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How Shared Mailboxes work with Templafy

About this article

This article will explain how Shared Mailbox work with Templafy email signature solutions. Sections as below: 

 

Prerequisites

 
  • One of the Email Signature Modules for Microsoft solutions Enabled
  • Users accessing multiple mailboxes

 

What's a Shared Mailbox?

A shared mailbox (or shared inbox) is a mailbox that multiple users can use to read and send email messages. A typical use case would be a support@company.com mailbox. Typically, a shared mailbox is delegated to a user through the Office 365 admin as shown below. This allows users to automatically get shared mailboxes in their Outlook client by being authenticated with their own user. In some cases, shared mailboxes are manually added by the users with the shared mailbox credentials.

shared_mailboxes1.gif

 

Solutions

The Support for shared mailboxes within Templafy is complex and depends on the requirements of the organization. A crucial differentiation is if the organization needs users to get the user profile of the shared mailbox or if they need a separate email signature design for the shared mailbox. In some cases, they might need both. Per this, Templafy provides the two solutions below to work with Shared Mailboxes.

 

Solution A - Additional User Profiles

 
  • Email Signature Outlook Add-ins (VSTO or Web Add-in) installed.
  • Email Signature VSTO Add-in or Email Signature Web Add-in Module Enabled
  • Scope: Outlook Online or Outlook Desktop PC / Mac.

 

Relying on additional user profiles that includes the information related to the secondary mailbox (shared mailbox) manually by the end user will allow to get the specific signature of the shared mailbox.

To do so the end users have to follow the steps below:

  1. Add the additional user profile.
     

     

  2. Switch to the right signature based on the profile related to the sending mailbox.
     

     

Multiple user profiles can be created in the case of multiple shared mailbox signatures.

 
  • Note: If a specific template for the shared mailbox is required, a dropdown field in the user profile can also be used to get the design of a shared inbox synchronized into Outlook. The advantage of this method is that it allows the user to create multiple user profiles with different shared signatures.

 

Below is a breakdown of Advantages and Disadvantages of Solution A - Additional User profiles:

  • Advantages
    • Allows for the user to have many different shared inbox signatures by creating multiple profiles.
    • Provide flexibility to have different signatures for the end users to personalize the signature of the shared mailbox based on the sending user.
    • Also allows to cover the use case of Executive assistants sending on behalf of their attached executive.
  • Disadvantages
    • Relying on the end user to set these signatures up from their user profiles.
    • It requires manual user action to select the related profile based on the sending mailbox set.

 

Solution B - Signature Based on the Sending Mailbox

 
  • Templafy Email Signature Server installed.
  • Email Signature Server for Microsoft 365 Module Enabled
  • Scope: All Devices 

 

The email signature server can be used to attach email signatures for shared mailboxes. Per this, the signatures will be added based on the sending mailbox. The downside being that users won't see previews of their email signatures or be able to switch between signatures, and all the shared mailbox users must be provisioned into Templafy, onboarded, and have the O365 signature enabled for them.

 

 
  • Templafy email signature add-ins can be deployed for this solution, however, the user would have to manually delete the signature of their default profile in an e-mail composition/reply to allow Email Signature Server to stamp the shared mailbox signature.
    • If add-ins are deployed, the mail flow rule exception for Email Signature Server must contain x-unsupportedformatbytemplafy
    • If add-ins are not deployed, no user interaction is needed to stamp e-mails with a shared mailbox signature

 

 

 

Below is a breakdown of Advantages and Disadvantages of Solution B - Signature based on the sending Mailbox:

Advantages

  • Works on all devices by simply using the From email to determine signature to use.
  • (If no add-ins are deployed) Fully automated without having the end user needing to select anything themselves.

Disadvantages

  • Requires deployment of Templafy Email Signature Server.
  • No email signature previews since Outlook VSTO or Web add-ins would interfere with ESS signatures and cannot be used with this setup.
  • Users can only use their default profile signatures.
  • All shared mailbox users must be provisioned into the Templafy tenant and have a valid user profile.

 

 
  • Note: It's possible to have a hybrid setup where some users will be relying on the solution "Additional user profiles" and others relying on the solution "Signature based on the sending Mailbox".
  • Examples and recommendations:
    1. For Executive assistants, it's better to use "Additional user profiles" solution as it allows them to switch between signatures based on the emails sent.
    2. For users sending from system mailboxes, it's better to use "Signature based on the sending Mailbox" solution as it allows them to automatically get the right signature based on the mailboxes used without having to switch manually between profiles.
    3. For enforcing the shared mailbox signature automatically with less flexibility for the end users, it's better to use "Signature based on the sending Mailbox" solution
    4. For providing the flexibility to the users to insert the dedicated shared mailbox specific signature semi-automatically, it's better to use "Additional user profiles" solution

 

"Send on Behalf" Emails

The Outlook permission, "send on behalf", allows a delegate to send a message from a mailbox or group (the From address looks like this: <Delegate> on behalf of <MailboxOrGroup>). In order to attach the Templafy email signature of the <MailboxOrGroup>, only Solution A above can be utilized.

 

 

Accessing Shared Mailboxes Using Email Signature Web Add-in

Automatic insertion of email signatures is not possible on shared mailboxes using the Email Signature Web Add-in (Outlook Online, Outlook Mac, New Outlook). Automatic insertion refers to getting a signature without interacting with the Templafy Email Signature task pane. The following dialogue will appear if a shared mailbox is opened.

Clicking on Insert signature will open the Templafy Email Signature task pane as shown below. The logged in user's signature will then be inserted to the email. Solution A can then be utilized to switch the signature to use a different user profile.

If another user then logs in to the shared mailbox, they will see the signature of the first logged in user. This is because the shared mailbox is authenticated through the first logged in user and automatic authentication is not supported. In order for the second user to utilize their own signature, they must interact with the Templafy Email Signature task pane and log in. Then, Solution A can be utilized for the second user.

 
  • The VSTO Email Signature Add-in stores email signatures locally in Outlook, allowing for automatic insertion within shared mailboxes.
email signatures email signature server ESS email signature web add-in email signature add-in
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