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How do I track individual team member activity in a shared inbox / mailbox? (Outlook)
Do you have a shared inbox in Outlook where multiple team members conduct email activity from? And you want to track individual team member activity within that shared inbox?
In this guide, I’ll show you how to set it up.
In order for EmailAnalytics to access & analyze sent emails, you will need to do one of two things:
Method 1. Onboard your individual agents’ inboxes (who use the shared mailbox) so EmailAnalytics can see their sent emails. With this method, you would incur a $15/mo charge per inbox, but you would not need to use categories or folders to track individual agent activity within the shared mailbox, and you’d also get analytics into their individual inboxes as well.
OR
Method 2. Set sent emails to display in the sent items folder of the shared inbox — https://emailanalytics.com/
Below are walkthroughs for each method.
Method 1: Tracking Outlook shared mailbox activity using the shared mailbox integration
Step 1. (Optional)
First, you’ll need to ensure that sent emails appear in the shared mailbox’s “Sent Items” folder. To check this, look in the “Sent Items” folder for your shared mailbox and make sure that sent emails are showing up in that folder. If they are not, follow this guide to fix it: How do I get sent items to display in my Outlook shared mailbox?
Note: This step is optional, but if you do not complete this step, then you won’t be able to view overall sent emails from the shared inbox. You will still be able to see how many emails each agent sent from the shared inbox, but some high-level analytics on the inbox itself will be limited.
Step 2.
In EmailAnalytics, set up the Microsoft 365 integration and join the shared inbox, and each agent who uses the shared inbox.
Step 3.
Click on the “Shared Mailbox” button in your nav bar, then click “Configure Shared Inbox.”
Step 4.
Select the shared inbox from the first drop-down, then select each user of the shared inbox. Click Save.
That’s it! We’ll then display a table showing you the stats for your shared inbox. Visit the Shared Inbox page at any time to view stats for your shared inbox, or to configure new shared inboxes for tracking.
Method 2: Tracking an Outlook shared mailbox using only folders or categories
You can also track activity in an Outlook shared mailbox using only folders or categories. The advantage to this method is that it is cheaper, as you won’t have to onboard individual agents’ inboxes who are using the shared mailbox. The downside is that you will need to ensure that all emails are properly categorized or labeled in Outlook to get accurate reporting in EmailAnalytics.
Outlook, by default, stores “sent” emails in the “Sent Items” folder of the person who sent the email — not the “Sent Items” folder of the shared inbox. This means that by default, the shared inbox only has “received” emails for EmailAnalytics to access.
Step 1.
First, you’ll need to ensure that sent emails appear in the shared mailbox’s “Sent Items” folder. To check this, look in the “Sent Items” folder for your shared mailbox and make sure that sent emails are showing up in that folder. If they are not, follow this guide to fix it: How do I get sent items to display in my Outlook shared mailbox?
Step 2.
In EmailAnalytics, set up the Microsoft 365 integration and join the shared inbox.
Step 3.
Enable the setting “When replying to a message that is not in the Inbox, save the reply in the same folder.” This setting ensures that when emails are replied to, the replies stay in the original folder of the email to which they’re replying.
Step 4.
In Outlook, ensure your agents properly categorize or folder each of their communications. The folder or category names should make it easy to identify which agent handled the message.
You can automate this process using Outlook rules. Click that link for a walkthrough on how to set them up!
Step 5.
In EmailAnalytics, select your shared inbox on the dashboard, then scroll down to the “Label Breakdown” table on the dashboard. Here we’ll display all the label/category activity for the inbox for your chosen rate range.
Helpful links for Outlook shared mailbox setup/usage:
- How to create a shared mailbox for your organization
- How to add a shared mailbox to your Outlook UI if it doesn’t automatically happen
- How to add Outlook rules to a shared mailbox
- How to make a shared mailbox email address the default for outgoing emails