One company I have done work for uses shared mailbox in their On-Premises Exchange. The difference is, they actually do share these mailboxes as primary mailboxes for each user.
Here’s how it’s done:
- Create your new AD account
- Set the Shared Mailbox address as the Primary Address (AD User Profile – General Tab – Email Address)
- Create a user mailbox in Exchange
- Add the user as a Delegate with Full Access and Send As rights to the Shared Mailbox
- Now sign in to a PC with the new user account and set up Outlook
Outlook will authenticate using the user account, but the mailbox that is assigned in Outlook will be the Shared Mailbox. This now becomes the primary mailbox for the user, and this process can be repeated for each and every delegate, meaning you can have multiple people using the same mailbox as their primary mailbox.
Please note – if you have already set up the Outlook profile before setting the Shared Mailbox as the Primary Account in Active Directory, you will need to wipe the Outlook profile and create a new one.
Once completed go back in to Exchange, open the user’s mailbox, and hide from address lists.
This trick is very handy where you have a group of people who share the same job, and are all responsible for responding to email sent to that account. This method allows you to set up individual users for domain account accountability, while sharing the same mailbox without worrying about where Sent Items are stored, or which address appeared in the From: field.
