Beyond Messaging

Making and Managing Shared Mailboxes using Exchange Management Console and PowerShell

These will work for both Exchange 2010, Exchange 2013, 2016 and Office 365.

 

Make a new shared mailbox:

New-mailbox "Mailbox Name" -shared –userprincipalname [email protected] -OrganizationalUnit "domain.com/OU1/OU2/OU3" -Database MBX-DB-1

 

If you already have the mailbox and want to set it to a shared mailbox use this:

Get-Mailbox -Identity alias@ccompany.com | Set-Mailbox -Type Shared

 

Grant Full Access Permissions to your new shared mailbox:

Add-MailboxPermission -Identity Mailbox Alias -User User Alias -AccessRights FullAccess

 

 

Grant Send As permissions to your new shared mailbox:

Get-user -identity mbx-alias| Add-ADPermission -User username -ExtendedRights "Send As"

 

List Users with Full Access to a Mailbox
 
Get-Mailbox -identity "alias" | Get-MailboxPermission | where { ($_.AccessRights -eq "FullAccess") -and ($_.IsInherited -eq $false) -and -not ($_.User -like "NT AUTHORITY\SELF") | List User, DisplayName, PrimarySmtpAddress }
 

List Mailboxes a user has full access to:
List all mailboxes to which a particular user has Full Access permissions:
Get-Mailbox | Get-MailboxPermission -User alias

 

Export an Exchange mailbox to a PST file via Exchange Management Console

There are times that you may be asked to export the contents of an Exchange mailbox to a pst.  Other times accounts may be being merged and you may need to export the contents of an account being merged and import the mails to the account which will be kept.

Before you begin, your account needs to have the Mailbox Import Export role and you need a folder to export to that the Exchange server has rights to.  I like to have a drive on an Exchange server itself to use for the exports.  Just make sure the Exchange servers have rights to that folder and you have a unc path - the ones that begin with backslash backslash.  (\\)

See here for how to Add the Mailbox Import Export Role to a Role Group

 https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee633452(v=exchg.141).aspx

To initiate the export:

New-MailboxExportRequest –Mailbox alias -FilePath \\servername\PST_Export\alias_date_filename.pst

Where alais is the user's alias.

Check status of queued export

Get-MailboxExportRequest

To import a pst to a mailbox

New-MailboxImportRequest -Mailbox destinationalias -FilePath \\servername\PST_Export\alias_date_filename.pst -TargetRootFolder "SourceAlias Imported"

Gmail "Undo Send" Give you 30 Seconds to Recall Message

To enable 'Undo Send':

1. Log in to Gmail and go to Google Labs. If you've never gone to Labs before, click the word "more" in the very top left corner, then scroll down and click "even more."

2. In the column on the right, click "Labs." It's next to the icon of a beaker filled with green stuff.

3. Click "Gmail Labs" in the column on the right.

4. Scroll down almost all the way to the bottom until you see "Undo Send." Click "enable" and the feature is now on. Then scroll the rest of the way down and look in the bottom left corner for the "Save Changes" box. Click it.

5. Now, go back to the main Gmail page and click "Settings" in the top right. You should also see your green Labs beaker icon there now -- this will let you go straight to Labs from now on.

6. Scroll down to "Undo Send" -- it should be right above "My Picture." Your default should be set to 10 seconds. But you can use the drop-down bar to stretch that to 30 seconds.

7. Scroll down and hit "Save Changes."

8. To undo an email, just look for the box at the top of the screen that will have the words "Your message has been sent." After that, you should see the "Undo" option. Click that and you'll be sent back to the e-mail's draft form, where you'll have 30 seconds to edit or delete it before it goes out.

via www.cnn.com

For all of us that have hit send and then had that "oh crap" moment when we realize we sent it to the wrong group, wrong person, or included a glaring spelling ommission follow these instructions to enable GMails Undo Send feature.

Social email addin Xobni raises new venture funding

Social email helper Xobni raises $16.2M in new funding | VentureBeat

I tried xobni back a few years ago, and it was actually pretty great for making faster searches in Outlook.  Now I see they have added a lot to their product including connecting your email with information from your social media contacts.  That would be really useful for people using social media as marketing.

Some Rules of Thumb for Business Communication

Remember:  The best rule of thumb is to communicate with proper grammar whenever possible. Yes, there are unique circumstances where Internet shorthand is acceptable (like tweeting), but overall your communication style reflects on your professionalism. People tend to remember the little things, bad grammar included.

via www.openforum.com

This is a good article about business communication. As employees become more used to internet shortcuts used in texting, tweeting, and other informal communications, it becomes crucial to show professionalism by writing in plain English.

One important item that the author does not mention is to spell out a technical term instead of using an acronym, at least the first time you introduce the term into a conversation. You should not assume that everyone knows or remembers what the acronym stands for. People will not usually ask for clarification in fear of seeming ignorant. It doesn't take many more characters or syllables to spell out the whole term, at least once, and this can go a long way towards more effective communication. Technology does not have to be a club with a secret handshake. Spell it out, and make more sense!

Here is my famous Tweet on the subject:

I find it a worthwhile challenge to see how well I can write a "tweet," full of content and meaning, without having to resort to "IM speak."

Woman Fired For All Caps Emails

A New Zealand accountant was fired for "confrontational" emails with words in red, in bold and in capital letters."  Boy, if confrontational emails were a firing offense, I think a lot of people I have worked with would be in deep trouble.

Yahoo Tech Blog Article

All kidding aside, the woman, Vicki Walker, of Auckland NZ, sued and received money for unlawful termination.  I would imagine that if your email style is a problem, your manager should tell you before instantly sacking you.

The truth is that our educational system has not done a great job training people how to write business communication.  I have seen emails with all sorts of writing flaws from all lower case, all uppercase, full of misspelling, all the way to those that are to completely nonsensical.

Gmail Tips and Tricks

Gmail now has functionality to import old email from another program into an existing Gmail account. 

From Mashable.com here are 5 Ways to Spice up your Gmail signature. 

Here's a tip for never again forgetting the attachment you meant to send.  From the gmail tips page:

Turn on the Forgotten Attachment Detector in Labs, and you'll get an alert if you mentioned attaching a file but forgot to do so.

Try it out in Labs »

And did you know you can send an SMS right from gmail?

1. Send SMS text messages right from Gmail.

   How often do you try to chat with somebody and they don't respond because they just walked away from their computer? You can keep the conversations going with a Labs feature that lets you send SMS text messages right from Gmail. Enable it in Labs under Settings, and then typing a phone number in the chat box search window. We'll even save your friends' numbers in your Contacts, so you can just type names into the chat box and select Send SMS.

   Turn it on in Labs »

   

Email 2.0

I just read an interesting article on examiner.com entitled Email 2.0 A New Recipe for an Old Service.  The author, Adam Kochanowicz, has some good suggestions on features that would be great added to email such as real time messaging, inportability, and improved multimedia.  I have a few more suggestions on features email needs to have to get to the next level.

1.  Easy encryption and sender verification signing.  SSL for email is too complex for many day to day users.  We need a cross platform system that is truly built into major email clients and mobile devices that will allow us to encrypt important data and verify that a sender is who they say they are.  I always like to say that email is more like a postcard than a letter.  With identity theft and phishing so widespread encryption and sender verification is important, it's just not easy.

2.  Server side SPAM controls built into a new SMTP protocol. Sender verification needs to be improved.  Traditional SMTP does not have any sender verification.  Today most organizations use SPAM control appliances and things like DNS SPF records to help block SPAM, but its still managed outside of the SMTP protocol.  Something's missing, hardly surprising since the SMTP RFC 281 was originally written in 1982.

3.  A control panel with the ability to link and unlink accounts and inboxes.   Users need to have multiple accounts for email as well as all sorts of social media accounts.  Work email and personal email should not be mixed together, to keep users privacy, and corporate ownership of company data.  However, wouldn't it be nice to have one control panel where you can see a feed of emails accounts(s), instant messages, Twitter Tweets, Facebook updates, and whatever else data you can't live without a constant stream thereof?  Well - nice for those who love to be constantly plugged in and in touch.  I would like that control panel to be easy to customize and turn off when you need to unplug as well.