Sharing

The Sharing page in a user's settings provides the user with information about any and all shares attached to, or provided by, the user. The page is separated into individual tabs:

• Shared With Me
• Shared With Others
• Delegation

Another way to share items is using the Sharing area. You access this are by going to Settings > Sharing. You'll notice this area separated into 2 different tabs: Shared with Me and Shared with Others.

Shared With Me

This tab displays all the items that have been shared with your user. This includes email folders and sub-folders, contact lists, tasks and notes. This tab displays the following:

• Shared By - The user sharing the item with you. This can be an individual user, or, in the case of shared resources such as Conference Rooms or Equipment, the domain itself.
• Folder - The name of the folder that's been shared. This is, essentially, the name of the shared item. (E.g., Conference Room A)
• Type - The type of shared item: calendar, email folder, notes, etc.
• Attached - This indicates whether the item is actually attached to your user. If it's not attached, it can't be accessed.
• Subfolders - This indicates whether the subfolders within the parent are also shared with you.
• Permissions - The permission level you have for the shared item. (E.g., Read-Only)

Clicking on an item in the Shared with Me list opens the details of the item. You can see the name, who shared it and the permission for the item. In some cases, there are also customization options and additional information that may be available. For example, on calendars you can adjust the color of the calendar items to customize how they appear. Finally, you can attach or detach the share from within the modal window. You can also attach or detach items simply by checking the box next to the item, then clicking the appropriate button at the top of the content window.

You'll also notice "Attach" and "Detach" buttons. While shares are automatic, you may have need to remove, or Detach, a shared item, for one reason or another. For example, if your CEO's calendar was shared with you, but you need to show your calendar to someone -- a client, possibly -- you may want to temporarily detach the CEO's calendar from yours so no sensitive information is displayed. In this case, you'd select the CEO's calendar and click the Detach button. Then, once the prospective client leaves, you'll want to select that calendar and click the Attach button. The key here is that you've removed the share, but the CEO hasn't. Therefore, the calendar is still shared with you, it's just been temporarily detached.

Shared With Others

This tab displays the items you have shared with others within your organization. It offers similar information as the Shared with Me tab, including:

• Folder - The name of the "folder" that's been shared. This is, essentially, the name of the shared item. (E.g., Conference Room A)
• Type - The type of shared item: calendar, email folder, notes, etc.
• Subfolders - This indicates whether the subfolders within the parent are also being shared.
• Permissions - The number of permission levels associated to the share. This is an indication of how many users and/or user groups the item has been shared with. For example, if an email folder is shared with 3 individual users, 3 would be displayed for the item as there are 3 separate shares of it.

Clicking on an item opens its options. This allows you to modify the share by adding in additional users, changing permissions for existing users and/or user groups, etc.

Creating a New Share

It's also possible to create a new shared item from the Shared With Others tab. Simply click the New button at the top of the content pane. This opens a new modal and offers the following options:

• Folder - The type of share you want to create, based on the "folder", or item, you want to share. All of the items you have available to be shared are listed in this dropdown: all calendars, all email folders, all address books, all notes and all tasks.
• Users - This area allows you to share the item with one or more user, and each user you add to the share can have their own permission level. These are:
• None - This permission acts as a "negater" and is, therefore, only available for users. For example, let's say you have a user group set up for your Marketing Department. However, you don't want to share Notes with Henry because he ate your piece of cherry pie last week. You add Full Control access to the Marketing Department user group, you'd add Henry's username under Users and set his access to "None". That way, you're sharing Notes with everyone in Marketing EXCEPT Henry as you've negated his permission.
• Availability - Used exclusively for calendars, this permission means that the user with this permission can see whether a person is available for scheduling purposes, but it doesn't allow for the viewing of a calendar or its appointments/events.
• Read-only - This means that the user can only view the items in the share (calendar entries, contact lists, etc.), they have no control over editing entries, adding entries, etc. A read-only share would be good, say, for a colleague who needs access to a contact list, but who doesn't need to manage those contacts in any way.
• Manage - This access allows others to add, edit and/or delete any items within the share. (But, importantly, NOT the share itself.)
• Owner - This access allows others to rename and/or delete the specific folder that's being shared. Basically, they use whatever is being shared just as if it were their own.
• User Groups - This area allows you to share the item with groups of users that have been set up previously. When sharing with a User Group, the same permission levels are available EXCEPT for None as that is a user-only permission.

As you can see, the process for sharing contacts, calendars, tasks and even email folders is essentially the same and relatively simple: you select the item you want to share, add the users and/or user groups you want to share to, and set the permissions for each. Once you've saved your settings, the people you've shared with will have those items automatically mapped to their users.

Delegation

One of the features of Microsoft Outlook (and a few other clients, such as eM Client) is the ability to set up "Delegation". Delegation is the process of allowing another user on your domain to access your user and its associated items (i.e., Calendar, Notes, etc.) and act "on behalf of" you, based on the permission level you set for them.

The benefit of this is that someone -- an associate, an executive assistant, etc. -- can help manage your schedule, reply to inquiries for you, manage tasks for you, etc. For especially busy individuals, having another person help manage your workload can be extremely beneficial. Delegation allows this. In addition, when actions are taken "on behalf of" someone -- for example, sending a meeting invitation -- that is noted on the item, even when viewed in the webmail client.

The process of delegation is handled within the client itself, outside of SmarterMail. The Delegation tab simply shows you whom you've delegated access to and the permission level granted to each user. This tab also allows you to remove a delegate.