Forward mailbox vs. individual mailboxes

Forward mailbox vs. individual mailboxes

For incoming e-mail messages, you can configure the E-mail Router to monitor either of the following:

• A forward mailbox, also known as a sink mailbox

• Each user's or queue's mailbox

  Important

  If your e-mail system does not allow rules where an e-mail message can be forwarded as an attachment, you must select Individual Mailbox Monitoring during E-mail Router Setup. If you are using Microsoft Exchange Server, we recommend that you select Forward Mailbox Monitoring.

  Configuring the E-mail Router to use a forward mailbox gives Microsoft Dynamics CRM one central mailbox to monitor, instead of monitoring the mailbox of each user who needs Microsoft Dynamics CRM e-mail capabilities.

  Organizations that have to monitor a large number of mailboxes should consider using a forward mailbox to reduce the administrative effort. Monitoring many mailboxes can sometimes require maintaining access credentials in many incoming configuration profiles. For more information, see Access credentials.

  By using a forward mailbox, you shift the administrative effort to the task of deploying a server-side forwarding rule to each user mailbox. The forwarding rule forwards all incoming e-mail messages as attachments to the centralized forward mailbox. For Exchange Server only, you can use the Rule Deployment Wizard (installed with the E-mail Router) to deploy forwarding rules. This can significantly reduce administration and maintenance requirements because the Rule Deployment Wizard can deploy forwarding rules to multiple Microsoft Dynamics CRM users at the same time.

  Important

  To use a forward mailbox with a Microsoft Dynamics CRM deployment that interfaces with a POP3-compliant e-mail system, the e-mail system must be able to forward e-mail messages as attachments. Also, for POP3 e-mail servers and Exchange Online, you cannot use the Rule Deployment Wizard. Instead, you must create the rules manually. For instructions, see Create the rule manually.

  You can configure users and queues in different ways within the same Microsoft Dynamics CRM deployment. For example, you may want to configure some user or queue mailboxes to be monitored directly on one e-mail server, and configure others to use a forward mailbox on a different e-mail server.

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