Delegated Accounts

Definition

A delegated account is a service a department may request in order to have a central mailbox.

For example, you could have a delegated account named dept-office@cua.edu. This mailbox serves as a central point from which to send and receive email that can be used by several people. The delegated account is a user account into which no one logs on, but for which its mailbox can be used by one more more people.

Note that this shared, delegated account is different from Google Shared drives, which are storage space not associated with any individual account. Shared drives are the way departments use Google Drive to store documents for use by the department, or a project, as a whole.

Why use a delegated account

Delegated Accounts are best for:

• Providing a single mailbox that multiple employees manage using delegated access

• Promoting “official” communications and history 

• Allowing fluid membership to the same mailbox over time

• Providing a permanent owner for departmental shared Calendars

You also can set the delegated account as the owner of certain special My Drive files such as Google Forms to ensure that the content is not removed when the individual who created the content leaves the university.  (But, except for this special case, offices and departments should use Shared drives for this purpose, not a delegated account.)

Requesting a Delegated Account

Department heads may request a delegated account for office administrative use, or full-time Faculty may request a delegated account for academic use, by sending an email message to techsupport@cua.edu. Be sure to include the following information in the message.

1. Department head - this is the Cardinal email address (not name) of the person who has overall responsibility for this account. If anyone needs to be added or removed from delegated access to this account, this individual’s approval will be needed. This person is almost always the Chair, Dean, AVP or VP/Provost of your area.

2. The requested name of the account (see Naming Convention below). E.g., ts-project for address ts-project@cua.edu.

   • The account's display name requires two parts. By default, the first part is the mixed case name, and the second is at CUA, e.g., "TS-Project at CUA". The first part is displayed in Gmail as the friendly name, so hyphens are included. If you need a special display name, please request it.

3.  The list of Cardinal email addresses that should have delegated access to this account.

Naming Convention

• Shared accounts follow a standard naming convention of org-name.  Ex: ts-bsc@cua.edu, dept-office@cua.edu. If the department already has Google Groups or Shared drives, that "org" prefix will be used. Most academic departments use their course catalog abbreviation as the prefix.

•  The account name must be between 3 and 20 characters long, must use only lowercase letters and numbers and must include at least one hyphen.

•  The account name should be directly related to the requesting department and purpose of the account.

What you can do as a delegate

Delegates can:

• Send or reply to emails that were sent to the delegated account. When a delegate sends a message from the delegated mailbox, the From: address will be that of the delegated account, and replies will be sent to the delegated account mailbox. The delegate's email address will be displayed to recipients, however. For example, the sender will show as "sent by johnsmith@cua.edu."

• Read messages sent to the delegated mailbox

• Delete messages in the delegated mailbox

• Change a limited number of mail settings for the delegated mailbox

Delegates can't:

• Use Chat as the delegated account

• Change the delegated account's password or account settings

• Change certain mail settings for the delegated mailbox, including themes (you can set a theme on your own mailbox to differentiate it from the delegated mailbox, though)

Changing access

If the True Owner needs to change the owner or change to whom the mailbox is delegated, simply email techsupport@cua.edu and let us know who needs to be removed or added. We need their Cardinal email address.