XGate Crew Accounts (Sub Accounts)
Crew e-mail accounts are a perfect solution for
larger vessels wishing to provide inexpensive e-mail access to transient
crew members.
Crew accounts are provided as an add on service to
regular XGate accounts. Please contact your XGate dealer to license crewed
accounts for your vessel(s).
Click
here
to purchase XGate and then purchase Crew Accounts
Crewed accounts vs. regular (or
primary) accounts
Regular or primary XGate e-mail accounts are real
e-mail accounts which have space allocated on the server. Users with
primary e-mail accounts can access their e-mail using:
Primary account holders also have a set of filters
which they can customize for their account to meet the needs.
Unlike primary accounts, crew accounts only exist on
the vessel or remote location. Each crew account is slaved to a primary
account and all the filtering rules set for the primary account apply to the
crew accounts. Crew accounts can only be access on the vessel or remote
location. Users holding crew accounts can not view their e-mail over the
Internet. They must use an e-mail client configured at the remote location
to access their e-mail or use the local webmail program provided for crew
account setups.
Primary accounts must be created on the XGate server
before they can be accessed. Users wishing primary accounts must contact a
GMN/XGate dealer to have their accounts created.
Crew accounts, on the other hand, are managed in
full by the vessel operator. The vessel's communication officer can create,
modify, and delete crew accounts at will. Crew accounts can be created at
any time for any duration. Usage is tracked for each crew account allowing
officers to bill users for e-mail usage.
E-Mail addresses for crew accounts take the form
vessel+crew@gmn-usa.com where vessel is the username for the primary
account and crew is a unique username for the intended crew member. So
unlike primary XGate accounts who have e-mail addresses of the form
username@gmn-usa.com crew accounts have e-mail addresses of the form
PrimaryUserName+CrewUserName@gmn-usa.com. Note that the "+" sign is
important. Without it e-mail will be delivered to the primary account
holder and not the crew member.
Managing Crew Accounts
Use XGate's options->Manage Sub Accounts to add,
delete, and modify local crew accounts.
Each crew account is slaved to a primary account.
"Accounts of type..." is used to select the primary account that is to host
the crew accounts. There must be at least one primary account present on
the system. Push the down arrow to select the primary account that is to
host the crewed accounts. Crewed accounts created under this primary users
will have an e-mail address of the form PrimaryUser+CrewUser@gmn-usa.com.
In this example test has been selected as the primary account and a crew
account called test has been created. This crew members e-mail address is
test+test@gmn-usa.com.
Welcome Text Message
The XGate administrator can create a generic welcome
message that will be placed in every new users Inbox. To create a welcome
message click on the ... button and browse for the welcome message. Enter a
new filename if the message is being created for the first time. Push open
to create or open an existing welcome message. To edit the message push the
"Edit" button. Type in the message and then hit save. The message can be
modified at any time by pushing the "Edit" button.
Add
Add is used to create a new account. Pushing add
brings up a dialog requesting a username and a password. Enter the desired
username for the sub account and a password and hit OK. The new user will
then appear in the Sub Account Management list. You can add as many crew
accounts as you have licensed. It is possible to increase the number of sub
accounts by going through the
licensing procedure a second time.
Import
The Import function allows the administrator import
username/password pairs from a comma separated text file (csv). These files
can be exported from MS Excel, MS Access, or other databases. To import
usernames from a csv file push the Import button and then browse for the
file. The username/password pairs will show up in the Sub Accounts
Management after the accounts have been created.
Delete ALL
Delete ALL removes all the crew accounts bound to
the selected primary user.
Edit
Edit allows the administrator to change a users
username and/or password.
Broadcast
The broadcast function is used to enter a text
message that is to be mailed to every sub user bound to the selected primary
account. Pushing the broadcast button brings up a text edit dialog. Type
in the message followed by pushing the "Broadcast" button to send the e-mail
to all the users.
Using Webmail to Access Crew Accounts
Webmail access to XGate accounts is included with
the licensing of crew accounts. Before you can use webmail you need to
install it first. The webmail installer is included with the XGate
distribution. Execute the installer and follow the installation
instructions very carefully.
Once webmail is installed use any web browser to
access it. On the local XGate machine you can run Internet explorer and
connect to http://localhost. Machines that
are connected to the XGate machine remotely via a LAN can access web mail by
running the web browser and connecting the the TCP/IP address or hostname of
the XGate machine. Once connected a login screen like the one above will
appear.
Primary users can login using their XGate username
and password. Crew members login by entering their extended username
composed of PrimaryUserName+CrewUserName and their password.
The webmail program is straight forward and can be
used to read, reply, compose, and delete e-mail messages. Following is a
screen capture of the inbox for our test user showing links to other webmail
functions.
Configuring External Crew E-Mail Clients
E-Mail clients for crew members connected to the
XGate machine via a LAN can be configured in much the same way as E-Mail
clients accessing XGate on the local machine. To configure an e-mail client
for a crew member use the same instructions for configuring e-mail clients
for access to XGate but replace 127.0.0.1 in the instructions with the IP
address or the network name of the XGate machine. Fully qualified crew
username must be entered when specifying the mail server username. i.e. crew
usernames must be entered as PrimaryUserName+CrewUserName.
Crew Air time Accounting
Click on Image to enlarge
Crew transactions are maintained in a Comma
Separated text file format (CSV) which can be opened in Microsoft Excel and
many other database and spread sheet applications.
Transmission date and time, sending or receiving,
originators e-mail address, recipient e-mail address size, and subject are
stored for every single e-mail send and received via XGate. This account
log can be used to invoice crew members for air time usage.
The CSV file is found with name usage.csv under the
spool directory in the XGate program installation folder. The file is
normally found in c:\program files\global marine networks\xgate\spool\usage.csv
unless the default installation folder was changed during the initial XGate
installation.
|
