To: University of Toronto IT community
From: Enterprise Applications & Solutions Integration
Re: Upcoming change to shared mailbox Sent Items folder
Good morning,
On June 3, 2021, the Digital Workplace will implement an improvement that modifies the way sent messages are displayed in all University of Toronto (U of T) shared mailboxes in the Outlook desktop application. While this server-level modification will be beneficial and seamless for most users, it may cause minor email display issues for U of T users whose machines have been previously configured by their local IT divisions.
We want to keep the U of T IT community informed of this change as help desks may receive questions from impacted users. Please read this email carefully to understand the nature of the change that will be implemented and how this will impact the University’s community of shared mailbox users.
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Background
By default, Microsoft has automapped shared mailboxes in the Outlook desktop application so that email messages sent from shared mailbox accounts can only be viewed in the Sent Items folder of the email sender.
The solution the Digital Workplace team will implement on June 3 ensures that all emails sent from a shared mailbox will now appear in the Sent Items folder of the shared mailbox account. Additionally, emails sent from shared mailbox accounts will continue to appear in the Sent Items folder of the primary sender.
How this change will impact shared mailboxes
For most shared mailbox users, this change will be seamless: they will simply be able to view all items sent from a shared mailbox account in that account’s Sent Items folder in the Outlook desktop application. Additionally, users will continue to see the emails they send from a shared mailbox email address in their personal Sent Items folders.
However, on a divisional level, some machines may already have a version of this workaround in place. In these instances, the June 3 update will create an additional rule and users with previously modified machines may see duplicates of sent emails in their shared mailbox Sent Items folders. This will not affect the functionality of shared mailboxes, but the Digital Workplace recommends:
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- ‘Undoing’ previously implemented workarounds to the Microsoft shared mailbox configuration before June 3 (when possible).
- Informing impacted end users that even though they see duplicate copies of emails in the Sent Items folders, the emails they sent were only sent once. An FAQ for impacted end users can be found in the IT Service Centre.
- Informing your IT support team of the upcoming change and the solutions to user-reported errors.
For additional information, we ask that you review this knowledge base article.
Kind regards,
EASI Communications
