So the next phase in our Mimecast implementation is the Journaling. We currently journal all email through Cryoserver (a black box forensic compliance box if you like).
I spoke with the Service Delivery Manager at Mimecast to see if we could get in on the beta testing for the snap in and he managed to squeeze us in 
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I got an email from the Beta team today with the login details to log in to the portal to download the software and view the installation and user guides.
The software requires some Visual C++ Runtime Libraries to be installed and they are supposedly packaged into the zip file but they were not in mine, never the less these files were available from good old MS. so I installed the Runtime Libraries first and then installed the Mimecast Outlook Connector, a straight forward next, next next install. Then loaded up Outlook.
Within outlook if you go to the tools option and select Email Accounts/Account Settings (dependant on Outlook 2003/2007) and then in there add the new Mimecast Email Service (listed under other/additional).
Click next and then input all the required details.
Once you have inputted the details save it and then close outlook and open backup. You will then see in your email folders/tree view an extra account with your email address. In there you will see your Inbox and sent items:
Although this is still in beta I was very impressed with it as plugging into outlook as it does almost takes the need to keep your emails in outlook away. Will save us some disk space, Thanks Mimecast
But the best bit of this isn't just that feature the bit I was really impressed with was the search facility
I inputted just a simple search word ie TechRepublic and it then returned the results pretty quickly.
The Mimecast toolbar is displayed only when you are on a Mimecast folder. then from there you can search you inbox or outbox for the email. if you want to do a more advanced search you will probably be best logging on to the Mimecast Towers and doing it from the web menu but to be able to do a quick seach from within outlook is very handy.
Another thing I then noticed with the snap in was that you can drag and drop from the Mimecast folder back into your inbox/sent items, even better you can do multiple drag and drop where as with cryoserver you could only forward an individual email to your inbox at a time.
The idea is that we will switch over to Mimecast Journaling for a few weeks before we actually configure the snap-in for our users, so it can build up more internal emails and not just external emails.
