Combining Mailbox, Replying Separately

[Gongalong]

Hi folks,

 

We have an issue we’re trying to resolve for our Headteacher.

 

He has now taken on a second school as well, but he wants to be able to simplify dealing with email and calendars to a single inbox. The two schools are running separate O365 tenancies and there are no plans to combine. He wants to achieve:

 

1. Parent from school 1 emails him, it goes to a central inbox and he replies with an email address suffix from school 1.

2. Parent from school 2 emails him, it goes to a central inbox and he replies with an email address suffix from school 2.

3. Any meeting requests go into the calendar on this central inbox, which can be one of the two mailboxes.

 

I can’t see a way to achieve this, short of forwarding both emails to a combined inbox with a neutral reply address i.e. doesn't have either of the suffixes from the schools.

 

Anyone got a better idea, or is there something I'm missing from O365's capabiltiies?

 

Thanks

Edited May 15, 2020 by Gongalong

[Steve21]

I mean that sound be the standard action if you log into two accounts at once (assuming you’re using outlook locally?)

 

Once logged in to both it’ll auto pick the reply address based on who the email is sent to, will have both mailboxes shown as inboxes, will also merge calendars/invites if asked to etc

 

Steve

[Gongalong]

I'm thinking that might be the best option, but the preference for the Headteacher was to combine it all in one mailbox. They have tried combining already, but more so the Headteacher's PA, and she is finding that overlaying calendars isn't working well. I'll try and find out more detail about why overlaying is an issue.

[Steve21]

Ah so you actually want it showing in a single folder?

 

Think you could do it via a search folder and use that as the inbox but that seems excessive tbh (and a lot more confusing for an end user lol)

 

Youd create a search folder across all mailboxes and then add in any excluders you wanted like unread blah blah

 

Steve

[Gongalong]

I think he wants it in a single mailbox, in that he doesn't want the complexity of two mailboxes. I see what you're saying though, and a search folder could be a way of combining two mailboxes in an easier way.

 

Calendars are the other big issue, as he doesn't want to maintain two calendars, along with one or two PAs having to maintain two calendars as well. The best practical way I can see to achieve this is that staff at both schools are told to contact him on one address, as the bulk of appointments will likely come from staff.

[Steve21]

I mean calendar wise you could just share the calendar you want to both PAs. But it depends what the actual purpose of this is in that sense.

 

If it's just to see what's on an overlay should work, if it's for the PA to add stuff onto the calendars, then unless you're happy sharing both calendars can't they just use "schedule view"? That is what it's designed for to check when things are available on multiple calendars etc. e.g. PA1 has School1 (Write) + School2 (View) calendar , and PA2 has School2 (Write) + School1 (View) calendar etc, schedule view will then only show available spots between both but can only edit their own

 

But again this would all change if they want mailbox access to to reply/forward emails etc

 

Steve

[Gongalong]

Having spoken to one of the PAs, she creates the bulk of his appointments. The others come from external Outlook meeting invites. I suspect it's the latter that will be the biggest problem, as they will inevitably come to the two accounts.

 

Sharing the calendars isn't an issue technically, and we've already tried that. We have given the PA mentioned above an account at both schools, so she can see both calendars and has delegate access. There is some issue with overlaying them, which I may have mentioned above, but I have a feeling it's just due to the number of appointments on both. This is where I think they want to try and use one calendar as much as possible. There's no delegation for email, just the calendar.

 

I've looked at search folders, but I only have one O365 account so can't look at it beyond that. Presumably a search folder can be setup to look at two mailboxes? When I created the search folder it seemed to suggest it was mailbox specific.

[Steve21]

Hmm, honestly it seems maybe not. Deffo used to be able to, but looks like it's limited to the one tenant now which is dumb

 

The irony being on Mac it has an all-inbox option by default!

 

Well if that's the case, then no lol, Guess it's either use 2 inboxes, or rules as you say

 

Steve

[Gongalong]

The potential good news is that he wants to do this on a Mac laptop, so he might have that combined inbox option (coincidentally I just read about that).

[Gongalong]

The other option is using Gmail, which I think he's keen to use. I've tested, and you can use POP3 to pull in Office 365 email from two different accounts. So the email side looks easy.

 

It's the calendar side that's more of an issue, with two personal assistants that would need access to the calendar and the ability to manage. That looks easy if both personal assistants use Gmail, and perhaps it's better in some ways to have that separation from their own accounts. They might want to use Outlook though, and it seems to manage Gmail through Outlook requires a GSuite account https://support.google.com/a/users/answer/170958?hl=en