What is the Remote Web Workplace?

The remote web workplace (RWW) is a website available only to companies that use Microsoft Small Business Server (SBS) 2003. This website is a portal that connects you to many of the features you use at the office such as email, your computer and network access. To use RWW from outside the office open up Internet Explorer and type in the address given to you by your support person (e.g. http://example.com/remote) This should bring up the logon page below.

Remote Web Workplace – Logon Page

When SBS users navigate their browsers to the Remote Web Workplace web site, they are first presented with a authentication logon page. Users are required to enter a valid domain user name and password.

Remote Web Workplace Main Page

If you are using a private computer such as your personal computer at your home, or your laptop at a hotel, be sure to uncheck the “I'm using a public or shared computer” checkbox. Also, if you are using a dial-up connection or a similar slow internet connection adjust the “connection speed” drop down box accordingly. The user name and password you type in is the same one you use at your computer at your office when you log in at the beginning of the day. Once logged into RWW you will see a page similar to the one below.

Email

To send and receive email simply click on “Read my company e-mail”. This will take you to Outlook Web Access (OWA) where you can check your mail, send and receive messages, view your calendar and contacts. For the most part, OWA works a lot like Outlook and is pretty self explanatory, however, if you are using IE 7 you might run into some problems with the pages not loading correctly. Generally reloading the page (Refresh) will fix these problems. If you continue to have trouble contact your support personnel.

Remotely accessing your computer

RWW offers a very nice feature allowing you to remotely access your work computer. Using RWW you can access the desktop on your work computer as if you were sitting right in front of it. Once you click on "Connect to my computer at work" you will see a box like the one below.

You should see your computer in the list and, if you left your computer on at work, you should be able to select your computer name and click connect. At this point IE will take you to your desktop. If you did not log off your computer (I hope you locked it by hitting ctrl-alt-del and selecting "lock computer") then you should see your desktop just as you left it. Otherwise it will be as if you just logged in.

Below is an example of connection to a computer running Windows XP Professional and is Joined to the SBS domain.

By Chris Wilkinson © 2007

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