My word, does the title for this article make sense? – not sure that it does, but this is what I mean;

Your name is Bob, you work for a person called Sid, and Sid has set you up so you can send mail items on his behalf.

However the problem is, when you send something from your mailbox on Sid’s behalf, the item goes into your sent items rather than Sid’s – which means Sid has no reference to what has been sent – Sid is not happy.

This is the same scenario that my Directors PA contacted me about the other day and asked me to see if I could do something about it.

Now, I kind of suspected that this behavior was as Microsoft claims “by design” and this is just one of those things – I am also aware that there is software out there that can remedy this situation, however the following was on my mind:

• My director is the type of chap that came from a Novell (yuck) background and no doubt would be amazed that his (my) Exchange server that cost the better part of £100K could not manage some as simple as transferring a “Sent on Behalf” mail to a sent items folder in his mailbox – he would see it as the message was sent in his name, therefore should end up in his sent items.
• I personally object to purchasing software to perform this task.

The following is the solution that I came up with – admittedly it requires a slight change to how the person that is granted “Send on Behalf of” sends messages but it works!

Step 1 – Configure a rule on the person with “Send on Behalf of rights ” Outlook client:

From the tools menu in Outlook select the “Rules and Alerts” option which will open the following dialog box (this box applies to Outlook 2007 – but I have tested this article with all versions of Outlook from 2000, the process is pretty much the same for each version);

 Click on the “New Rule” option which is open the following dialog box;

From here in the section marked “Start from a blank rule” choose the “Check Messages after sending” option and then click on the “Next” button.

The screen will change to look like the following;

 

You need to select the “with specific words in the subject” option – essentially we are going to configure a specific verb that the person that is sending the mail item can place in the subject line which will uniquely identify the message – this will become important later.

When you have selected this option the dialog box will change to look like the following – you will notice that the bottom of the dialog has changed to reflect the option that you have chosen – you need to click on the “specific words” option which will open the “specific words or phrases to search for in the subject” dialog box;

Choose a unique word or phrase that can be placed in the rule (for example my directory is called Sam Curling) therefore the verb I chose was “SC:“ – type this in and click add then OK.

You will be returned to the rules Wizard – click on the next button and the screen will change to look like the following:

You need to now select the “CC th message to the people or distribution list” – you will notice that the bottom part of the dialog box will change and see that the “people or distribution list” option is underlined – click on this which will open up the Global Address List – choose the person that you are sending on behalf of then click ok and then click NEXT.

The next dialog box is for exceptions, click on the “Next” button.

The final dialog will require you to give the rule a name – name the rule and then click on the finish button – you will be prompted to accept that the rule will be “client only” this is ok.

Ok you have now configured the first part of this, what you will find now is when the delegate sends on behalf of and places the verb (in our case “SC:“) that we have choose anywhere in the subject line a copy of the mail item will appear in the “Inbox” of the managers account.

Step 2 – Configure a rule in the managers mailbox;

What we now need to do is logon to the managers account and configure a rule that will move the message into the sent items folder – the following is how we accomplish this:

From the tools menu in Outlook select the “Rules and Alerts” option which will open the following dialog box (this box applies to Outlook 2007 – but I have tested this article with all versions of Outlook from 2000, the process is pretty much the same for each version);

Click on the “New Rule” option which is open the following dialog box;

From here in the section marked “Start from a blank rule” choose the “Check Messages when they arrive” option and then click on the “Next” button.

The screen will change to look like the following;

 

Choose the “with specific words in the subject” option then from the bottom of the dialog click on the “specific words” which is underlined – then from the input dialog box that appears enter in the exact verb that we chose in the first steps of this article, when you are done, click “Add” and then “ok” then click on the “Next” button and the screen will change to look like the following;

Choose then “move it to the specified folder” and then from the bottom of the dialog box, click on the “move it to the specified folder” option which is underlined – you will notice that this then brings up the folder structure of the managers mailbox – choose the “Sent Items” folder and click OK.

Click on the “Next” button, and then “Next” again – specify a name for this rule and then click on the finish button (which will save this as a server side rule).

That’s is, now all you PA needs to remember is that when they send on behalf of – the need to add the verb from step 1 placed in the subject line, and a copy of the message will be added to the sent items of the managers mailbox.

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