non 'user-specific' email accounts in sbs...

A

atomiser

Gawd
Joined
Jun 12, 2004
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hi guys,

i'm pretty much up to speed with most things sbs related now (that said, it still feels like i learn something new everyday!), but email is still something i've got to get my head around.

i'm looking for some pointers on how you guys setup non user-specific email accounts in sbs... to be a little more specific, i'm talking about the typical 'sales@', or 'support@' etc that you find in most organisations.

i guess the obvious route would just be to setup a new user called, as per the above examples, 'sales' and 'support'. the problem i see there is that as well as a mail account they also get a domain account, a home directory, a computer etc.

how do you go about this? the way i suggested above? or are you able to somehow just create a mailbox? and how do you handle 'delivery' of this? do you get users to just use webmail? do you setup outlook with multiple exchange accounts? (not sure you can actually do this? although i know you can certainly 'open' other users folders from within your exchange connection), do you set it up such that access to the mailbox is delegated and the nominated person simply opens up the inbox folder from within their outlook, or do you setup a forwarder into the nominated persons inbox?

i suspect what i'm asking above could be linked to the split between private and public folders? i'm still yet to fully understand what those two terms mean.

what i gather from my virtualised setup is that users can quite happily move between machines, login, and launch outlook to get to their email. i assume this is because when they launch outlook it sets them up a local .pst file and just syncs the server-side mailbox with the local .pst file. this seems to work ok for new stuff coming in, stuff going out, and when stuff is deleted...so i'm pretty much happy with that.

a specific issue i'm up against at the moment is where a customer has a 'sales@' account that is looked after by a nominated employee in addition to his own mailbox. the problem comes in that if he moves to another pc the sales@ account doesnt seem to synchronise - as if the mail is actually downloaded from the sales@ account onto the other pc. if he moves back it's all still there. i've yet to check whether *alll* mail is visible from owa. i'm also still to check his outlook config. my initial gut reaction is that somehow they have had it setup to collect the sales@ email using pop3?!

i'd really love to hear how some of you guys go about doing this, and also perhaps any good links to exchange 101 on sbs!

many thanks as always! :)
 
It's actually quite simple. You can take a users mailbox..and have it catch e-mail for any other name your little heart desires. An e-mailbox can receive e-mail for many different names.

Say you want "Sales@" to go to the mailbox of the user up at the front desk...say her name is JDoe

Go to JDoes active directory properties....e-mail tab..and add that sales address as an SMTP address. You can set it as her primary if you wish to..so when she sends..other people see it as coming from sales@ instead of jdoe@
 
the address you add as an SMTP address under the users active directory properties...can that be anything? or does it have to be an email address associated with a user?

i think i prefer the idea of an entirely seperate inbox for these accounts that has delegated access that other people can then open? so it's kept seperate from their email? that way it's a bit more obvious how it's setup and if other people need to be added (or similarly, removed) then it's just a case of modifying access rights as opposed to individual user settings?

the users i create for the address will never be 'logged-in' though so i'm not sure how to go about the delegation? if i tinker with the mailbox rights i get an error message when i try to open it within outlook.
 
>>the address you add as an SMTP address under the users active directory properties...can that be anything? or does it have to be an email address associated with a user?

It can be anything.... it doesn't have to match up with a real mailbox of the same name.

There are a couple of ways to do what you want to do, Stonecat's way is easy and one of the preferred ways to go about it.

I have a customer where I setup a number of these accounts (info@, sales@, jobs@, etc.) just like normal user accounts but then I disabled the account. The disabled accounts will still receive e-mail, you just can't login with the account. That way has the advantage of seeing the addresses in the GAL and they are more visible in AD.

Just forward the mail to the user (or distribution list) that you wish. You'll see errors in the Event log about the disabled users, but it doesn't hurt anything.

EDIT:

You can even add external e-mail accounts to the users active directory properties, and Exchange will then automatically forward all mail to that address as well.
 
it sounds as if by adding an smtp address under a users active directory properties that it effectively just sets up a 'listener' for the address... and then the mail is actually delivered directly into the users mailbox... if i have understood it correctly...?

i'm not sure i like the sound of that because it would mean all email is jumbled amongst other mail in a users inbox. knowing how untidy people can be means this has bad news written all over it. plus, what if the person who receives the mail is off poorly or something? that would mean that others would need access to someones mailbox. what about privacy and data protection?

what about replies to messages? or if you wanted them to send a message from, for example, sales@ from their own inbox? i know i have three accounts setup in my outlook, but they are all smtp/pop3, and i can choose which account i want to send from... but this is just a listener, not a dedicated address?

i think i'm more in favour of having dedicated inboxes for this type of stuff that access can be delegated to.
 
atomiser said:
it sounds as if by adding an smtp address under a users active directory properties that it effectively just sets up a 'listener' for the address... and then the mail is actually delivered directly into the users mailbox... if i have understood it correctly...?
Click to expand...

Yuppers.

For your other points, well...create some unique mail enabled folders in public folders..and give that person or a small group of people rights to those folders.
 
YeOldeStonecat said:
Yuppers.

For your other points, well...create some unique mail enabled folders in public folders..and give that person or a small group of people rights to those folders.
Click to expand...

This sounds like the exact functionality I've been looking for! Can I do all of this from the SBS server? The less I have to interact with client workstations the better!
 
ok so im just playing around with the different options available...

i've tried adding sales@ to an existing user account under ad user settings... attempted to send an email from outside and it doesn't arrive... nor do i get a delivery failure either...

also tried the public folders option too... i quite like how this works... although i wish in outlook i could create a link to the public folder directly under the mail tab rather than having to click folders > public folders > folder...
 
atomiser said:
ok so im just playing around with the different options available...

i've tried adding sales@ to an existing user account under ad user settings... attempted to send an email from outside and it doesn't arrive... nor do i get a delivery failure either...

also tried the public folders option too... i quite like how this works... although i wish in outlook i could create a link to the public folder directly under the mail tab rather than having to click folders > public folders > folder...
Click to expand...

It may take a little time for it to replicate and become fuctional. Pretty much if you add another smtp address under the users active directory account it should get it.
 
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