may appear.

To prevent this window from popping up, navigate to the Internet Explorer toolbar and click on View/Webpage privacy policy...

From here, scroll down to find the site whose cookies are blocked:

Right-click and select:

Once Internet Explorer is set to always accept cookies from this site, the pop-up will no longer appear.

In any given workspace's contacts section, there'll be an assortment of entries in white or highlighted in yellow.

The non-highlighted entries are contacts that have been uploaded or entered into this workspace. All members of the workspace can see these contacts.

The highlighted entries are the members of the workspace and appear in the "[Workspace Membership Directory]" category. The entries can not be edited from contacts; only the user him/herself can edit the their own information from their personal settings.