Shared folder in Sun Messaging Server

Shared folder is a rarely used feature in Sun Messaging Server, at least for my customers base.

Today, I happened to receive a huge email (10 MB) from my customer which I need to disseminate to my colleague. 

What would most people do? 

• Forward the same email (yes, 10 MB!!)
  
• Download to corporate network drive; ask my colleague to pick the document from there
  
• Download to a thumbdrive; work over to my colleague's desk; ask him to copy the document 
  

Tedious. Troublesome. My principle is always to "Keep It Simple!"

Then I remembered that there's this Shared Folder feature with Sun Messaging Server. 

(Yes, we eat our own dog food. Our corporate mail server is Sun Messaging Server 7.0. Our company guideline is: "If you do not use the technology yourself, do not deploy it for your customers.")

So, I login to OpenMail (Sun Java System Communications Express) to create and configure a shared folder which I shared out to my colleague. 

Step 1: Create a folder called "Shared".  Choose "Share Folder" from Folder Actions.

Step 2: Click "Search..." to select my colleague's User ID. Allow him "Read only" permission.

PS: There is another nice feature if you take a detailed look at the previous image - "Enable directory delivery of email to folder". This feature allows anyone to send emails directly to the shared folder. e.g. "cheechong+Shared@xyz.com.sg".

This is useful for project-related emails. I can share out a folder. My team members can subscribe to this folder. I'll ask my customers to send emails to "cheechong+Shared@xyz.com.sg".

Nice!