Create Shared Mailbox in Exchange Server 2013MustBeGeek

Spread the love

There are scenarios where companies want single mailbox to be accessed by more than one employee. Companies have email addresses like info@company.com, contact@company.com, and so on. So organizations want the same mailbox to be managed by one or more employee of the company. In Exchange Server 2013, you can create a shared mailbox and grant permissions for users to access the shared mailbox. A shared mailbox is a user mailbox but the user account in AD is disabled. In this post, I will show steps to create shared mailbox in Exchange Server 2013.

Create Shared Mailbox in Exchange Server 2013

Scenario: Configure the mailbox contact@mustbegeek.com to be accessed and managed by two receptionist.

Our goal here is to create a shared mailbox for contact@mustbegeek.com email ID and assign two users to access and manage this mailbox. Generally, receptionists of the company are given access to this mailbox. So we have two users on the reception, DWalda and TWhite.

These two users have their own mailboxes setup already. But we want these two users to manage the shared mailbox of contact@mustbegeek.com address. So let’s create a shared mailbox. At first, log into EAC. Click recipients on the features tab. Then select shared tab. Click the ‘+’ sign.

Now fill in the boxes as shown below. Type the name for the mailbox. Here, I will type “Contact Shared Mailbox”. Browse the OU (Organizational Unit) where you want to save this shared mailbox to. Under Email address, type “contact” since we want contact@mustbegeek.com email address to be created. Under Full Access option, click ‘+’ sign to add the users. Adding users under Full Access option gives the full access permission for users to log onto the mailbox and manage messages. But remember, this permission doesn’t allow users to send messages. You need to assign Send As or Send on Behalf permission. to allow users to send messages as the shared mailbox.

Select the users from the list and click Add button. After adding the users click OK.

Now under send as option click ‘+’ and add both users again. This permission will allow users to send message on behalf of this mailbox.

If you want to specify Mailbox Database and address book policy then click more options. But for now I will click save and leave the defaults. A shared mailbox has been created. You can now view the shared mailbox in EAC.

The users can now access contact@mustbegeek.com mailbox through email clients like OWA and Office Outlook. For testing, I will log on to mailbox of user TWhite using OWA and then access the shared mailbox. After logging into the OWA, click the user name on top right. You will see the option to open another mailbox.

Click open another mailbox option. New open another mailbox box will pop up. Now type the email address of shared mailbox that you want the access to. Type contact@mustbegeek.com and click Open.