I’ve actually been asked this question three times in as many weeks, so I decided it was time to write a little post about it.

First, many of us realize that GroupWise is extremely flexible when it comes to addressing.  Not only can we utilize many addressing schemes such as first.last@domain.com, last.first@domain.com, userid@domain.com and even free-formed addressing, a single GroupWise system can support literally an unlimited number of internet domain names.  So, for example, if my userid is monkey, and I have the domains danitaszoo.com, zanrezoo.com and gwisezoo.com, I can receive mail as “monkey” at all three of these domains.  Add a few nicknames like gorilla, chimp, spider, and the number of possible addresses starts to multiply.

So, I hear from sites who usually have one of the following two problems, but occasionally (like in my own office), it is a mix of both.

• a company has a single Internet domain name, but a user receives email for various recipient names that are defined as nicknames:  danita, monkey, goddess, webmaster, sales, orders, helpdesk, etc.
• a company has multiple Internet domain names, and a user wants to be able to send as each of them for different purposes:  monkey@danitaszoo.com, monkey@zanrezoo.com, monkey@gwisezoo.com
• a combination of the above.

The big dilemma here of course is that GroupWise only allows for one “sending” address.  Whatever the administrator sets as the “default” email address for a user is how GroupWise sends.  So, I might receive email for chimp@zanrezoo.com, but if my default email address is set as monkey@danitaszoo.com, all of my outbound mail will be from monkey@danitaszoo.com.  So, how can we allow GroupWise users to “send” as multiple email addresses.

Some sites create resources or even dummy users to deal with this.  But then users need to monitor more than one GroupWise account, and can either overlook mail or get tired of switching back and forth.  Another option is to allow users to send through the GWIA directly via SMTP to accomplish this.  First I’ll show you how to do this, and then I will explain some of the technical issues and downsides to this method.

So, down to business.

In order for this to work, you need to first turn on POP/IMAP access in the master mailbox.  This is done in ConsoleOne by right-clicking a domain, post office or user (in other words you can turn it on for only one user if necessary).  Then you go to GroupWise Utilities|Client Options and click on Environment.  There on that first General tab, check the box in the bottom half that says “Allow use of POP and IMAP accounts in the Online Mailbox”.

After this is done you move to the GroupWise client to do the next steps.

After you enable the setting above, you should see an “Accounts” menu in the GroupWise client.  If this menu is not available, restart the GroupWise client.  Click on the Accounts menu and choose Account Options.  Then click Add.

 
I generally like to make the account name the email address that I wish to send as.  I also like to choose POP3, which I will explain after the setup instructions. Then click Next to see the account details screen.

There are some important things to note here.  First, I always put in an INVALID incoming server.  You really do not what to download any email, so if you put in an invalid server, you will never accidentally download mail that you do not intend.  For the rest, put in your GWIA address, and a valid GroupWise user.  If this is on Windows, you will be asked to choose your method of connection.  This is a Windows dialog, and it will almost always be through the LAN.

Also, if you chose POP3 as your account type, you will next be shown your GroupWise folders, and asked where to place downloaded messages.  We will never download messages (as guaranteed by putting in an invalid incoming mail server), so it really doesn’t matter what you choose here.  Just leave the Mailbox selected.

After you click “finish”, you will see the account in your accounts list.  Select this new account and choose Properties.

Click on the Server tab.

You can ignore the incoming server settings.  But in the outgoing server settings, make sure the SMTP server is correct (either IP address or host name) for your GWIA.  Make sure that the setting for requiring authentication is set, and uncheck the box that says to use the incoming server settings.  Here put in your real GroupWise userid and password.  Click OK.

Back in your GroupWise mailbox, when you are creating or replying to email, if you click on the From: dropdown you will have the option of using your GroupWise account or the new “POP” account.  You will never actually do any POP access.  You will simply authenticate your GWIA and send the mail as this new email address.

So, what are the gotchas here?  There are a few:

• You must have port 25 access available from the GroupWise client to the GWIA.
• Mail that is sent this way will never show any appropriate status in the Sent Items Properties.
• Users must choose a name from the dropdown any time they want to change the sending email address.  They will frequently forget.
• It’s a kludgy workaround.

So that’s that.  Let me know how this works for you!

Happy GroupWising,