Best way to share Outlook email on two coasts?

May 2, 2007 12:00 PM

Trying to share my email so that a coworker can help out in New York.

A coworker (in NY) and I (in LA) are responsible for updating status reports. She and I are trying to better balance these by her taking over on some of them.

I use Outlook to flag items which need to be added to status reports and then mark them completed when I've done so. In order to ensure that she doesn't miss anything, I would like to give her access to my email so that she may find the appropriately flagged emails, add them to the report and check them off.

What is the absolute BEST way to do this with Outlook? We are on a shared server, so I can have access to her contacts and calendar, for example, but can't for the life of me seem to get her access to my email.

I have tried adding her as a delegate, and adding her in "Sharing" on my mailbox, but she says she can only see my Inbox, not my subfolders.

I feel like I'm clearly doing something totally wrong. Please tell me where I'm going wrong so that I can do it right. Help! Please explain like you would to a five year old. I'm usually pretty good at this sort of thing, but she is not and will need help...

Thanks!

posted by wanderthirst to work & money (6 comments total)

Just a few questions for clarification...

Are your subfolders in the Archived Folders section or in your main mailbox? If the messages are archived to your computer, she won't be able to access them.

Are you able to set up a filter to auto-forward these messages to her, and does your Exchange server allow auto-forwards?
posted by odi.et.amo at 12:15 PM on May 2, 2007

Just to expand what odi said: Your subfolders may be in your Archived Folders, which may also sometimes be called Personal Folder. The data in these is put in a file (perhaps you have heard of your "PST" file). This file may be stored on your local computer or a mapped drive to a server.

If that's the case, your co-worker will also need to be able to reach this file. If they can, they can import it into their Outlook.
posted by poppo at 12:33 PM on May 2, 2007

If this is an exchange server you might need to have your system administrator grant your coworker read rights to your mailbox. In my network, users can share things like contacts and calendars simply by using the features on their client (Outlook), but to actually share the mail inbox I have to grant the additional account privileges on the server.
posted by Burhanistan at 1:02 PM on May 2, 2007

If you export the mail to a PST you'll probably need to modify the permissions of that file so your coworker can open it. Right click on the file in Windows Explorer, go to Properties, click the Security tab, click Add, then type "everyone", then make sure Everyone is highlighted and check the Full Control box.
posted by Burhanistan at 1:04 PM on May 2, 2007

My folders are in my regular mailbox, not archive folders.

Thanks!
posted by wanderthirst at 10:08 PM on May 2, 2007

So why did you mark that as best answer and favorite it?
posted by Burhanistan at 8:47 AM on May 3, 2007