Exchange Server 2010 provides the capability to control where sent items are stored when they are sent by a delegate of a shared mailbox. This is useful for ensuring the copies of emails sent using either “Send as” or “Send on behalf” are stored in the mailbox that they are sent from, rather than only stored in the mailbox of the person who actually sent the email.
To demonstrate this, consider the following scenario.
A shared mailbox named Marketing:
[PS] C:\>New-Mailbox -Shared "Marketing"
A user, Alan Reid, who has “Send As” rights for the Marketing mailbox:
[PS] C:\>Get-Mailbox "Marketing" | Add-ADPermission -User Alan.Reid -ExtendedRights "Send As"
For the purposes of this demonstration the term “shared mailbox” could refer to a generic mailbox such as “Marketing” or a mailbox such as an executive who has delegates.
Under the default behaviour, Alan sends an email from the Marketing mailbox.
The sent item is stored in Alan’s mailbox.
However a copy of the mail item is not in the Marketing mailbox Sent Items folder.
This is a problem for some organizations who want all shared mailbox sent items to be stored in the shared mailbox.
Note: This is fine for storage/filing purposes, but if you’re looking for auditing of shared mailbox usage a better approach is to use mailbox audit logging.
To configure the sent items behaviour for shared mailboxes we use the Set-MailboxSentItemsConfiguration cmdlet. This is available in Exchange Server 2010 SP3 but not yet available in Exchange Server 2013 at the time this article is being written.
There are two parameters we can use:
- -SendAsItemsCopiedTo
- -SendOnBehalfOfItemsCopiedTo
So we can configure “send as” and “send on behalf” behaviour separately.
There are two values we can use when configuring the sent items behaviour:
- Sender – messages are stored in the Sent Items folder of the user that send the message
- SenderAndFrom – messages are stored in both the Sent Items of the user who sent the message, and the Sent Items of the shared mailbox
There is an additional value of “From” that is reserved for future use.
To configure the Marketing mailbox we can run the following command in the Exchange Management Shell:
[PS] C:\>Set-MailboxSentItemsConfiguration "Marketing" -SendAsItemsCopiedTo:SenderAndFrom -SendOnBehalfOfItemsCopiedTo:SenderAndFrom
The change does not take effect immediately. In my test lab it took around 10 minutes before it began working.
Now when Alan Reid sends emails as the Marketing mailbox…
…they are stored in the Sent Items of the Marketing mailbox as well as his own.
This article Configuring Mailbox Sent Items Behaviour for Delegates and Shared Mailboxes is © 2014 ExchangeServerPro.com
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