Sent Items in shared mailboxes

Hi there,

We use Outlook in our organisation as a way for members of our Tech team to
work together. Every user has a personal mailbox, and additionally has
access to one or more shared mailboxes. Outlook is set up to open these
shared mailboxes as additional mailboxes (Under Advanced Settings in
Tools->Accounts).

When each team member sends an email message, it will by default appear to
come from that person's personal mailbox, because their personal mailbox is
the primary mailbox in the MAPI profile. By turning on the "From:" box, they
can type in the address of the Tech Support mailbox, and then the message
will appear to come from Tech Support. So far so good.

The problem occurs with the Sent Items folder. Even though the user has sent
the message from Tech Support, the copy saved to the Sent Items folder is
always saved to the Sent Items folder of the primary mailbox - i.e. the
user's personal mailbox. Thus, every time one of our team sends a message,
they then have to move the copy in their Sent Items folder to the Sent Items
folder on the shared Tech Support mailbox. Otherwise, if a colleague is
trying to follow up on a particular issue, they will be unable to see the
messages that have been sent by other members of the team regarding that
issue, because all these copies will be in each team member's personal (and
private) Sent Items folder.

Is there a way to get Outlook to save the Sent copy of a message to the Sent
Items folder of the mailbox from whom the message is sent - such that if I
type "Tech Support" into the From: address box, the sent copy will be saved
to the Sent Items folder in the Tech Support mailbox, not into my own
personal Sent Items folder.

If there isn't a way to get Outlook (or indeed Exchange Server, which is the
system on which the mailboxes are stored) to do this, how can I go about
submitting a feature enhancement request that this feature be implemented? As
it is, shared mailboxes are great for incoming mail and for internal
collaboration, but are of very limited use for outgoing mail since outgoing
messages are not "shared" by default.

An additional useful feature with regard to shared mailboxes would be the
ability to get Outlook to allow you to specify when you run the Out of Office
Assistant, the Rules wizard and so on, which mailbox you want to run these
against. If, under the above configuration, we wanted to set an Out of Office
message on the Tech Support mailbox, someone will have to quit Outlook,
create a new MAPI profile with Tech Support as the main mailbox, log on using
this new profile, make the change, quit Outlook and then start it with their
normal profile so that they can get on with what they were doing. I would
certainly like to submit a feature enhancement request for this feature to be
implemented as well!

Many thanks in advance for any assistance anyone can provide.

Giles
--
Giles Agnew
University of Cambridge
England

Hi Giles,

there exists a third-party utility that could help:
http://www.ivasoft.biz/unisent.shtml

Regards,
Victor Ivanidze

"Giles Agnew" <GilesAgnew DeleteThis @discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:09FC313C-F22D-43BD-A6D5-06E059E10FDD@microsoft.com...
> Hi there,
>
> We use Outlook in our organisation as a way for members of our Tech team
> to
> work together. Every user has a personal mailbox, and additionally has
> access to one or more shared mailboxes. Outlook is set up to open these
> shared mailboxes as additional mailboxes (Under Advanced Settings in
> Tools->Accounts).
>
> When each team member sends an email message, it will by default appear
> to
> come from that person's personal mailbox, because their personal mailbox
> is
> the primary mailbox in the MAPI profile. By turning on the "From:" box,
> they
> can type in the address of the Tech Support mailbox, and then the message
> will appear to come from Tech Support. So far so good.
>
> The problem occurs with the Sent Items folder. Even though the user has
> sent
> the message from Tech Support, the copy saved to the Sent Items folder is
> always saved to the Sent Items folder of the primary mailbox - i.e. the
> user's personal mailbox. Thus, every time one of our team sends a message,
> they then have to move the copy in their Sent Items folder to the Sent
> Items
> folder on the shared Tech Support mailbox. Otherwise, if a colleague is
> trying to follow up on a particular issue, they will be unable to see the
> messages that have been sent by other members of the team regarding that
> issue, because all these copies will be in each team member's personal
> (and
> private) Sent Items folder.
>
> Is there a way to get Outlook to save the Sent copy of a message to the
> Sent
> Items folder of the mailbox from whom the message is sent - such that if I
> type "Tech Support" into the From: address box, the sent copy will be
> saved
> to the Sent Items folder in the Tech Support mailbox, not into my own
> personal Sent Items folder.
>
> If there isn't a way to get Outlook (or indeed Exchange Server, which is
> the
> system on which the mailboxes are stored) to do this, how can I go about
> submitting a feature enhancement request that this feature be implemented?
> As
> it is, shared mailboxes are great for incoming mail and for internal
> collaboration, but are of very limited use for outgoing mail since
> outgoing
> messages are not "shared" by default.
>
> An additional useful feature with regard to shared mailboxes would be the
> ability to get Outlook to allow you to specify when you run the Out of
> Office
> Assistant, the Rules wizard and so on, which mailbox you want to run these
> against. If, under the above configuration, we wanted to set an Out of
> Office
> message on the Tech Support mailbox, someone will have to quit Outlook,
> create a new MAPI profile with Tech Support as the main mailbox, log on
> using
> this new profile, make the change, quit Outlook and then start it with
> their
> normal profile so that they can get on with what they were doing. I would
> certainly like to submit a feature enhancement request for this feature to
> be
> implemented as well!
>
> Many thanks in advance for any assistance anyone can provide.
>
> Giles
> --
> Giles Agnew
> University of Cambridge
> England