ACC Improves Visibility & Reduces Costs with Activate Shared Mailbox Module
A worthwhile business investment and fast ROI that will pay for itself within eight months
Overview
ACC implemented Activate’s Shared Mailbox Module to address inefficiencies in mailbox management and reduce the rising costs of manual service desk activity. With greater visibility of mailbox access, automated workflows, and streamlined approvals, the organisation achieved immediate cost savings, improved transparency, and faster fulfilment times.
The Challenge
ACC’s service desk was handling an average of 166 tickets each month (2,000 tickets annually) to manually update shared mailboxes, creating a direct annual cost of almost $63,000. Beyond the financial burden, visibility of mailbox access was restricted to Exchange administrators, making governance difficult. The reliance on manual processes slowed service delivery and created unnecessary overhead for IT teams.
The Solution
ACC deployed Activate’s Shared Mailbox Module, which provided end-to-end automation of access and ownership management. Because Activate applies role- and policy-based control, ACC can define consistent rules for who should access which shared mailboxes. Onboarding, offboarding, and ownership changes can be tied to the user lifecycle so that access is automatically granted, adjusted or revoked without manual tickets.
Once mailbox owners were identified, the solution enabled self-service updates with automated approval workflows. Requests for access were processed in real time, with Activate applying changes using Microsoft Exchange APIs. With Activate, this process took only minutes instead of hours or days.
Activate’s Shared Mailbox Module also improved governance by allowing business users to see who had access to shared mailboxes, while reducing reliance on IT administrators. And, because every action is logged and auditable, ACC now has full insight and control. ACC, already using Activate to manage Distribution Lists and group-managed applications, expanded its automation capability by adding shared mailbox management to its environment.
$63,000
Direct annual cost savings
Hours -> Mins
Access fulfilment time reduced from hours to minutes
~166
Tickets/month removed from the service desk
"It is certainly looking good with the uptake in numbers. It appears the cost of implementation and the module will have paid for itself within six to eight months which is excellent."
The Result
The implementation of Activate’s Shared Mailbox Module quickly proved its value. While access requests nearly doubled due to improved visibility, automation meant fulfilment required no additional IT effort. The increase in adoption accelerated the return on investment, with the combined module and implementation costs projected to pay for themselves within six to eight months.
Key Outcomes:
- Cost savings: Reduced manual service desk activity worth $63,000 annually
- Speed: Access updates completed in minutes once approved
- Visibility: Owners and users gained transparency into mailbox access
- Efficiency: Eliminated the need for over 2,000 manual service desk tickets per year
- Ease of use: Once owners were identified, implementation was simple and adoption increased rapidly