How To Delegate Mail Access In Lotus Notes

Hey there,

So a colleague at work asked me for help to access another colleague's e-mail as the colleague is going on holiday and for business purposes access was required to both historical and new e-mails (so auto-forwarding wouldn't work).

I looked into it, and figured out how to delegate mail access (along with Calendar access amongst other things). I thought it best to put together a guide on how to do it, as current instructions are a bit shaky from the research I did.

As with previous articles, this was written to help internal IBM'ers but is applicable to other Domino/Lotus Notes Mail setups.

Without further ado, the tutorial:

How To Delegate Mail Access In Lotus Notes

Requirements: Lotus Notes with Domino Mail Server Setup (this guide isn't applicable to standalone POP3 clients), Access to Delegated Account, Access to Delegatee Account.

Time Required: Around ~5mins

Part 1 - Delegating Access

Right, to start with we need to go on the 'Delegating Account' and give access to the 'Delegatee'.

Fire up your Lotus Notes (If it isn't already!) and go to your Mail account.
From here we want to go into the 'Mail Preferences' menu, located:

Click on 'Preferences' (Click to Enlarge)

This will present you with a popup with multiple tabs. On this popup click on the tab titled "Access & Delegation". You should see the screen below, and from here we want to click on the button titled "Add":

Click on "Add..." (Click to Enlarge)

This will bring up yet another pop-up (how fun!), which is shown below. For the purpose of this tutorial we want to delegate access to one person, but you can share with a whole group or even everyone within your Company (Unwise!). To add someone, click on the small grey arrow inside the text box for "Just this person or group":

Click the grey downwards facing arrow (Click to Enlarge)

This will popup an address book with a drop-down allowing you to find the person(s) you want to allow access. In this example I have used my colleagues name from our LDAP server, but you can use names from your personal address book (just click on the 'Directory' list box), as long as they are hosted within your company's e-mail infrastructure. Popup:

Find the 'Delegatee'

So from here we want to choose our 'Delegatee' and click 'OK' to return to the previous popup. This previous popup should now have your 'Delegatee's' name populated in the previously empty field.

We now have to choose the level of access we want to give them, and with what components they should have access (As well as how your calendar invites should be handled). This tutorial will show how to give 'Read Only Access' to all components, but feel free to change here to your suiting. Choose the level of access you want to delegate and click 'OK':

Choose level of Access, and with what Components (Click to Enlarge)

Right, after clicking 'OK' on that box, do the same to the prior popup, and you should now be back on the usual mail view (I hope!).

We now need to restart Lotus Notes to update the permissions to the server.

Part 2 - Gaining Access To Delegated Account

So with the 'Delegated Account' now setup to allow the 'Delegatee' to access it, we need to add a shortcut to the 'Delegated Account'. This part interacts with the 'Delegatee's' Lotus Notes Account.

Navigate once more to the 'Preferences' menu option in the Mail view:

Click on 'Preferences' (Click to Enlarge)

And again we want to go to the 'Acces & Delegation' tab, but this time click on the sub-tab titled 'Shortcuts to Others' Mail'. From here we want to add the Delegated Person's Account, do this by click on the little button with a downwards facing arrow in the section titled "Shortcuts in Your Mail File":

Click the little arrow (Click to Enlarge)

This will then present you with a familiar site, the Address Book. Find the Delegated person's account, and click 'OK':

Find the delegated account

After clicking 'OK' you should be back to the prior popup. Make sure the delegated persons name is populated in the field and click 'OK' once more to apply the settings:

Make sure the delegated account is populated in the first field

You should now be presented with the following warning telling you to restart Lotus Notes, click 'OK' and then restart Lotus Notes:

Click 'OK' and then Restart Lotus Notes

Once restarted, go into your Mail view, and in the left-hand navigation menu there should be an option called 'Other Mail', expand this and you should find the a link to the delegated account:

The delegated account

Click on this link, and if all has gone to plan you should then be presented with the delegated persons mail view, and based on previous levels of access you can send e-mails from this account. You should see:

You should now see the delegated account in your Lotus Notes (Click to Enlarge)

Hopefully this tutorial has helped, and if there are any questions feel free to ask in the comments or via internal methods (IBMer's Only).