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up vote 8 down vote favorite

In our company, using Google Apps, we need that everyone can check one special email address. What I did was to create a group for that special address and added everyone to that group so that all of the people can receive those emails AND I set up every account so they can also send messages using the group email.

E.G.: jack@mycompany.com and ted@mycompany.com are members of the group info@mycompany.com so they are receiving all emails that are sent to info@mycompany.com, also they can send (from their own accounts) emails "from" info@mycompany.com

My question is: is there another (better) way of making multiple users to receive/send emails from one single address?

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What do you mean by "better"? It sounds like you have everything that you need with what you're doing. – Nathan Francy Jul 4 '12 at 17:06
I want to know if this is the correct way of doing what i want or if there is another "better" (more "correct") way of configuring everything – elunicotomas Jul 5 '12 at 13:32

5 Answers

up vote 6 down vote

Google doesn't seem to believe in standard shared mailboxes, despite their conceptual simplicity and useful collaborative features, unfortunately.

If you're on a free Apps account, the best you can do is a distribution list and send-as functionality, as you've currently got. As you've probably noticed, this means you can't see whether anyone else has responded to the incoming mails or see their responses unless they CC the group.

If you have a paid account, you can go one better by using the Google Groups system as a collaborative inbox. My small company eventually decided after the trial period that it wasn't worth the fees, so we're back with the free account, but it might work for you.

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I am just reading this excellent answer - but you are saying that with a distribution list you cannot see whether anyone else has responded to incoming mail. This seem to be the same problem with the new Google Groups as collaborative inbox. Once a group member replies to an email from within Gmail, that email only gets sent to the sender, not to the group, leaving the group unaware of the reply. Is there a better solution to this problem? – Henrik Söderlund Feb 27 at 4:26
As you've discovered, this only works if the person sending the email remembers to CC the group address. As far as I can tell, Google won't address this problem because they don't provide true shared inboxes. We've now resorted to having an account that we delegate permissions to all users who need access to use, and that seems to work for now. – Iain Hallam Feb 27 at 15:02
Yes, indeed, the group needs to be CC:d for the collaboration to function properly, which of course users will forget to do. Replying via the Google Groups web interface indeed does this automatically, but that does not help much for the gmail issue... Thanks for updates! – Henrik Söderlund Feb 28 at 6:38
exactly, we all CC the group address – elunicotomas May 5 at 22:43
up vote 5 down vote
+50

Definitely the new the collaborative inbox from Google Groups for Business if you are on a Google Apps for business.

If not it worth the upgrade.

http://support.google.com/a/bin/answer.py?hl=en&hlrm=en&answer=167430

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I configured the groups as a collaborative inbox and had the same problems... BUT I realizaed that I had LOTS of messages "pending for review or approval (cant remember the exact word)", and most of those messages where the ones that we werent receiveing, so as soon as I aprroved them they inmediately appeared in the groups panel and in each Gmail inbox that receives the group! Thanks! – elunicotomas Jul 8 '12 at 21:15
up vote 4 down vote

Gmail has built in function, called mail delegation. This way another person so they can read, send, and delete messages on behalf of another account. You can specify up to 10 users.

However, to first use this option in Google Apps for your domain, Administrators must first enable mail delegation by checking the Mail Delegation checkbox under Email Settings in the administrator control panel.

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up vote 2 down vote

The approach you are using the standard approach where group is used that I feel is best approach. However, alternatively, you can use Settings --> Accounts and Imports --> Grant Access to your account... but if you want to add many users, seems tedious as for normal account, it only allows to add one account at a time.

Since, you have business Google Apps account, you can take their support service.

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up vote 0 down vote

As far as sticking to a Google-only solution I agree with baptme. If you need a more robust tiket system in back of your "info@mycompany.com" email you should look into something like fogbugz.com. It rocks and you can make an incoming message into a bug, feature request, or anything else you want. Everyone on the team can see who has done what and check the status of the tickets. The list of features goes on for days but this is what my company is starting to use and it is awesome!

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