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Google Groups: the Collaborative Inbox

 

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What is a Collaborative Inbox?

The Google Collaborative Inbox is essentially an email inbox that is shared by multiple people. Every member of the group can see, manage, and respond to messages based on what privileges the user is given.

The first thing to note is that this mailbox does not look like a regular Gmail account: it uses the Google Groups user interface. You can find Google Groups when you click on the waffle icon in the top right of your Gmail, Google Calendar or other Google Workspace applications for UCD users.

The Collaborative Inbox does offer some expanded functionality compared to a standard Gmail account for shared email accounts. 

  • Having a group email address means that multiple people can respond from one email address without sharing login information. Each member of the group accesses the Collaborative Inbox with their own UCD Connect account, so there is no sharing of user IDs or passwords, sidestepping a major security problem.

  • Members can assign conversations to other members or themselves and set statuses for certain conversations (e.g., closed or duplicate).

  • Group owners can set different permission levels for team members to view, post and edit content.

  • Members can also categorise and label conversations by enabling the shared labels feature.

  • Your existing email address can be transferred onto the Collaborative Inbox, so there is no loss of service or confusion for your users. The contents of the existing account are archived and can be accessed by your team.

What is a Google Group and what are the benefits for my team?

A Google Group for your team is a powerful tool, as it simplifies setting up and managing your team's collaborative inbox, calendar, Google Drive and more. Google Groups are set up by UCD IT Services on request, and once it is set up you (as team admin) can use it to manage your team's access to a range of Google applications, primarily as a Collaborative Inbox for a shared email account. 

However, you can use a Google Group beyond only a shared email inbox. By adding a new member to the Google Group, you automatically give them access to every service, calendar and folder to which the Google Group already has access, with no need to share usernames or passwords and no more fuss or confusion about who has access to what. Likewise, if a team member leaves you can just remove them from the Google Group and that removes their access, thereby ensuring data protection and security.

How to use your Google Group


Note:you may choose to use some or all of these options for your Google Groups, you do not have to avail of all these features.

Google Group Feature What does it offer?

Collaborative Inbox

This shared email functionality is set up within the Google Groups application. With a collaborative inbox, your team members can assign each other tasks, categorize emails with labels, and mark emails as resolved, all without sharing usernames or passwords. It can also function as a team mailing list.

Find out more:

Team folders in Google Drive

Create a shared drive in Google Drive, add your Google Group and it becomes your team drive with access managed by adding or removing people from the Google Group. When documents and folders are saved here, they will still be accessible even if their owner leaves the team.

Find out more:

Team Calendar

Create a new calendar in Google Calendar, share it with your Google Group and it becomes a team calendar for showing annual leave, team meetings and other team events. 

Find out more: 

Team Chat and Collaboration

The Spaces feature in Google Chat, which can be viewed through your Gmail, lets you create a dynamic chat room for instantly collaborating and sharing files on a project. Simply add your Google Group to the Room.

The Spaces feature has different visibility options. Making a Space 'Restricted' lets you share information and post discussions within the team only. A Space that's visible to all UCD allows visibility and engagement across the University for cross-campus projects, initiatives and groups. In both types of Google Spaces community, you can simply add a Google Group to give immediate access to every team member and remove access when they leave.

Find out more: 

 

Is this the right option for my team?

What are the differences between Gmail and the Collaborative Inbox?

The Gmail and Google Groups interfaces look quite different. 

Gmail works very well for your own email, but isn't designed to handle multiple people logging into the same account. Plus, shared passwords have been highlighted as a security and data protection risk by the Office of the DPO at UCD. 

The Collaborative Inbox is a Google shared mailbox product to help teams distribute and track responsibility for emails that come to team inboxes like info@ or support@.

See our handy comparison table

Is a delegated email account or Collaborative Inbox the correct solution for my team?

The Collaborative Inbox is the shared email inbox tool supported at UCD, and requests for shared email accounts will generally be directed to a Collaborative Inbox as the preferred secure solution. Delegation functionality is available to Collaborative mailbox operators.

Delegated email is providing access to a Gmail mailbox content without password sharing.

Review the following chart to understand the differences between a Collaborative Inbox and Delegated email:

How to request a Collaborative Inbox

View the steps to make your request.

  • 1. Review functionality and your requirements

    Review the information on this page to ensure the Collaborative Inbox meets your needs.

  • 2. Head of School approval

    Get approval from your Head of School/Unit to proceed with a Collaborative Inbox.

  • 3. Request a new Collaborative Inbox

    Complete the form to request a new Collaborative Inbox (staff login required).Make your request

  • 4. Allow 5 working days for your new inbox

    Once all necessary information is included in your request, EAG will action your request within 5 working days. EAG will revert with details of your Collaborative Inbox and how to use it.

  • 5. Renew access annually

    The account owner gets an email annually to renew sponsorship of the account in the Visitors and Affiliates System in InfoHub on an annual basis.

How do I get started with it?

With a collaborative inbox, all members of a group can receive and respond to email requests using a shared address, like support@ucd.ie. You can also assign incoming messages to group members, track their status, categorise posts so they’re easy to find later, and more. 

Google Groups FAQ

Your current shared Gmail account will be renamed and archived. You will still have access to it, but it will no longer receive mail.

Yes, your current email account will be renamed and archived, and a new Google Groups account will be created with your email address.

You can reply to the email version that comes into your personal inbox but, unless you cc the group, that email will not appear in the group email conversation.

Yes - the person(s) with Manager access to the group can add someone by their email address as they deem appropriate, including for student @ucdconnect.ie email addresses.

We recommend you contact us in UCD IT Services so that we can see how your connector is currently being used and advise you accordingly.

The Collaborative Inbox is configured with default settings, as detailed as Step 3 in (opens in a new window)Getting Started with your Collaborative Inbox (Google Groups) In the majority of cases, these settings are what you need if you wish to use your Group as a shared email inbox. 

Owners of the Google Group may edit the permissions to view and post messages in the Collaborative Inbox.

  • If you wish to restrict who can email to and from the Collaborative Inbox, you can customise settings for who can post and view items.
  • You can also set whether individuals may or may not post messages or if their messages go through moderation.

Please note that if you edit the Google Group settings, the Collaborative Inbox may not receive emails from people who are not members of the Google Group. 

To check and edit the permissions:

  1. Sign in to(opens in a new window)Google Groups.
  2. Click the name of a group.
  3. On the left, click Group settings.
  4. To locate permission settings, look for entries with a slider:
  5. Choose which users get that permission. For:
    • Default roles, entire organisation, and everyone on the web—Move the slider to the user option you want.
    • Custom roles—Next to the slider, click the list and select the role.
      Choosing a custom role assigns the permission to anyone in this custom role plus the default role you selected on the slider.
  6. Repeat step 6 for each permission.
  7. Click Save changes.

Note: please be mindful of security and confidentiality when adjusting these settings. If you set the permissions too widely, your messages may be visible to everyone on the web. However, if you restrict settings too much, the inbox will not receive any emails. 

If you wish to revert to the default Collaborative Inbox settings, see Step 3 in (opens in a new window)Getting Started with your Collaborative Inbox (Google Groups) 

See this (opens in a new window)Google Workspace help article for further details on permissions and what they control. 

Google Groups Collaborative Inboxes do not have a Bcc (blind carbon copy) functionality.

However, there is a workaround that may be helpful for occasional Bcc use. You can send an email using the Bcc field from a Collaborative Inbox email address using your individual Gmail account. You can do this by adding the Collaborative Inbox email as an alternative sender address in your Gmail.

Please see the IT Support Hub article (opens in a new window)Sending email as bcc from a Collaborative Inbox email address via a UCD Gmail account for instructions.  

Support Hub Homepage

Further Support

The UCD IT Support Hub is where you can log a call with our UCD IT Helpdesk team, find an answer in our Knowledge Base of articles, or request an additional service or access.

UCD IT Services

Computer Centre, University College Dublin, Belfield, Dublin 4, Ireland.

Contact us via the UCD IT Support Hub: www.ucd.ie/ithelp