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I have an Exchange Server 2003 Enterprise Service Pack 2 that puts incoming email into exchange email accounts for employees to use. Is it possible to configure it so it will put incoming email to address like support@company.com in a random mailbox of employees who answers support question? For example, if 3 employees has emails like max@company.com, tim@company@.com and mike@company.com it will put incoming email to support@company.com into one of this 3 mailboxes, at random?

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up vote 6 down vote accepted

My recomendation would be to look into a issue tracking type of system. In fact you could use FogBugz for something like this with their Customer Email handling system.

This would allow your users to use a web based portal in which everyone can see the incoming messages, and see if anyone else has already responded. It also has the benefit of allowing other to see those responses and follow-up if the original responder is unavailable.

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+1, an issue tracking system is what really would help here. – Massimo Feb 15 '10 at 17:29
Sure, but it doesn't answer the very specific question. – tomjedrz Nov 30 '11 at 5:34
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up vote 4 down vote

Definitely not possilble, neither can it be done in a round-robin way.

Why don't you use a distribution list, a shared mailbox or a public folder? All of these are a lot better suited for this purpose.

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And what is a distribution list? Unfortunately, i'm not very good wth exchange server :( – Eye of Hell Feb 15 '10 at 15:14
The problem with a shared mailbox or a public folder is that i don't know any good way for employees to collaborate who will answer each e-mail. With my patter, every employee will receive a number of support requests he can work with. But with shared mailbox how they will divide e-mails? – Eye of Hell Feb 15 '10 at 15:16
A distribution list means each user will get a copy of the incoming mail. – Massimo Feb 15 '10 at 15:18
With a shared mailbox, when a message is marked as read everyone opening that mailbox will see it as such; so each user will know what is still to be addresses. The same can be achieved with a public folder, if you configure it so. – Massimo Feb 15 '10 at 15:20
I don't think it's a good idea since if it's a number of support team members, they will clash on incoming emails. Like the 3 persons see e-mail not readed, read it, set flag a the SAME TIME and writes answer. So the end user will receive a 3 different answers for such e-mail. Bot a very good idea :( – Eye of Hell Feb 15 '10 at 15:23
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up vote 3 down vote

I would advise against distributing emails between support as you're suggesting - what happens if one person is off sick and you forget to remove their email from the pool/list? Whoever emails support@ and has their emails sent to that individual will be annoyed that their issue(s) aren't being dealt with.

Either go with a distribution/mailing list or issue tracking system. You could still keep support handling the emails and manually adding them to the tracking system, then have them work from it if you'd prefer, rather than an automated system.

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up vote 0 down vote

There is no way to have Exchange do what you want, and as others have noted, it is a bad idea for other reasons. I also encourage the idea of an issue tracking system, but that takes cash, time or both.

What you can do is give max, tim and mike the rights to look at the support mailbox, and configure their Outlook to open that mailbox in addition to their mailbox when they start Outlook.

On the server, in the support box properties you can give max, tim and mike permissions to manage the support mailbox. You can also give them permission to "send on behalf of" the support box.

For Outlook, somewhere in the properties of their mail profile there is an "open other mailbox" selector. Add support. I think (but am not sure) that this can also be controlled via group policy.

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