OIV Outlook Express Plug-In help

OIV Outlook Express Plug-In is a plug-in for Microsoft Outlook Express designed to view, send and receive OIV Stamped Mail. When you setup OIV Outlook Express Plug-In, in addition to the features of Microsoft Outlook Express, you will be able to send Stamped Mail and to open and redeem Stamped Mail.

Before you install OIV Outlook Express Plug-In, Microsoft Office Outlook Express must already be installed in your computer. OIV Outlook Express Plug-In works with Outlook Express 6.0 only.

Installing

OIV Outlook Express Plug-In is free to download. You can always get the latest version here. If you have any problems using OIV Outlook Express Plug-In, first make sure that you are using latest version of the software.

Click here to download OIV Outlook Express Plug-In to your computer, and to save the installation file on your computer. Be sure to remember where you saved the file (the desktop might be a good place).

Once the file has finished downloading, please find and open the folder containing it.

Double-click the installation file you just downloaded, to start installing OIV Outlook Express Plug-In on your computer. Follow the instructions in the installation wizard and complete the installation.

Note: Please make sure that Microsoft Outlook Express is not running on your computer, while installing the OIV Outlook Express Plug-In.

OIV Microsoft Outlook Express Plug-In elements in your main window

After you install the OIV Outlook Express Plug-In, the OIV Mail menu item, OIV Mail button toolbar and OIV related folders appear, shown in the following screen shots.

Screen shot of the menu item, seen after installing OIV Outlook Express Plug-In.

Screen shot of the buttons, seen after installing OIV Outlook Express Plug-In.

In the main window, the left pane displays your mail folders hierarchy. You will see new folders related to OIV Mail named Acknowledgment, Expired, Stamped, and UFO. The right pane displays the list of mails in the selected mail folders.

To start sending and receiving the stamped mail, first you have login into the OIV Mail System. Then you will see the OIV Outlook Express Plug-In elements enabled.

Select the item OivMail->Login. This opens the Login dialog shown below. Note you can login to OIV Mail System only after you have registered and activated your OIV Mail Account.

Selecting Logoff logs you off from OIV Mail System.

Selecting OivMail->Grant... clicking the “Grant” toolbar button opens the following dialog box.

Enter the sender's email address and click on “Grant Permission” button to grant permission stamp to the sender to send mail to you. This button is enabled when you are logged in to OIV Mail System.

Selecting OivMail->Revoke… or clicking the “Revoke” button on the Toolbar, opens the following dialog box.

You can enter a sender's email address and click “Revoke Permission” button to revoke the permission stamp that allows that sender to send mail to you. Please note that you must be logged in to OIV Mail System before you can grant and revoke permissions.

You can also log in to OIV Mail System on the web and grant/revoke permission to senders. There, you can see a list of senders to whom you have granted permission.

Selecting the “Wallet” from OIV Mail Menu or clicking the “Wallet” button on the toolbar, opens the following dialog.

This message box shows you the usable credit balance in your OIV Mail account and the current value of un-cashed stamps in your account. This button is enabled only if you have logged in to OIV Mail System.

Selecting the OivMail->Mail Status from OIV Mail Menu opens the following window.

The Status window shows the status of sent Stamped Mail. Note that deleting a line from the Status window removes it forever even though the sent Stamped Mail still appears in the Sent folder.

The first five columns show various attributes of the sent message. The redeemed column shows the number of the message's recipients who have opened it and collected the postage. Remember, Stamped Mail may have multiple recipients. The expired column shows the number of the message's recipients who failed to open the message before it expired. To resend a Stamped Mail which has expired, highlight the message and click the Resend button.

OIV Mail Account – Basic Concepts

Before proceeding to setup your OIV Outlook Express Plug-In to view or redeem Stamped Mail, it is important to become familiar with concepts of OIV Mail account and how it relates to your email address.

Your OIV Mail account is associated with your email address. If you use multiple email addresses with OIV Mail, you have an account for each.

Example:

You received and redeemed a Stamped Mail at your email address John892135@yahoo.com. Then the OIV Mail system has created an account with ID, John892135@yahoo.com”. From now onwards when you open a Stamped Mail addressed to “John892135@yahoo.com”, the stamp will be redeemed into that account.

OIV Outlook Express Plug-In also records this account in its data on your PC. If you have not yet activated this OIV Mail account, all you can do is redeem received stamps. If you want to know the balance in this account you can select “wallet” from OivMail menu or click the “Wallet” button on the toolbar.

In order for you to send permission Stamped Mail or to convert OIV Stamp credit in to cash, OIV Mail System must verify that you are the owner of the email address. This verification happens when you register with OIV Mail system by either selecting “Register” item from the File menu of OIV Mailer or by visiting the Register page on OIV Mail web site. During registration process, you specify, your name, address and choose your password. Please note that this password is your OIV Mail password and is not related to the password for your mail server. OIV Mail System will then send an email to the address that you are registering. This email contains a verification link which you click. When you click the link the OIV System informs you that you have successfully activated your OIV Mail account.

In order for you to transfer credit and send value Stamped Mail, OIV Mail System must verify your financial connection with your OIV Mail account. You can do this simply by buying a minimum of $10 OIV Stamp credit with your credit card or Pay Pal account. You need to buy this credit just once. This credit is added to the credit you have received by redeeming stamps.
After you become eligible to send value Stamped Mail, you can log into OIV Mail System on the OIV Mail website and send value Stamped Mail. If the email account is hosted on a POP3 server (not a web mail account), you can also use Outlook Express with the plug-in to send Stamped Mail.

Viewing Stamped Mail

If you received a Stamped Mail in your Outlook Express, you can view and redeem the Stamped Mail by clicking on the subject in the summary pane, just as you would open a normal email.

Sending Stamped Mail

Click the “Create Mail” button on the toolbar. The compose window of the mail client is opened, the screen shot is provided below.

In the “To…” field, type the recipient's email address. After typing the subject and composing the body of the email, you can:

• Send Stamped Mail by clicking on “Send Stamped” button on the toolbar.
• Send Permission Mail by clicking “Send Permitted” button on the toolbar.

To send permission stamped you must have an activated OIV Mail account.

When you choose send Permission Mail, OIV Outlook Express Plug-In connects to OIV Mail server to find out if you have permission from recipient to send mail. If the recipient has granted you permission to send mail the permission stamp mail is sent, otherwise a message similar to one shown below will appear on your screen.

When you click the “Send Stamped” button, then the dialog similar to the one below will be displayed on your screen.

Type in the amount of stamp and click on “Stamp and Send” to send Stamped Mail to the recipient(s) that you entered in the “To:” box. If you don’t have enough credit in your account then the mail is not sent and a notification message is be displayed on your screen.

Mail Folders

Mail folders store mail messages. This mail folder hierarchy is displayed on the left pane along with the mail folders of Microsoft Outlook Express.

The UFO (Unidentified) mail folder is created by the OIV Outlook Express Plug-In. It cannot be moved or deleted.

Currently, this folder is not used.

In the future, when the Clean Inbox feature is available and if it is selected, this folder is where unidentified messaged will be delivered. In that case, only Stamped and Permission Mail will go to the Inbox.

Unless the Clean Inbox feature is selected, Permission Mail is treated no differently than ordinary mail.