Of all the improvements that Snow Leopard offers corporate users, native Exchange compatibility is by far the most obvious. And unlike configuring Microsoft’s own Entourage, a long-standing complaint among corporate IT staff, how one configures Exchange accounts in Snow Leopard is fairly obvious as well. That said, it’s also the single most requested topic we’ve received since Snow Leopard was first announced, and the subject of our very first 10.6 article.

Configuring Exchange Email in Snow Leopard:

If you’ve only been using Entourage for Exchange integration, there’s a chance your users have never even launched Apple’s native Mail client, and opening the application for the first time will launch Mail’s setup assistant. If you simply need to add an Exchange account to an existing Mail setup, the same assistant can be reached by selecting “Preferences…” from the “Mail” menu and adding a new account in the “Accounts” section.

In the first pane of the assistant you can simply type the user’s name, their email address, and their Exchange password.

In the second pane you’ll have to select “Exchange 2007″, as Snow Leopard connects via the new Exchange Web Services and doesn’t support earlier versions of Exchange Server. You’ll also have to give the configuration a name. If your Exchange server is on the local network and runs the Autodiscover service, Mail should automatically populate the remaining fields. If not, you’ll need to fill in the fully qualified hostname of the Exchange server, the user’s login name, and their password. You’ll also want to check the “Address Book contacts” and “iCal Calendars” boxes, allowing users access to the company’s Global Address List and employee schedules.

The third pane simply confirms the information you’ve already entered before taking the new configuration online. In a perfect world you can click “Create”, and you’re all set.

Troubleshooting Exchange Email in Snow Leopard:

Unfortunately, things don’t always go perfectly. While Snow Leopard does a pretty good job of configuring Exchange accounts on its own, it frequently needs a helping hand from a friendly IT representative.

The most common configuration issue is that Mail tracks both an internal and external Exchange server, but only configures the internal server by default. If your users connect to Exchange over the internet and without VPN, you’ll need to populate that second field. If the hostname of your Exchange server resolves differently internally and externally, you’ll need to configure that as well. These settings are found by selecting “Preferences…” from the “Mail” menu, and navigating to the “Account Information” pane of the “Accounts” section.

Similarly, Mail stores separate EWS paths and ports for the internal and external server addresses in the “Advanced” pane of the same section. Chances are you’ll want the same path and port for both, but Mail will only configure the “Internal” options by default. These two options are obvious once you realize they’re there, but their absence from the initial configuration screens can cause a lot of confusion.

Once you’ve corrected those settings, you should be able to sync a user’s Exchange account with their local machine immediately.