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I'm looking for some advice with something that seems simple but I haven't done before.

Currently we use a distribution group called Orders that has an email address that is that forwarded to four people in the company, the same goes for another one, Quotes. The problem is, of course, no one knows what was answered, and all the email gets worked in to the individual user's emails, so I'm thinking that a public folder, only accessible by one department would be the answer.

I'm not sure what the best way to set this up would be or how to move/convert the current distribution list over to a public folder. This is a very critical email address in the company, so I'm trying to be sure that there is zero down time at all for it.

What would be the best way to go about creating a public folder and converting/forwarding/moving/(whatever) over the current email address to that folder?

Sevdarkseed
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1 Answers1

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Considering Microsoft direction, I'd steer clear of Public Folders. What we do instead is to create a Shared Mailbox with the 'quotes@' email address, grant a group of people Full Access to that mailbox, and guide them in configuring Outlook to open that mailbox for their use. It works well, and has replaced many Public Folders we had been using.

For procedure, in this case I'd do this:

  • Create the mailbox with a different mail address (quotesnew@ for instance)
  • Set rights on that mailbox so the users can see it
  • Help the users configure Outlook to access that mailbox
  • Once everyone is in and can access, send a few messages to that address
  • Help the users figure out how to use the new access method in their procedures
  • Work with the users to figure out when a 5 minute outage is acceptable
  • During your window, change the email address on the distribution group to something else, and add "quotes@" to the new mailbox.
sysadmin1138
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  • I think this is a better course to go than I had originally thought. How would you suggest creating the new mailbox? As a new one under the distribution list or create a new "Quotes-New" user with that mailbox? I wasn't sure, under these circumstances, if one would be preferable over another. – Sevdarkseed May 26 '10 at 21:00
  • A new full user mailbox called 'quotes-new' is the way to go. If you want, you can add that user to the DL for a while, so users can get used to the new workflow, then remove all the users from the DL leaving just the new user in there. Once the users are good, rename the DL and add the quotes@ email address to the new user and you're good. – sysadmin1138 Jun 01 '10 at 23:26