Centralize and simplify the management of your shared mailboxes
From Simone Bösch on 07. June 2022
Besides personal mailboxes, there are shared mailboxes. Like the personal mailbox, it includes an inbox, a calendar and the contact list. As the name implies, several people can share this mailbox and; therefore, have access to it and can work with this mailbox. That’s why it is also used as a team mailbox, for example. What individual employees can do within this shared mailbox depends on their access rights.
There are the following three access rights:
- Send as: The employee can send messages as the shared mailbox. If Laura Inauen sends a message from the shared mailbox "Info Denzoon", the sender is not "Laura Inauen" but "Info Denzoon".
- Send on Behalf: An employee with this right can also send e-mail messages from the shared mailbox. In this case; however, the sender would be "Laura Inauen on behalf of Info Denzoon".
- Full Access: The Full Access privilege allows an employee to do everything except send emails. This means an employee can access the mailbox, create calendar items, read, modify and delete e-mail messages. Further, he can create, modify and delete tasks and contacts. If this employee should also be able to send messages, he needs one of the two Send rights.
The pitfalls of Shared Mailbox management
A shared mailbox is usually used as a team mailbox, but can also be used for temporary projects, for example. This way, all project members can access the mails and find all information in one place. Properly managed, shared mailboxes can be a great help in everyday business. Unfortunately, the mailboxes are often managed in a decentralized manner, which bears various risks:
- Forgotten shared mailboxes
A new shared mailbox is quickly created and almost as quickly forgotten. Shared mailboxes are used again and again for temporary projects. When the project is over, the end of the project will be celebrated - and the mailbox forgotten. This generates unnecessary license costs. - Ownerless shared mailboxes
Even if an entire team works with the shared mailbox, there is always only one employee as the owner and one as the deputy. If the owner and deputy leave the company without ensuring their successors, an ownerless shared mailbox remains. In this case, no one is responsible for the mailbox anymore. If there are questions about this mailbox, it is therefore not clear who employees should contact. In addition, it is very likely that such mailboxes will also end up as forgotten mailboxes because no one is responsible for them anymore. This results in unnecessary additional work and costs. - Lack of overview and incorrect access rights
With decentralized management of access rights, there is usually no overview of the assigned access rights, which can lead to the access rights not being up-to-date. For example, employees receive access rights to the shared mailbox as soon as they need them, for example when they start in a team. If these employees change departments or are no longer part of the project team, it is often forgotten to revoke these rights again. Employees can therefore continue to access data that is no longer intended for them. In some cases, access rights need to be revoked quickly, for example if an account has been hacked. If there is no overview and it is unclear which access rights this account has, the access rights cannot be withdrawn quickly.
As you can see, managing access rights poses a number of challenges. We know these challenges and support companies in mastering them successfully. That's why we developed our new Shared Mailbox Module for centralized and simplified shared mailbox management.
Central and simplified shared mailbox management with waave
With our new Shared Mailbox Module, you centralize and simplify the management of shared mailboxes as well as the required access rights. You can create, edit and delete shared mailboxes directly in waave. In addition, waave offers you a simple and streamlined overview of all shared mailboxes. This means that no shared mailboxes will be forgotten in the future, and thanks to the ability to manage access rights directly in waave, each employee really only gets the rights they need.
Would you also like to benefit from the advantages of shared mailboxes in the future and no longer struggle with the challenges of decentralized shared mailbox management? Then contact us for a no-obligation consultation.