CompassAir Shared Mailboxes
Overview
Shared mailboxes are the key to unlocking productivity and efficiency, enabling the sharing, processing and management of data, documents and files between team members. Sharing a mailbox allows teams to work together on joint projects, see what each is doing and share resources.
What does it do?
A group, or shared mailbox makes communication transparent. Put simply, it’s where a group of people have a shared email address, and whenever an email is sent to that address everyone in the group has access to that email. As most tasks start and end with an email, the address acts as a hub, where work can be centralised with the delegation of tasks made much easier. More comprehensive information is available in our article on shared mailboxes.
What benefits does it bring?
A CompassAir shared inbox will transform the way you do business. A few of the benefits it will bring include the following:
• Communication is unified – it avoids those long email threads containing cc, bcc and fwd
• Save time – instant access to files and information a team needs
• Messages can be assigned, often using automation, to team members allowing delegation with transparency – team members can see who is working on what. Not only this but, with each team member having an overview of what is going on, means they can often see how and why decisions are being made. Fully understanding such circumstances is likely to result in improved decision making in the future.
• CompassAir has been designed specifically for your sector, with features designed to improve your particular workflow. This makes it much easier for your fellow team members to work with you, improving productivity and adding value to your organisation
• Combined with other tools you can determine automatically what happens to an email on receipt, sending emails to the appropriate individual and being better organised means response times can be lowered
How do Outlook shared mailboxes compare?
Outlook does have the option to create shared mailboxes but it also has limitations, some of which are as follows:
• configuring shared mailboxes in Outlook will require some IT expertise, especially in MS Exchange – CompassAir has no such complications, we will handle everything, keeping things as simple as possible
• with Outlook you cannot see who has read emails or replied to them – in CompassAir transparency is key, you can see exactly which of your colleagues have done what
• if a user has access to a number of shared mailboxes, duplicate messages can be hidden from view, keeping inbox clutter to a minimum, something not possible with Outlook
• MS Exchange archiving can be expensive, with many small and medium sized organisations opting for third party archiving services, then configuring them – all time consuming and expensive, something CompassAir handles automatically
• again with storage, CompassAir significantly reduces email storage volumes by keeping only one copy of every attachment in the database, irrespective of how many times this attachment may have been received in one or more mailboxes. You will also see only one copy of a message, even if received multiple times in more mailboxes, all to mute the noise.
How valuable is it?
Those clients whose first experience of shared mailboxes is with CompassAir comment on, without exception, how their team really starts to work as a team. Being able to see who is doing what, who has done what, what has been delegated to who, workflows can then be adapted so as to maximise productivity. A shared inbox not only means sharing access to emails, it also allows for documents to be shared, making working together as a team that much easier.
With the ability to take advantage of opportunities immediately they arise, promptly respond to challenges and provide quick resolutions to problems the results will soon be seen in improvements to performance measurements.
How is it used and what does it look like?
A shared mailbox looks no different to what a user would already be familiar with, having used Outlook or other similar generic solutions. CompassAir has however been designed with sector knowledge and experience, with its understanding of workflows and the needs and requirements of users. As such it is packed with features to increase productivity, often making use of automation, and make life generally less stressful. For more information, including a selection of screenshots from CompassAir see our article on shared mailboxes.
