When someone sends you an email at say " , the email is stored on a server at "domain.com".  When you check for new email, your computer connects to domain.com, provides your username and password and then downloads all your messages. This download, which uses the POP3 protocol, transfers the email to your computer where it can then be viewed.

For each email address, you can do one of three things:

1. Continue to use it just as you have, making no changes or
2. Tell everyone your new email address and discontinue the old one, or
3. Integrate the email address into the server's email system.

"Integrating your email accounts into the server" means that the server, rather than your computer, will connect to domain.com every few minutes and download all your emails.  This has a number of advantages.

1. All your emails will be screened by the server and sorted according to whether they are legitimate, suspect or spam and are automatically filed into the appropriate folders on the server.
2. All your emails are scanned for potentially dangerous attachment file types, providing you with an extra layer of protection from viruses.
3. Your computer only has to check one server instead of several, making it more efficient when checking for new mail.
4. You can use IMAP or IMAP-over-SSL to view your emails instead of POP3.  This means that no matter how many computers you use, you will be able to view all your emails on each of them. Using POP3 creates the problem that some of your emails are one computer and some emails are on another, depending on which computer you were using when you checked for emails. This is very important for users that either operate from several branch office locations or use both a laptop and desktop computer.
5. You will be able to receive mail from all your accounts, but when you send mail, its return address is your business email address with your own domain name.

To integrate your email accounts, two things must be done:

1. Your email account name, password and the name of POP3 server at your other email providers must be configured into the ONS server.
2. You must change the settings in your email program so that it does not continue to check for emails at all your integrated accounts. In other words, the responsibility for checking for new emails is transferred from your computer to the ONS server.

If you would like to integrate your email accounts, please contact Customer Support with information above for each account you would like to integrate.

Note: Only accounts where you can retrieve email with POP3, or IMAP4 can be integrated. Accounts that are web-based-only cannot be integrated into the server.