SHARED MAILBOXES AND SHARED EMAIL

LIVING IN A WORLD OF SHARING

What is a Shared Mailbox?

A shared mailbox is an email address that more than one person has the right to access. People are given appropriate access to the common mailbox as and when required. These mailboxes are standard email folders and are no different to your own email folders, except that a number of people can be given access to the shared item or unit. In other words, such mailboxes allow a group of users to view and send e-mail from a common mailbox. They also allow users to share a common calendar, so they can schedule and view vacation time or work shifts.

It can apply to a personal email address, a purpose-built address to share email  and a sub-mail folder and can be used to:

•     Organise and control your mail, quantity of mail and archiving.

•     Provide clearly defined email addresses for business use.

•     Emails to a contact address (e.g. dental-enquiries@flint.net) will now be sent          to a single shared mailbox. This arrangement allows easier administration for          all;  e.g. whether or not the query has been answered.

•     A single copy of the email is stored, as opposed to multiple copies when email        lists are used.

•     The shared box is considered separate, freeing up your personal quota.

•    A clear distinction between business email and personal email makes it easier         to  facilitate access to email when people are on leave or move between jobs or     roles.

•     It is more convenient for archiving and allows members who have recently              joined the list to catch up with previous emails and present members to review      the use.

Shared Inbox for Gmail

The Gmail share inbox is an app that allows users of Google Apps email to share email addresses among multiple users. More than just sharing the address with multiple users, the Shared Inbox lets group members assign tasks to other members of the group. Responses sent to customers come from the Shared Inbox address instead of from the individual team member. This facility is available to any company using Google Apps email on their company domain. Sold on the Google Apps marketplace, a standard Shared Inbox account costs only $10/user/year