Reply to: Mail/calendar options for small business

[Spoiler]

I would go for a little Plesk set up

Never heard of Plesk - a quick search shows it's a control panel for web hosts. So I guess I just need to sign up with a web host which offers Plesk? Will have a look, thanks.

[administrator]

I gave up on Google Apps due to the crap dealing with their mail. Had to set up the rules I usually do in minutes on other systems. Plus they blocked a sales person out who emailed out 50 or so 1MB PDFs for 24 hours as it was deemed as "potential spam" and there was no way, even as the account admin, that I could get her back in. Absolute crap.

I would go for a little Plesk set up, handles incoming and outgoing mail. Set up all three email accounts. Set up a group email for mail@ and forward it on to all users. So they can all send from the mail@ address just add a new account to the two Outlook machines with the different sender address, if it really needs an incoming account then just set up a fake one. If the mobile user then sets up a GMail account to collect their normal mail then they can also set up an option to send from another address. Much easier than messing with Google docs.

You can also use the free calendar service to share calendars. Is a bit fiddly but have sorted it out before, think you just have to make sure each email address has an associated Google account and then flag then invite the other users to share the calendar and make them admins. As admins they can pull each others calendars into Outlook and edit in there as well as view.

Avoid Google Apps if you want to keep things simple and flexible IMO.

[Spoiler]

Yes I don't think you need to be using a Google Group for what you want. I think they let you set up forward-only emails or something but again... ask on the Google support site, it's pretty active.

Okay, had a play and it's definitely google groups doing this. I removed the group and setup a nickname on a user and this works fine - no mangling of the from address.

So next problem is trying to work out how to do this across multiple users - you can't have the same nickname on multiple users. I'll head over to the google forum to see if there's a way to do this.

Thanks again.

[d000hg]

Yes I don't think you need to be using a Google Group for what you want. I think they let you set up forward-only emails or something but again... ask on the Google support site, it's pretty active.

[Spoiler]

I've only skimmed this but I think I get it.

Google Groups don't work in the same way they did on Exchange/Outlook.

You may be onto something here. I think i may well have used a group (google has locked me out for now, so just trying to resolve this). Once I get back in I'll have a play and see if I can do this without using a group, or change the group options.

Ta!

[Spoiler]

I wonder the same, I have never seen this except when the sender is sending from a different account.

Gmail shows you extra information about the sender/header than many email clients so it might even be that. Have you dropped an email to Google support or asked on the online forums?

It's not the sender doing it, but gmail. I guess as it gets forwarded. But I think the next post from GoodPrognosis may be onto something ...

[GoodPrognosis]

I've only skimmed this but I think I get it.

Google Groups don't work in the same way they did on Exchange/Outlook.

In Outlook a group is just a name for a list of people and when you email that name the email gets sent to everyone on that list. ie Rainbow={Rod,Jayne,Freddy}

In google world a Group is a real tangible thing with attributes and behaviours. For example a google group has it's own webpage where every email can be read like... well just like this discussion forum on contractoruk.com.

You might be a member of a google group and you might have chosen to receive all emails that get sent to that group. But surely its helpful to know that the incoming mail came to a group and was forwarded to you, rather than was sent to you directly? So a 2 minute chat with your customer about this behaviour might work.

Whilst sending on behalf of a google group you can set the behaviour to 'send as' the group as you'd expect.

Sorry if I've answered (badly) a question you weren't asking.

GP

[d000hg]

If you're getting it on incoming email, then surely that's down to the sender?

I wonder the same, I have never seen this except when the sender is sending from a different account.

Gmail shows you extra information about the sender/header than many email clients so it might even be that. Have you dropped an email to Google support or asked on the online forums?

[VectraMan]

I'll have a look, thanks, but having had a quick read, the issue mentioned is for sending mail out. Mine is for receiving mail. Maybe the fix is similar though.

If you're getting it on incoming email, then surely that's down to the sender?

I used to send my outgoing email to my ISP's SMTP server rather than GMail to avoid this. That was using Thunderbird at home, and it all synced and worked, except of course if you used the web interface or a phone when mobile, you got the "on behalf of" again.

[Spoiler]

Can you fix this with delegation? IIRC it was an outlook problem more than a gmail problem.

Check this...

Google Groups

I'll have a look, thanks, but having had a quick read, the issue mentioned is for sending mail out. Mine is for receiving mail. Maybe the fix is similar though.

[Spoiler]

I run g-apps (not g-mail) for a couple of email accounts including my plan B and I'm not really familiar with the email address issue you are on about... if this only affects incoming mail why is it a problem? And is this specifically to do with what happens when forwarding the email?

It's an issue because it looks rubbish on emails (which are going to customers) and will probably confuse simple people!

This occurs when receiving an email from someone. It may be to do with the way I'm authenticating as the real user but the email address for that user is configured as the forwarder "mail@" address (so all mails are sent from "mail@")??

I'll check in both outlook and google mail to see if it's just an outlook issue.

[Moscow Mule]

Can you fix this with delegation? IIRC it was an outlook problem more than a gmail problem.

Check this...

Google Groups

[d000hg]

I run g-apps (not g-mail) for a couple of email accounts including my plan B and I'm not really familiar with the email address issue you are on about... if this only affects incoming mail why is it a problem? And is this specifically to do with what happens when forwarding the email?

[Spoiler]

The fact millions of businesses manage to use shared calendars in Outlook/Google suggests to me the problem isn't really a big deal.

Personally I'd recommend Google if only because you can get it free.

Agreed - the calendar thing I think is not a big problem. It's the email thing that annoying !

[jmo21]

Email: When receiving email from the outside world, it would re-write the from address to be "From: mail@company.co.uk on behalf of user@customer.co.uk".

That REALLY annoys me too!