Thanksgiving Promotion
Starting today (November 11th) till December 11th, we will be running our Thanksgiving promotion. We are offering $3.00 off Full Hosted Exchange with an order of 5 mailboxes or more. Make sure to enter the code: XDThanks in order to get the promotion when ordering. If you have any questions please feel free emailing us at partners@exchangedefender.com
ShockeyMonkey Migration Window Closing
From the initial release of ShockeyMonkey management platform we always hoped our partners would grow, succeed and eventually grow out of the free system we built to get them started. We’ve put in a lot of effort to create not just the migration but the co-existence system in ShockeyMonkey that would allow you to work in ShockeyMonkey while you moved your data up to a third party platform (Autotask, ConnectWise, etc).
As you have grown so has the monkey and with our upcoming updates in Shockey Monkey 2016 you’ll already be on one of the most powerful business management platforms around. On December 31st, 2015 we will cease supporting and integrating with third party PSA systems and will be removing third party proprietary APIs. Not only do we believe that we now have the best platform for our partners, but we had to make a decision about how we allocate scarce development resources and whether we invest them in you or in a third party.
You will still be able to export and back up your data and we will shortly introduce you to a third party that can help you port that data to any platform you wish. Unfortunately due to NDA and API contracts we cannot open source software that has third party API intellectual property nor would it be very helpful as those APIs tend to change frequently.
As always, thank you for trusting ShockeyMonkey to manage your business. We hope you continue to love what we are building for you.
Labor Day Promotion
Come celebrate Labor Day with our promotion going on, starting September 7th and ending October 7th. We are offering $3.00 off Full Hosted Exchange and $1.00 off Compliance Archiving with an order of 5 mailboxes or more. The compliance accounts will then correspond to those 5 mailboxes. If you have any questions please feel free emailing us at partners@exchangedefender.com or calling us at (877) 546-0316.
Disclaimer: In order to receive the $1 off Compliance Archiving you must purchase Full Hosted Exchange of 5 mailboxes or more. The compliance accounts will then correspond to those 5 mailboxes.
Hosted Exchange:
Our world class Hosted Exchange offering is our most requested product due to it being all inclusive enterprise business grade solution. This product is an affordable and reliable method of communicating for your business. Included in the product
- A free copy of Microsoft Outlook 2013, Outlook Web App 2013 which is compatible with most mobile browsers. Depending on the platform you select you will receive the corresponding outlook licence key (either 2010 or 2013). Also, Activesync for Windows Mobile, iPhone and Android, with powerful scheduling and messaging functionality.
Compliance Archiving:
ExchangeDefender’s Compliance Archiving is a secure, long-term storage recovery and eDiscovery system that ensures you are compliant with regulatory requirements established by IRS, HIPAA, SOX and SEC. Some of the highlights of this product are:
- Flexible long-term archiving (up to 10 years beginning at the life of the mailbox), exchange journaling technology ensures full archiving of all inbound, outbound, and internal email, quick search results in emails as well as in attachments and affordable archiving with storage fees that grow with your business.
Copyright © 2015 ExchangeDefender All rights reserved.
Contact information
Toll-Free USA: (877)546-0316
International: +1 (407) 546-6800
United Kingdom: 0800 8620149
Australia: 3 9001 0641
Fax: (954) 839-8737
Email: partners@exchangedefender.com
XD Bug Fixes / Updates
Hey guys,
Over the past two weeks we’ve been fixing some of the little bugs and initiating some error trapping to improve the overall experience within Exchange Defender. We’ve been focusing on error trapping the account creation stage, making it easier to set up accounts correctly, and other stuff of that nature.
Updates:
• Account creation will now check for aliases before submitting, if an alias for the email address you are trying to create already exists and is tied to another account it will notify you of an issue. We’ve also configured it to check Distribution Groups, External Contacts and everything else to avoid having problems such as those pop up on account creation.
• All columns in the Service Manager are sort-able by their names, email addresses, domains.
• The Distribution Group tab now alphabetizes the list of users to make it easier to search through and search for users that are added or need to be added. The list is divided, the top of the list is email addresses added to the user group and the bottom of the list has External Contacts that have been added to the Distribution Group (each one is organized alphabetically).
• We fixed a bug with the CC Expiration Date for card holders using the year 2020. It would revert the CC Expiration date to show 2018.
• The Spam Quarantine for users now has a few options to make checking, deleting, or approving spam easier. It also has had some visibility tweaks / improvements to the message description format.
• We’ve gone through and fixed some of the errant CSS Style errors that were prevalent on some of our lesser used webpages and fixed some of the branding issues that existed on some of the pages in the admin portal.
New Marketing Initiatives
As I’ve been saying for several years now, the face of modern IT Solution Provider is changing. For over a decade Own Web Now and ExchangeDefender have been regular sponsors of IT events including Microsoft Big Day, Microsoft Technet, Microsoft Developers Conference, Autotask, ConnectWise, TigerPaw, SMB Nation, ASCII, HTG, Datto, nAble as well as many vertical specialty shows, product user groups and so on.
Around this time last year I wrote a post explaining that we are changing the way we help our partners grow and manage their clients. In the past it was enough to merely present the product and the partner would literally do everything else. But as the industry, partners (channel) matured the responsibilities have shifted in a way that makes ExchangeDefender far more than just an isolated vendor – today we provide billing, support, onboarding, troubleshooting, backoffice, direct sales and support as well as integration and audit services. We have some new people here to help us push our partners in the new direction.
As a result, our marketing budget has been reallocated to help serve your needs better. In the survey sent to our partner base only 3% of you indicated that you will personally attend one of the shows we planned to sponsor in 2015. But given the option to present an event, run a joint marketing campaign, assist with RFP and presale process, attend and sponsor lunch & learns… well, let’s just say nearly the entire marketing budget got moved to it.
I’m sure you want to know what I will do with my collection of white suits? Where will we get updated ExchangeDefender tshirts and Shockey Monkey USB chargers? Rest assured the answers are coming soon, but if you would like to get involved please get in touch with us.
Sincerely,
Vlad Mazek, CEO
LocalCloud – Update
Today I’ve published an update for LocalCloud, which addresses a few issues that would result in a failure to upload a file. This issue would only occur under certain conditions and was only prevalent in large files It’s turns out this was a result of a known bug inside the .NET framework and how it handles event notifications for the filing system. In addition to resolving this bug, I’ve also implemented a few performance enhancements that should make the application run smoother.
Download: http://www.exchangedefender.com/software/XDStorage.exe
If you’re running a previous version make sure to uninstall it first. However, we’ve upgraded to a new installation platform and all future updates will be patched automatically.
Several months ago we added the LocalCloud feature set into our ExchangeDefender mobile application for both the iPhone and Android. Now you have the ability to access your files from your desktop, mobile workstation and practically any mobile device!
If you have never heard of LocalCloud, it’s a cloud based storage solution for documents. It recognizes multiple file types and is 100% compatible with office applications. You can share documents between computers and even allow other individuals access to your files. With multiple access points comes great responsibility, for this we have access control. This feature allows you or another individual to “check-out” files to prevent accidental overwrites while the data is exchanged in the cloud.
Valentine’s Day Promotion
This year we’ll be focusing on our existing partner base even more. We’ll be cutting back on some of the road shows a bit and refocusing those resources to more efforts to reach out and help our current partners. We’re still offering migrations to our platform free of charge, if you aren’t aware of what we’re able to do, please give us a call at (877)546-0316.
Another step we will be taking is adding more promotions to help your growth. This month we’ll be showing you some “Love” for Valentine’s Day. Please be sure to keep an eye out in your physical mailbox. We sent out a “little something” for you guys to help you save some cash.
If you haven’t received a postcard from us by the end of next week reach out to to us we can get it to you electronically. If you need help with anything or have any questions about our free migration service please give us a call or email me and we can get the ball rolling.
Hosted Exchange – Configuration Checker
Throughout the day we receive hundreds of requests for new services and existing account modifications. Luckily we automated this process from a very early stage and this helped to prevent 99% of account provisioning errors. Believe it or not, there was once a time where everything was processed manually!
However on occasion when there is a hiccup, then it’s simple a matter of locating the source of the issue. While issues on our end are rather easy to diagnose and fix, it’s not always as simple on the partner’s side. There can be a handful of issues that can arise if the account is not properly configured or contains an invalid parameter.
This is why we’ve implemented a well overdue feature integrated directly inside the service manager. If you select the drop down box next to any Hosted Exchange account, you will see a new option called “Check Configuration”.
After selecting this option you will be brought directly to the “Check Configuration” page. It will automatically populate the email address from the previous screen and run the initial check. Also keep in mind that you are able to test other accounts without leaving this page.
It will perform several checks including: Syntax, Server Location, Provisioning, MX Record, Autodiscover and validates that the account is protected by ExchangeDefender. In the event an issue arises you have the option to either “Email” or “Open Ticket” which will automatically include the onscreen results.
We believe that solving the issue promptly makes for a better long term relationship. So if there are any features or adjustments we can make to help smooth the transaction between you and your clients, don’t hesitate to let us know! Our support staff eagerly awaits the opportunity to speak with you about how we can continue to improve our process!
Windows Web Hosting Hardware Upgrade
Platform Upgrade
If you follow our NOC you’ll notice that earlier this week we had a hardware upgrade to our Windows Web Hosting platform. Our team put in extra hours to minimize the amount of down time you and your clients would experience. The key components of the upgrade were RAM and CPU. This resulted in better performance for you and your clients.
Do I as the partner need to do anything?
There is absolutely nothing that you need to do on your end. The upgrade took place on the server side and no changes need to be made on your end. It was a seamless transition and everything from data to host IP addresses remain the same. You and your clients can use the same great product as you always have.
Additional Perks
An additional perk is on the backend of things. The new hardware allows us to perform backups and recoveries more efficiently than what was previously available. This means less down time for you and your clients in the event of a disaster.
Moving Forward
The hardware upgrade was smooth transition. Over the past few days we have seen increased performance. In addition to performance enhancements we now have a more efficient way of backing up your data. As technology is always changing we look forward to making more improvements for you across all of our platforms!
ExchangeDefender – Licensing (Enhanced)
Over the years we’ve always had a desire to increase the aspects of reporting in several areas. However due to time restraints and prioritizing our efforts towards ensuring we made our platform completely stable and continuing to provide a rock solid solution, we had to defer until later.
This has been the case for the last few years. We all worked insane hours to ensure that everyone had an awesome product, that they would be proud to call their own! Now we are enjoying the fruits of our labor and focusing on creating more of the eye popping visual features that will really help showcase our product!
As a result, I’m proud to showcase one of our latest ExchangeDefender features.
While signed in as a (Service Provider) account, you can view the licensing page located under: Licensing->Management. Here you could see the total seat count for the desired domain at a glance. We’ve expanded this to also include the ability to list each individual account under the domains. This is a toggle-able option that is off by default to help limit the initial page load for those who don’t want the extra information.
Not only that, you also have the ability to save and download a PDF of the current view. This has been highly requested by several users as to provide them the ability to keep archived copies of their seat counts each month for financial records. Other users have simply expressed the need to print these reports, which we have also implemented with one click access.
Lastly we understand that our partner’s clients also like to be kept in the loop about their spam information from time to time. Listed next to every domain is the ability to view and print the current SPAM statistics for that account. All of this information is simply one click away, quick and easy access to the information your clients want to see!
Stay tuned we’re working on even more exciting features to help ease the load of bringing a new client on-board and continuing to manage that account!