Automating Shared Mailbox Management for a large Government Department

Managing shared mailboxes can be a complex task,especially for large organisations. For one government department with over 5,000 employees and 1,450+ Shared Mailboxes, the process was time-consuming, resource intensive and error prone. The IT team faced over 10,000 shared mailbox requests annually, including requests for adding and removing individuals from Shared Mailboxes, as well as creating new Shared Mailboxes. Each of these requests required manual intervention, not only straining the IT resources, but also leading to delays in granting access and impacting overall efficiency.Their goal was to find a solution that would reduce the number of service requests and ease the pressure on their Service Desk teams.

Seeking a more efficient approach, the department turned to Activate's Shared Mailbox Manager. This solution offered

• Self-Service Access: Enabling users to request and manage access to shared mailboxes through a user-friendly web interface
• Automated Workflows: Streamlining the approval and provisioning process, reducing the need for manual IT involvement
• Enhanced Security: Implementing role-based access controls and audit trails to ensure compliance and data protection.

The customer successfully deployed the Activate Shared Mailbox Manager product, which offered a straightforward solution for managing Exchange and Exchange Online Shared Mailboxes. Through regular scans, the module gathers information about each Shared Mailbox, which is then stored in the Activate database.

As part of the implementation, Activate assigned business owners to all Shared Mailboxes. These owners have the authority to approve or decline access requests for their respective Shared Mailboxes. Staff members can conveniently utilise the Activate self-service web portal to search for Shared Mailboxes and request access to them, eliminating the need to log a Service Desk ticket.

Once a request to access a Shared Mailbox is approved by a business owner, Activate promptly provisions the access to the designated Shared Mailbox automatically. In the case of creating a new Shared Mailbox, Activate ensures that it is created within the specified area of Active Directory or Azure Active Directory,ensuring a unique name and email address is applied.

By adopting this solution, the department transformed its shared mailbox management, making it more efficient and user centric.

The customer saw an immediate reduction in Service Desk tickets after implementing the Activate Shared Mailbox Manager. This shift freed up the Service Desk team to focus on other critical tasks. At the same time, staff noticed a marked improvement in how quickly and easily they could gain access to Shared Mailboxes, enhancing both efficiency and overall satisfaction.

Key Benefits:

• Lowered costs by introducing self-service Shared Mailbox management
• Improved service levels through process automation
• ‍Enhanced security, auditing and compliance around Shared Mailbox access
• ‍Consistency and control in the creation of new Shared Mailboxes, using the correct standards every time
• ‍Reduced workload on the Service Desk as Business Owners can now manage access requests
• ‍Enabled Business Owners to add or remove users without needing IT tools or logging tickets.

Activate’s Shared Mailbox Manager helped streamline IT processes, improving both accuracy and response times. It gave users greater control over mailbox access, while also ensuring a secure, automated and repeatable approach to managing shared mailboxes. The result? Less manual effort, better communication and a more efficient workplace.