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We have a SBS 2003 installed in our office. Basically we have created 5 accounts, user1, user2, user3, user4 and user5 with coresponding exchange Exchange accounts.

Now we would like to have customized (client-friendly) Exchange accounts for different departments such as customerservice, accounting. What I have learned is that we could create distribution list which would actually take care of this problem.

But what about when we want to reply to our clients from lets say accounting@domain.com instead of user1@domain.com? I think that would not be possible using the distribution list, so the only option is to create new accounts and mailboxes for customerservice, accounting etc.

So does it mean that we would have to create in this case 7 accounts and 7 exchange mailboxes? Would 5 licences be enough for this to work, or we need to purchase additional 2 licences so we dont reach any restrictions?

Thanks

John
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1 Answers1

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I don't hasten to respond to a licensing-related question on Server Fault, but I think this one is actually more of a technical question with a touch of licensing, so I'm going to chance it.

In the scenario you describe I would:

  • Create a mail-enabled security group for the department with all the intended department recipients as members (this is the group that will receive email and deliver it to the group)

  • Modify the Access Control List (ACL) for the group to include "Group Name - Send As" permission (this will allow members of the group to "Send As" the group itself)

  • Instruct users on how to use Outlook to send emails using the group's address as the "From" address of their messages

This assumes that all members of the group should be permitted to "Send As" the group. If that's not correct (say, only a subset of the department should be permitted to "Send As" the department group) then you may need to create a group used as the delegate for the "Send As" permission. Just be sure you do everything with groups and don't name individuals in permissions (since that doesn't scale for the future well at all).

re: the licensing bit

Review the license agreement for the software. You should see that computers and persons accessing the server computer are the basis for the license counts. Creating user accounts, mailboxes, etc, doesn't cause additional computers or persons to access the server and, in my opinion, do not affect your license needs. Use your own judgement re: interpreting the license agreement.

Evan Anderson
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