Posted on May 2, 2014
Enterprise Email? Sorry, I don't have my own personal S-6 at home!
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AKO was hard enough, but now Enterprise Email is getting more and more convoluted. I was never trained to understand SSLs and Certificates and whatever other computer wizardry is required to check my email at home. Increasingly we are expecting SMs of all levels to access their official Army email at home but there is no official apparatus to ensure SMs have the ability to do all this technical mumbo-jumbo. I know I am just a dumb LT, and GOD BLESS Michael J. Danberry at militarycac.com. But is this wrong? Are we expecting too much of people? The military has made it SO difficult to do the simplest but most necessary of tasks in the 21st century - check email!
What can the Army do to actually empower this activity rather than make it more and more difficult?
Was this requirement written entirely by generals who have Gov computers, Outlook and their own personal S-6? Were the creators of this mandate truly so out of touch to realize that there are company-size elements out there with only one computer to their name?
What are the solutions? DO they know how hard it is to be a dumb LT who can't figure out how to configure his (or her) own computer to do this at home?
Can you sense my frustration!?
What are your thoughts, please tell me I am not alone in being so angry at this!
What can the Army do to actually empower this activity rather than make it more and more difficult?
Was this requirement written entirely by generals who have Gov computers, Outlook and their own personal S-6? Were the creators of this mandate truly so out of touch to realize that there are company-size elements out there with only one computer to their name?
What are the solutions? DO they know how hard it is to be a dumb LT who can't figure out how to configure his (or her) own computer to do this at home?
Can you sense my frustration!?
What are your thoughts, please tell me I am not alone in being so angry at this!
Posted >1 y ago
Responses: 18
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LT,
Don't feel bad I have been a S6 for over a decade now I have several problems with the OWA. Merging all of the CONUS servers was a great idea but merging it with AKO was horrible. This is what happens when the people making the decisions haven't been on the line in 40 years.
Don't feel bad I have been a S6 for over a decade now I have several problems with the OWA. Merging all of the CONUS servers was a great idea but merging it with AKO was horrible. This is what happens when the people making the decisions haven't been on the line in 40 years.
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COL Vincent Stoneking
And when I logged into OWA this morning, I got a static banner telling me "for best results go to new server link!"
I get that they have to balance load and all that. Common enough. But I have NEVER had a work or other civilian IT system require me to make manual adjustments because of server moves.
WTF.... Have they never heard of a redirect?
bangs head against wall.
Yes, it was a simple, 30 second fix, but it is indicative of people in power just not understanding.
I get that they have to balance load and all that. Common enough. But I have NEVER had a work or other civilian IT system require me to make manual adjustments because of server moves.
WTF.... Have they never heard of a redirect?
bangs head against wall.
Yes, it was a simple, 30 second fix, but it is indicative of people in power just not understanding.
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CPT (Join to see)
Sir, simply put, I don't know many, if any that use an out of the box solution for the number of users that we have. Please remember, the end goal is to have every member of DoD using this system and that it will likely have well over a million accounts/personas. One person can, in theory have 3 separate personas. The inconvenience of having to go to a different server is more because of Microsoft. Microsoft tailors quite a bit of stuff just for the government. The government may be able to modify it in the web coding, but there is no guarantee it will hold when the backend is upgraded.
There are still multiple servers, at different locations. Usually, it will pick the best server at the site on its own, but you still have to know with location to access, which is based on where you are stationed.
Of all of the things that we use, e-mail is about the least frustrating. I do wish we could use stock iPhone and Samsung Knox devices to access our account, as well as use Outlook on our personal computer. Again, I understand the security implications, but you can force the pst to be encrypted. Also, what would stop me from copying the pst from my work computer to a disc and to my personal computer. That is what we actually recommend to people to clean up their EE mailbox.
There are still multiple servers, at different locations. Usually, it will pick the best server at the site on its own, but you still have to know with location to access, which is based on where you are stationed.
Of all of the things that we use, e-mail is about the least frustrating. I do wish we could use stock iPhone and Samsung Knox devices to access our account, as well as use Outlook on our personal computer. Again, I understand the security implications, but you can force the pst to be encrypted. Also, what would stop me from copying the pst from my work computer to a disc and to my personal computer. That is what we actually recommend to people to clean up their EE mailbox.
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MAJ Robert (Bob) Petrarca
40 years, that's about how long it took for DoD and DoA to approve the specs, award the contracts, alpha test, beta test, demo and get that lovely system out into SMs hands, so you're right on target and tracking MAJ Telesco. :-)
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CPT (Join to see)
EE (and its OWA) are not merged with AKO in any way. EE is a service the Army is purchasing from DISA.
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I completely agree. I was working at the NEC here at JBLM in the Customer management branch when they had us make the transition, VERY tedious and tiring. Imo, and as you stated, AKO was just fine. If it isn't broke don't fix it... Common sense seems to be lacking in more than one area lately. The only semi positive thing that we were able to do was give users fair warning to back up whatever they didn't want to lose. Which is still kind of redundant as when you retire you have to do the SAME time consuming thing in reverse, as you transition right back over into an AKO Retiree account.
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