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Using and managing your secure email and secure file transfer solution is really easy and intuitive. For extra help, we have put together this secure email and secure file transfer user guide. This guide covers both secure email and secure file transfer solutions from SSLPost.
The first thing that you require is an SSLPost secure email or secure file transfer account. This will be created by either your Administrator or the SSLPost support team and will be based on your existing email address.
There is no need to have any special email address to use SSLPost secure email or secure file transfer. The SSLPost web application provides the ability to send encrypted documents from an online web application. This process will be automatic and based on the email address you completed when you purchased the licence unless you notify us differently.
Once you are signed up, you will be sent a welcome email.
You will receive a welcome email similar to one of the two shown below. It may be branded differently, depending on your settings. This may contain a straightforward button to click or a full URL for you to copy and paste into your browser. Click or open the link and you will be taken to a page to complete your one-off registration and set your password.
You will see the following dialogue box. It is strongly recommended that the password you choose for your SSLPost account is not the same as your email password which is set for your ISP or mail service provider (eg Gmail, Hotmail, Yahoo, etc).
When you have completed your registration successfully, you will see the following message:
First, check your Spam or Junk mail for the welcome email. If you did not receive a registration or welcome email or have discarded it without acting upon it, you can use the Forgotten Password link. If your email address is not recognised when you use this link, your account does not exist on the SSLPost platform and you will have to sign up as per point 1 above.
To send an email via the SSLPost web application, you must first log in to your SSLPost account.
Navigate to https://secure.sslpost.com/app/login/, log in via our website at www.sslpost.com (online support or resources pages contain a link) or click on the login link provided on the password changed confirmation screen.
Once you are successfully logged in, your home screen will look like this:
On the left hand side, you will see the main menu. You will also see the home page main panel. This comprises of quick links to three of the most popular SSLPost secure email and secure file transfer account features: Send Secure Email, View Email History and Manage Account Settings. These features are also accessible via the sidebar menu options on the left hand of the page. Clicking on any of the quick links or menu items will display the appropriate SSLPost Web Application page for viewing or input.
Regardless of which page you view when you are logged on to the SSLPost Web Application there are certain elements that are common to all. Your SSLPost registered email address and login status are always displayed at the top right under links to this page, your SSLPost Account Settings and a Logout option:
If you have forgotten or lost your password, you can use the Forgotten Password? link to set or reset it.
If your SSLPost account has been configured to reset your password via email, when you click on this link, the Reset Password dialogue box is displayed.
Enter your email address and click on the Reset Your Password button. You will receive an email from SSLPost with instructions on how to set a new password for your SSLPost Account. If you cannot see the email in your inbox, please check your spam/junk folder.
If there is no activity in your SSLPost Account for any 15 minute period you will automatically be logged out and will have to log back in before you can proceed. The 15 minute time limit is set as a default for security reasons (required for audit purposes). However, it can be amended by your SSLPost administrator, if permissible or may have been pre defined by your company during set up.
A pop up window will be displayed with a countdown from 30 seconds to logout, during which time you still have the option to remain logged in by clicking on the Stay logged in button.
Having successfully logged in to the SSLPost Web Application the next step is to send a secure email from within the web Interface. You can use the quicklink on the screen or select from the main menu on the left hand side. This choice can be found via the send encrypted email option under the My Secure Email.
You are able to send documents as an embedded link. This avoids any browser size restrictions that may be set on the recipient’s email client.
The secure email then operates very similarly to a standard webmail facility.
TO: Enter the email address of the recipient. This must be a valid email address. As you type this a blue box will appear underneath the TO box. When you have finished typing the address, click on the address in the blue box to add it to the TO field.
SSLPost secure email is learning from your actions. Next time you send to that recipient, as you type, so SSLPost secure email will bring up a list of recipients for you to choose from.
A welcome email will automatically be sent to the user and you should inform the recipient of your intention of sending them an email via SSLPost Secure Email (as they may not be familiar with the service), explaining the will receive a welcome email and will also need to set their password. You may wish to send them a link to this page.
Addresses can be separated by commas such as ” demouser@sslpost.com , testuser@sslpost.com “.
Send to Group: The SSLPost secure email web interface provides the ability to send TO an entire group without having to manually enter the contacts of each of your intended recipients.
Click on the green plus sign to the right of the TO field. Next a pop-up window will appear with a list of contacts and groups.
To add a group, click on beside the name, above you can see the group co-workers have been added as it now has a green check mark .
CC: The CC field allows you to Carbon Copy the secure email to additional recipients if they are not the direct recipient, you can additionally have multiple CC addresses using comma’s to separate the email addresses. CC to Group: Click on the green plus sign to the right of the CC field. Next, a pop-up window will appear with a list of contacts and groups. To add a group, click on beside the name, above you can see the group co-workers have been added as it now has a green check mark.
BCC: Blind Carbon Copies allow you to send the email to others without the ability for them to see the additional recipients. BCC can also be used to send emails to yourself as an additional copy of what you have sent. BCC to Group: You can also BCC to a group by following the same actions as above. Click on the green plus sign to the right of the BCC field and repeat as above in green.
Subject line: This field is mandatory
Type message (not encrypted): This area is the same as a normal email. You can add any text that is not of a sensitive manner.
Type message (encrypted): This area of the message is encrypted and should be used for any sensitive data.
To create an embedded file: Click the attach files option, browse and add files to your email. You can select multiple files by using ctrl+click. Always allow five seconds after attaching your last file for the process to complete. These will appear in the email as embedded links, downloading only when the recipient enters their password and clicks on the link to download. This method avoids any issues that may be caused by browser restriction settings on your recipient’s email client and is a far better option for large file transfers.
Password Protected: Password protection refers to the recipient being required to enter a password to view the encrypted document; the default configuration is to have this enabled. This option may be useful for you when sending a document that does not require password authentication to decode it. This may be something you simply want to trace and trace.
Send your encrypted email: When all fields have been completed, you can now press the “send encrypted email” button to send to your intended recipients. If any formatting errors are found, an error will be displayed. When email has been successfully sent, you will be returned to the home page and a green success message will appear at the top of the page.
Open your email application (e.g. Outlook, Yahoo, Hotmail, Gmail or any other type of webmail or email client application) and then open the SSLPost secure email.
Your secure email notification will look similar to one of the following:
If your company has requested corporate branding, it may be a different colour.
Follow the instructions in the email to access your secure communication.
Your email will have up to two attachments; a “message.htm” and/or a “message.zip” . Both attachments contain the same information but one may be preferable for your email client – If you have trouble opening one of them you can try the other one. There are on screen instructions for you to follow
The “ZIP attachment” message format option is used so that the web based versions of Microsoft Outlook for internet browsers, retain the correct formatting of the SSLPost secure email attachment. When you receive a secure message from SSLPost, depending on your account settings, it will arrive on your computer in a compressed format called a zip file. Before you can open and read your secure email message, you’ll need to decompress, or ‘unzip‘ this file attachment.
Doing this is very easy:
MAC: If you’re using a Mac simply ‘double-click‘ the zip file attachment and the extraction process will run automatically.
PC: If you’re using a PC first ‘double-click‘ the zip file attachment which will open a new window listing its contents. Then press ‘Ctrl+A‘ to select all the files and then drag them into a folder or onto your desktop.
If this method doesn’t work then you may be amongst the few who simply don’t have unzipping software built in to their PC. To download free unzipping software simply open your internet browser and search for WinZip or Stuffit Expandr or 7Zip – all are available to download for free and are easy to install.
“Double click” the ‘message.htm‘ HTML attachment or ‘right clicking‘ the ‘message.htm‘ HTML attachment and choose ‘open‘.
If your email client warns you that it may be unsafe to open the ‘message.htm‘ HTML attachment directly from your email client then simply save the ‘message.htm‘ to your computer and open it once it has been saved.
If you have had to ‘unzip‘ your message attachment then you will already have the HTML saved to computer – simply open ‘message.htm‘ from its saved location
When you have opened the attachment, your screen will contain this message:
Click “open document”. If you are not logged in, you will be taken to a screen that requires your login credentials. Complete these and then click “decrypt and view message”.
If you are already logged in, you will go straight to the message like this:
You can download any attachments, read the encrypted and non encrypted message and reply to this email.
You are able to respond to any email you receive via the SSLPost Web Application in much the same way as with your normal email browser by clicking on the Reply button. The Send Encrypted Email panel is displayed populated with the content of the original email.
You can enter your reply in both the Type Message (not encrypted) and the Type Message (encrypted) fields as appropriate and attach a file if required. Clicking on the reply button sends a secure email back to the email’s originator. Confirmation that the reply has been sent is displayed on the Home page.
You can view your email history from the menu on the home page.
Simply click ‘ My Email History ‘ on the left hand side and then selecting ‘ View Email History ‘.
You will then be presented with the panel below. This panel ONLY allows you to see a snapshot of emails that you have sent. As a security company we do not store any emails that you have sent within our system which is why we recommend you CC or BCC yourself in on any emails you send.
You are able to see the time that your secure email was sent and also, by hovering over the envelope icons on the right hand side, you are able to see if your email has been opened by the recipient and at what time/date. You also have the option at the bottom of the panel, to download the information into a csv file if you require. This information satisfies the requirement for non-repudiation, if required.
The panel on the right hand side includes the following:
Password protection is “on” by default. To remove the need to enter a password, untick “Password Protected” and then click “update”. This will remove the password option and the recipient will not need to enter a password to open the email content.
You can also view the “Delivery Receipt”, which shows the status of your secure email and the response back from the recipient’s email client. This will inform you if there has been any delay in the recipient receiving your secure email, i.e. if it has been queued by their email client.
Untick “Seal Enabled” and then click “update”. This will block the recipient from opening/accessing the contents of this email altogether – very useful if you have sent an email in error!
Your recipient will be presented with this screen when they try and access the email you have sent:
Finally, you have the ability to filter your audit history, in case you have a number of results that have appeared. To do this, scroll down the page and you will be presented with a number of options to search for the relevant information that you require.
You can view or update your account settings by navigating to the SSLPost Secure Email Account Settings section on the main menu screen.
The first panel will provide you with a summary of your initial account settings. These are not able to be changed manually; either you will need to contact your account Administrator (whoever created your account for you) or speak with your SSLPost secure email account manager at customerservice@sslpost.com .
The next panel below, allows you to amend/update basic settings to your SSLPost secure email account:
You also have the option to manually change your SSLPost secure email password when you are logged into your account, rather than requesting a password reset email. All you need to do is enter your existing password, followed by the new password that you require. It is recommended you perform this task periodically:
We hope everything you need to know about your solution is contained within this secure email and secure file transfer user guide.
If you would like to see anything added or changed within this secure file transfer user guide, please contact customersupport@sslpost.com.
If you have any questions, queries or require clarification, please email customerservice@sslpost.com and one of your support team will be in contact.
