SharePoint Incoming E-mail Overview

Overview: You can integrate incoming e-mail capability into your sites. This new feature enables teams to aggregate e-mail messages within lists and libraries without the extra step of opening the site and uploading the content that was sent in e-mail. This is possible because most list and library types can be assigned a unique e-mail address. Site members can add the e-mail addresses of these lists in the To or Cc box of their e-mail client application when they send e-mail, or they can send e-mail to a distribution list that contains the e-mail addresses of these lists as well as the e-mail addresses of other site members. You can enable and configure e-mail support for the following types of lists and libraries in your sites: document libraries, picture libraries, form libraries, announcements lists, calendar lists, blogs, and discussion boards. Anyone with permissions to create a list can choose an e-mail address for the list when creating the list in an e-mail-enabled site. Note that you cannot add content to lists in Meeting Workspace sites by sending e-mail. For more information, please see here Technical Impact:

• E-mail addresses will be able to be created by End Users
• A new OU will need to be created. Call it SharePoint if you like.
• Active Directory users will be able to be created by End Users. Though only in the SharePoint OU.
• No use of a system admin should be needed once this is setup
• A new MX record (Mail record) will need to be added to DNS
• A SMTP Send Connector will need to be added to MS Exchange to route e-mails
• New e-mail accounts for each "list". It will be automatically managed by SharePoint

Technical Requirements:

• Functional Active Directory Account:
• Create a new OU (Organizational Unit) in the Active Directory. For example, SharePoint
• Delegate control of the newly created OU to the Functional account. Permissions should be Read, Write, Create All Child Object.
• Add MX record to DNS server that points to our SharePoint server. For example, sharepoint.mycompany.com. This is required so that we can resolve the e-mail domain name to the SharePoint server once an e-mail is received by the company mail server.
• SMTP Relay (A SMTP Relay can accept incoming and outgoing SMTP messages and forward them to their appropriate location. Basically an SMTP router.) This MUST be installed on the SharePoint server.
• Configured SMTP connector within MS Exchange e-mail server that knows where to send e-mails we designate for SharePoint.