Old Outlook, New Outlook or Outlook Web Access
-
@BRRABill said:
@scottalanmiller said:
OWA makes local files for performance. If security is your concern, yes, incognito would be the way to go. Easy to choose which method you want to use in that way.
But if you are looking to not keep any data on the endpoint, isn't that what you would naturally recommend?
Or, do you consider:
- data on the endpoint
- security of data on the endpoint
to be two discrete things?
Correct, I consider them different things. I use OWA because I find it superior to Outlook in every way. Runs faster, gets features faster, doesn't use up local storage, more stable, less IT oversight, more secure, etc.
I don't use OWA because it is more secure. I like that it is, that's a nice bonus. But I don't have any fear of someone stealing my laptop in an attempt to get to my email. There is nothing secret in my email and someone stealing my laptop is going to be after the hardware, not the data. The data is worth nothing to someone, the laptop is worth whatever the hardware is worth.
OWA leaves nothing on the laptop that I'd be worried about in most cases anyway. But if you have serious security concerns, and I've worked in those environments, then using incognito would be the way to go.
-
@scottalanmiller said:
Correct, I consider them different things. I use OWA because I find it superior to Outlook in every way. Runs faster, gets features faster, doesn't use up local storage, more stable, less IT oversight, more secure, etc.
I don't use OWA because it is more secure. I like that it is, that's a nice bonus. But I don't have any fear of someone stealing my laptop in an attempt to get to my email. There is nothing secret in my email and someone stealing my laptop is going to be after the hardware, not the data. The data is worth nothing to someone, the laptop is worth whatever the hardware is worth.
OWA leaves nothing on the laptop that I'd be worried about in most cases anyway. But if you have serious security concerns, and I've worked in those environments, then using incognito would be the way to go.
And in non-OWA scenarios, such as the PDF I was mentioning, or some other 3rd party files you need to work on (such as LibreOffice) ... what do you do? Download and then delete once you edit and reupload?
Again, talking about in a security thought here.
Perhaps I should move this back to the "local encryption" thread. This is the last piece I am trying to come to terms with, I think.
-
I find OWA to be much slower than my Outlook 2007.
In Outlook 2007, I hit DELETE and POOF! it's gone. It takes a second or two in OWA. Hard to really blow through e-mail quickly.
-
I find in Outlook that even if I delete stuff, sometimes it comes back. It tells me that it has deleted long before the operation has been successful.
-
@BRRABill said:
And in non-OWA scenarios, such as the PDF I was mentioning, or some other 3rd party files you need to work on (such as LibreOffice) ... what do you do? Download and then delete once you edit and reupload?
Well, this goes back to my "how we work with third parties" stuff. I never really get PDFs of private data, mostly it would be marketing, advertising, generic data and spec sheets, or education material (training books, and the like.) Not things that have security concerns.
However, thankfully with OWA you get PDF viewing right in the browser so no need to download to read it.
If I need to keep a PDF outside of the email system OWA has a "Send to Onedrive" command right in it, so no need to go to my desktop storage even to move it out of the email system.
And when it comes to collaboration stuff instead of PDFs, so Word and Excel as examples, we share them via SharePoint and OneDrive for Business so they never need to exist on the local machine to be used.
Basically - I don't run into these problems. So it isn't about securing things in that situation, it's about avoiding that situation
-
So let's say I e-mailed you an Excel file of 100 of my clients and asked you to make envelopes to mail out. How would you do that?
-
@BRRABill said:
So let's say I e-mailed you an Excel file of 100 of my clients and asked you to make envelopes to mail out. How would you do that?
The challenge for me here is... I don't know how that process works anywhere so I'm a little in the dark. I assume that this would need to interface with some printing software somewhere? Seems like this would be completely dependent on what we were using for printing.
In my case, it would be forwarded on to the office with the printer since we, as a company, are paperless. It would be really weird for one company to hire us to do printing on their behalf.
But I get your point. But I think there isn't enough to know here. If we were doing printing then we'd have software that I would know about and I might have more information as to how it likely works.
Would it be common to have a print "server" that you submit a CSV to for this?
Sorry, but I'm actually unaware of how this is commonly done.
-
But thinking about this, it feels very contrived. If we are talking about unsecured end points then when would a mobile unit be used for printing duties where security is concerned? If the spreadsheet needs to be secured, so does the print server and the printer and likely the paper that it churns out. So using a random laptop somewhere seems like an odd device to be doing that printing. How are you picturing that working?
It seems like in a case where there was security concerns, HIPAA for example, you'd not be doing this from "loose" endpoints like this but having specific security processes because you are specifically moving secure data from the secure world to the insecure world (paper to go public.) So there has to be a point where the security stops as that is the point of the exercise.
-
I am finding that some of the features that are in the Outlook client that I would expect to find in the OWA version are not there.
For instance, I cannot set a custom due date on a message converted to a task. It has to be Today, Tomorrow, Next week, etc. (Flag for Reminder). I have to create a completely new task before it will let me set any kind of custom date... Even for Reminders!
-
@scottalanmiller said:
But thinking about this, it feels very contrived. If we are talking about unsecured end points then when would a mobile unit be used for printing duties where security is concerned? If the spreadsheet needs to be secured, so does the print server and the printer and likely the paper that it churns out. So using a random laptop somewhere seems like an odd device to be doing that printing. How are you picturing that working?
It seems like in a case where there was security concerns, HIPAA for example, you'd not be doing this from "loose" endpoints like this but having specific security processes because you are specifically moving secure data from the secure world to the insecure world (paper to go public.) So there has to be a point where the security stops as that is the point of the exercise.
We wouldn't. But I'm trying to figure out how ANY endpoint can deal with not pulling local data down to work on it.
It just doesn't seem possible. At least not in the tasks that I do.
-
I'll move this part to the endpoint discussion and leave this thread to discuss the inadequacies of OWA, and the people who still love OWA.
-
@BRRABill said:
@scottalanmiller said:
But thinking about this, it feels very contrived. If we are talking about unsecured end points then when would a mobile unit be used for printing duties where security is concerned? If the spreadsheet needs to be secured, so does the print server and the printer and likely the paper that it churns out. So using a random laptop somewhere seems like an odd device to be doing that printing. How are you picturing that working?
It seems like in a case where there was security concerns, HIPAA for example, you'd not be doing this from "loose" endpoints like this but having specific security processes because you are specifically moving secure data from the secure world to the insecure world (paper to go public.) So there has to be a point where the security stops as that is the point of the exercise.
We wouldn't. But I'm trying to figure out how ANY endpoint can deal with not pulling local data down to work on it.
It just doesn't seem possible. At least not in the tasks that I do.
Gotta be different tasks. I haven't run into this issue in years for work data. Video games, yes, those I pull down locally.
Keep in mind that all companies using Chromebooks don't pull down data at all and do printing. So this isn't some fanciful theory but the real world that lots of individuals and companies work with today. Often those pulling down data locally are doing so out of habit or legacy workflows, not necessity.
What work are you doing yourself that would necessitate local data? I'm not saying that it doesn't exist, only that it's rapidly becoming uncommon.
-
@scottalanmiller said:
I find in Outlook that even if I delete stuff, sometimes it comes back. It tells me that it has deleted long before the operation has been successful.
This is an OST issue. Offline mode.
I agree that deleting things in OWA is much slower than on the Outlook client.
-
@BRRABill said:
So let's say I e-mailed you an Excel file of 100 of my clients and asked you to make envelopes to mail out. How would you do that?
Assuming mail merge exists in the online Word client, you would simply use that. If it doesn't, then you would send the file to the locally install copy of Word, use mail merge and then close the local install, which would save any changes back to SharePoint and delete the local cache.
-
@scottalanmiller said:
What work are you doing yourself that would necessitate local data? I'm not saying that it doesn't exist, only that it's rapidly becoming uncommon.
A problem I need to solve is scanning paper into a PDF, then uploading the PDF into my EHR. The EHR uses the browser's ability to use local storage to find files to upload the PDF from.
I can't see that I would want to scan my pages to say ODfB, then use my EHR to grab it from ODfB through my PC because that would mean the following:
Scanner saves file across the internet to ODfB -> EHR in browser sees file in ODfB through local client redirect, PDF is downloaded to local machine, then pushed up to EHR system.This means the PDF would be going out to the internet twice and being downloaded twice... waste of time and bandwidth.
If the EHR vendor knew how to talk directly to any cloud storage provider, that would dramtically save a step.
-
@Dashrender said:
I agree that deleting things in OWA is much slower than on the Outlook client.
I committed to using OWA all day today, and the deleting is awful.
The whole system is so much slower than Outlook 2007. Did Outlook 2013 slow down tremendously?
And I have a newish machine with an SSD.
-
@Dashrender said:
@scottalanmiller said:
What work are you doing yourself that would necessitate local data? I'm not saying that it doesn't exist, only that it's rapidly becoming uncommon.
A problem I need to solve is scanning paper into a PDF, then uploading the PDF into my EHR. The EHR uses the browser's ability to use local storage to find files to upload the PDF from.
I can't see that I would want to scan my pages to say ODfB, then use my EHR to grab it from ODfB through my PC because that would mean the following:
Scanner saves file across the internet to ODfB -> EHR in browser sees file in ODfB through local client redirect, PDF is downloaded to local machine, then pushed up to EHR system.This means the PDF would be going out to the internet twice and being downloaded twice... waste of time and bandwidth.
If the EHR vendor knew how to talk directly to any cloud storage provider, that would dramtically save a step.
Are you concerned with it being local, as well?
-
@BRRABill said:
@Dashrender said:
I agree that deleting things in OWA is much slower than on the Outlook client.
I committed to using OWA all day today, and the deleting is awful.
The whole system is so much slower than Outlook 2007. Did Outlook 2013 slow down tremendously?
And I have a newish machine with an SSD.
The local machine has no bearing on delete speed what so ever (other than your browser might refresh slow). I think this is an O365 problem.
But really this is the only issue I have with it.
Would you try doing a Shift Delete and tell me what happens? can you arrow to the next message? or did the browser lose focus?
-
Would you try doing a Shift Delete and tell me what happens? can you arrow to the next message? or did the browser lose focus?
What do you mean?
-
@BRRABill said:
@Dashrender said:
@scottalanmiller said:
What work are you doing yourself that would necessitate local data? I'm not saying that it doesn't exist, only that it's rapidly becoming uncommon.
A problem I need to solve is scanning paper into a PDF, then uploading the PDF into my EHR. The EHR uses the browser's ability to use local storage to find files to upload the PDF from.
I can't see that I would want to scan my pages to say ODfB, then use my EHR to grab it from ODfB through my PC because that would mean the following:
Scanner saves file across the internet to ODfB -> EHR in browser sees file in ODfB through local client redirect, PDF is downloaded to local machine, then pushed up to EHR system.This means the PDF would be going out to the internet twice and being downloaded twice... waste of time and bandwidth.
If the EHR vendor knew how to talk directly to any cloud storage provider, that would dramtically save a step.
Are you concerned with it being local, as well?
No, I'm not worried about the local nature of this. Workstations I don't worry about encrypting. This is mostly done from workstations/desktops, not laptops. But even so, the user is uploading the files directly from the network share, not downloading the files to the local machine. Sure they open the file on the local machine and there is probably some type of Cache on the local machine, but I'm really not worried about that as well - I suppose I should see what kind leakage there is on the local machine, but we've been using PDFs and their readers for decades and there hasn't been any big news about there being a problem, so I'm kinda guessing it's not big of a deal. Is there some leakage, probably. Is it large enough to cause a real concern, probably not.
If these were laptops and the chance of theft was high, then I would reconsider.
