Read Only Access to Shared Mailbox via OWA
Hi, We have a shared mailbox and we want to give users read only access to it via owa. We dont want them to be able to delete,move mail or send as or recieve as. Using EMS and the ADD-MailboxPermission cmdlet I only seem to be able to add fullaccess. How do i do this? Regards, Mike Loveless
October 14th, 2008 11:45am

Mike, One would think you can use the ReadPermission parameter for the -AccessRights switch, like so: Add-MailboxPermissionuser1 -AccessRights ReadPermission -User user2 But this command only (redundantly) grants access to the account to read the permissions of that mailbox, not the mailbox content itself. You'd have to use Outlook and assign Reviewer permissions to another user via the Delegates tab in the Options window. This can't be done via EMS or the command shell.
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October 14th, 2008 12:23pm

Hi, Will changes made in outlook apply when using owa? I had seen this with readpermissions and it's really stupid! Also, this mailbox is a shared mailbox and therefore the account is disabled so i cant log into outlook with that account. Regards Mike
October 14th, 2008 12:53pm

Unfortunetely, no. Delegate access assigned to users from within Outlook only works when the other accounts are also using Outlook to access these mailboxes. When using OWA to access any other mailboxes Full Mailbox Access must be assigned via the management tools. Regarding your second point, you could assign Full Access rights for the shared mailbox to your user account, then login to the mailbox via Outlook to configure delegates.
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October 14th, 2008 1:30pm

Hi, Thanks for your prompt responses. So is there any way that a user can see another mailbox in owa but only be able to view items and not delete\move them? Regards, Mike
October 14th, 2008 1:36pm

No. I'd suggest using a mail-enabled Public Folder for this instead of a shared mailbox.
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October 14th, 2008 4:31pm

In Exchange 2007 public folders are no longer available. Can you explain why the permissions have to be full access in OWA when you can use a tool like PFDAVAdmin to assign reviewer rightsto clients using shared mailboxes in the full version of Outlook 2007? We have two warehouses that use OWA on shared machines to access a shared mailbox. However, we are running in to problems with these users deleting mail from these shared mailboxes. We used to be a Notes shop and we were able to assign read-only permission to the mailbox then. Since they are using OWA/Exchange now, this problem has come up. We really can't load the full client on these machines. Our environment is set up to have the clients use cached mode (best practice). If we did make the warehouses use the full version of Outlook, the pc's would fill up with OST files. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks.
December 4th, 2008 7:37pm

Exchange 2007 most certainly does still support Public Folders.
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December 4th, 2008 8:25pm

We went from Lotus Domino right to Exchange 2007. I'm a Domino admin so I'm still learning the system. I apologize forthe mis-statement. We were told not do go that route if possible by our consultants since we were staring out with a fresh environment. Apparently public folders can get out of hand (we were told). I was actually able to find a solution working with our Microsoft rep.Thanks.
December 5th, 2008 9:52pm

Scundo - would you mind sharing the fix from the MS rep? Were you actually able to implement read only content viewing from a powershell command?-dylan
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March 6th, 2009 11:01pm

It would be great if you could share this info with the rest of us, as many of us have the same issues. Thanks.
July 28th, 2009 1:08pm

That might be difficult but you can configure limited read-only inbox in OWA, refer below article... How to: Setup Read Only Mailbox in Exchange 2003/2007 http://exchangeshare.wordpress.com/2009/07/07/how-to-setup-read-only-mailbox-in-exchange-20032007/Amit Tank | MVP Exchange Server | MCITP: EMA | MCSA: M | http://ExchangeShare.WordPress.com
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July 28th, 2009 1:25pm

Good day all. In order to do the share, you must share the Root mailbox, then separately share the sub's in turn. I've just found this out and configured it correctly, and it works fine.Thanks,TTYLTheSnarfster
October 2nd, 2009 12:41am

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