Group policies
The new Lookeen 2010 is available now!
We would like to invite you to see for yourself the quality as well as the performance of the new Lookeen 2010. Get your free trial version* here.
By creating Lookeen 2010, we developed the search tool of the next generation. Your advantage: Due to the new features of Lookeen 2010, you will be able to find information even quicker, easier and in a more efficient way:
- Preview of mails, attachments or files in the familiar Outlook format
- Highlighting of the located search words (multicolour)
- Intelligent analysis of your inbox with “Lookeen Analytics“
- Quicker loading of Outlook
- Network Detection: Intelligent indexing of the network resources
- Automatic detection of newly added Outlook archives
- Configurable search favourites with quick access
- Search history management
- New feature “display more results”
- Select all action (STRG-A) possible
- Indexing of different data in recurring appointments
- Automatic indexing of attached mails
- Many new Outlook data arrays now searchable (e.g. location in appointments)
- Now available: one Lookeen configuration file for all Outlook profiles
- 20 new GPO commands for enterprise usage
- Improved drag&drop features
- Image preview (for .jpg, .png, .bmp, .tif, etc.)
- And many other new features…
*For users who have Lookeen licences of the versions 1.x and 2.x, the upgrade will be available for an attractive price amounting to 19.90 €. Simply use our upgrade-centre to download the upgrade.
The purchase price of the full version is still 34.90 €.
Lookeen 2.3 is available – free update!
After an exhausting but fruitful stage of development, last week it was finally so far – the new version Lookeen 2.3 has been released.
In the development, our attention was this time focused, to meet customer requirements and to implement some new features. The participants in the beta phase were impressed by the performance and the speed of the new Lookeen 2.3.
As always, we’ve fixed some bugs and added new features.
Here are the most important facts:
- Improving the search with the *- operator
- Improved search results
- Index now faster
- A simplified and more stable handling with Group Policies
- Improved stability and performance on Windows 7
- Additional Feature: Lookeen remembers the last opened tab
- Additional Feature: Lookeen starts the index delayed to the start of Outlook (performance gain)
- Additional Feature: Search without a local index is possible now
Overall, the new 2.3.1.1242 Lookeen offers a variety of enhancements and improvements. Make yourself a picture and try Lookeen 14 days for free.
As also announced in the previously Newsletter of Lookeen, the version 2.3.1.1242 will be a prerequisite for future updates. Therefore the update remains free for customers of Lookeen 1.x and 2.x versions.
We would like to take this opportunity to address ourselves to the selected group of customers, our friends and acquaintances who have supported us during the beta phase. Thank you for your engaged assistance and your suggestions that help us to improve Lookeen steadily and purposefully.
Martin Welker informed in his latest blog about Lookeen within a company’s environment. Thereby he focused on the installation of Lookeen on the companies’ computers.
Depending on the size of the company and its infrastructure, the use of terminal servers is appropriate. By doing so, the applications will be installed centrally on the terminal server and they will be made available to the users through the terminal server, instead of being installed separately on each computer. End devices with various operating systems can be used for the access.
The applications are executed on the servers, while only the application interface is displayed on the users’ end devices.
The end device does not need to provide processing power for the execution of the application. Thereby also devices with weak hardware, e.g. older devices or also PDAs, can be used for the access to new applications which require a lot of resources.
Only few data is transferred between end device and server. The user’s entries are transferred from the end device to the server and are processed there. The result will be transferred to the user’s screen and displayed.
For the fact that this function of Windows servers offers few configuration possibilities and its handling is often complicated, the US company Citrix specialised itself on such terminal server applications. By using the so-called „MetaFrame Presentation Server“, Citrix-Systems help system administrators with the configuration of distributed systems within a company’s environment.
“These days, companies have higher expectations on networks than ever before. The management is looking for ways to increase productivity and cost-efficiency…”
- (Statement of a Lookeen bulk customer and Citrix Gold Partner)
Nowadays, most applications can normally be installed and used on terminal servers. However, it starts to become difficult when it comes to the configuration of the programmes – especially regarding the existing authorisation system.
Among other things, the following information is important:
- Where will the index be saved?
- Where will which settings be saved?
- Which access authorisations are necessary for which files?
Therefore Lookeen stays transparent concerning all these aspects. We do not want to be cagey about where you can find the index and in which format the settings have to be configured. We, the Lookeen-team, already provide a 100% terminal server and Citrix compatibility. For that, Lookeen simply has to be installed by the system administrators who are responsible for the terminal server. After that you use the Lookeen group policies in order to configure restrictions for each user or for each group of users. The settings of the individual Lookeen installations can be personalized simply and easily with the help of a XML-file.
After that, the users simply log on their work stations and will immediately be able to use Lookeen. Because the Lookeen licence model is based on the number of users, it does not matter on how many work stations each user logs on. Further licences are not required.
We set a high value on making the installation of Lookeen as easy and flexible as possible. This is no problem for single-user-installations: You run the setup.exe, choose a path and after that Lookeen will already be installed.
When you run Outlook after that, the Lookeen-Wizard will help you to add the desired mailboxes to the index and then you will already be able to use Lookeen on your workstation.
Above that Lookeen helps your company to fight the constantly increasing flood of emails.
For the installation within a company’s environment (regardless whether it concerns 20 or 20,000 workstations), flexibility is a decisive factor. In this case, the introduction of a fundamental tool like Lookeen naturally has to be planned well and in a structured way.
The system administrator has to find out which network resources are required for that and which settings or rather restrictions have to be made for the individual users.
The administrator regulates these settings and restrictions with the help of the so-called “Group Policies” (“GPOs” in short).
These group policies are totally indispensable for the integration in a company’s environment.
Sadly not all programmes and tools support group policies. This is why the most successful website in the field of group policies (www.gruppenrichtlinien.de) introduced the TROST-prize („Tja, Rein Optisch Schönes Tool“-prize; which means a prize for a tool which only seems to be good but it is not if you look at it more closely): A “prize” for programmes, which do not function with restricted user authorisations and do not support GPOs.
Therefore we have known from the beginning: In order to make it possible to “roll-out” Lookeen companywide, Lookeen group policies have to be developed. This amount of work should not be underestimated.
The required efforts and especially the error sources caused in a company without group policies are simply unacceptable.
The installation itself is only a part of the integration (of the roll-out) in a company. Afterwards the workstations have to be set up in a personnel-suitable way.
Assuming that you have just installed the software on 500 workstations, hopefully without any problems, the software is not just yet ready to be used only because the installation has been completed. To be honest: Do you want to make sure afterwards that the new software works properly and can be used efficiently when 500 employees with completely different backgrounds and expertise use it?
The administrator is able to control for example the following points with the help of GPOs:
- The including of shared index sources
- The periods of times during which Lookeen indexes the data stock
- The adding of outlook archives, local folders and network folders
- The handling of automatic updates
We, the Lookeen-team, have been engaged in the development of GPOs for a long time and in an extensive way. However, it was worth the time and efforts. Thus this precisely makes Lookeen today so desirable and comfortable for a lot of companies and their system administrators, regarding the central controlling.
At this point we would like to thank our customers very much! We have been actively supported by you with ideas and technical implementations since the initial stage of the GPOs.
Eventually it was one of our long-time partners, who provided us with an administrative template (ADM-File).
Down to the present day, the Lookeen GPOs have proved themselves in a multitude of companies and have been continuously enhanced.
Lookeen has been supporting the feature group policies since version 1.3 – whereas by now altogether more than 50 GPOs setting options exist, like e.g. suppression of the wizard, explicit control regarding the different exchange modes, options adjustable ON/OFF, shared index path and many more…
If you also plan to use Lookeen in your company or if you have questions regarding group policies or ADM-files, please send us an email to info@lookeen.com.
Everyone protects the Environment: Lookeen even protects your Network: Central Indexing made easy!
Just imagine that your Customer Care Center keeps records on all support cases. These records are stored in a central place, a document is allocated to each support case and the corresponding email is linked with it.
Now you can decide in which way you want to make this information accessible for all employees of the CCC. After you have done that, everyone can browse for the corresponding information in a network folder. With the help of Lookeen, you can also index every user of the network drive in order to ensure in this way that everything which is searched for will be found immediately.
But why should 20 users index the same data 20 times? This burdens your network and requires extra time and resources.
Based on this question, we, the Lookeen-team, developed the “shared index”. The concept of the shared index sources includes a central index, which is accessible for all users. The advantages are obvious:
- Every user has the same data status
- The index only has to be created and renewed at one place
Here is another scenario which customers often tell us about:
A multitude of email-archives exists. In order to preserve Outlook’s high performance and user friendliness, naturally those archives shall not be included into the work profile.
This is no problem when using Lookeen:
Simply create a new outlook profile. Afterwards you can add any number of archives to this profile. Lookeen will index the archives in this profile from that moment on. Now you can add this created index as shared index source to your work profile. After you have done that, each query will also include the indexed archives and each indexed object can also be opened and relocated easily by using Lookeen.
New Lookeen Version 1.3 with Group Policies
For many companies it’s an essential issue to restrict user access in their network. But many search tools or desktop search engines are providing possibilities to avoid these gates: The new search tool Lookeen does not!
Axonic delivers with the new version 1.3 an important feature: The Lookeen Group Policies. With that you are able to control to give employees access to sensible or confidential Outlook items, only if they are allowed to. Your IT department or an administrator could easily manage which employee is allowed to e.g. search and find with Lookeen on your Exchange Server, public folder or on your network and who’s not. Even the indexing or searching of PST files could be centrally controlled with the Lookeen Group Policies.
Precise control with multi level access restrictions: You are able to allow an employee to index and find sensible or confidential Outlook items, but to restrict opening or displaying it. With the Lookeen Group Policies you will have your sensible Outlook data under control. If you want further information about the fastest search tool please write an email to: support@lookeen.com
Do you have a sales question? Contact us at 315-352-0745 US/CA
For technical support please use the support form