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Microsoft 365 - Shared Departmental Service Accounts

There are instances where more than one person needs to interact with a Service Account. This document provides some direction and gotchas for administrators who create (manage) the account and for end users who are interacting with the account.

For the departmental user:

  • Service Account Access: When you are linked to the account you can manage it in Outlook on the web by selecting the account from the list of accounts after login. In Outlook, the linked Service Account folders appear automatically below your personal email account and folders. Learn more.
  • Error Messages: If you are unable to access the service account via Outlook on the web and receive one of the following errors: "Something went wrong" or "Bad Request", please review our known issues - search for 'something went wrong'. You will need to contact your domain admin for assistance.
  • Incoming Mail: In both Outlook on the web and Outlook, incoming mail appears in the Inbox of the Service Account and can be read/moved/deleted/forwarded/replied to from there.
  • Outgoing Mail:
    • In Outlook on the web, a new message can be created and sent from the Service Account, and stored in the Service Account’s Sent folder.
    • In Outlook, a new message will be From your user account and stored in your account’s Sent Items folder.
    • In Outlook on the web or Outlook, replies/forwards from the Service Account Inbox appear From the Service Account.
    • In Outlook on the web the replied message is stored in the Service Account’s Sent folder, in Outlook the reply or forward is stored in your user account Sent folder.
  • To actually send a message FROM the Service Account in Outlook: Click “New Email”. Then in the “Options” tab of the new message window, select “From”. This gives you a From box in the message, with a pull-down. Click the pull-down arrow and change to the email address of the Service Account. The sent message still gets stored in the user’s Sent folder.
  • When multiple people are interacting with the same service account, there needs to be some work flow process in place so that messages/calendar events are dealt with in an expected manner. The major issues are to make sure: messages are not deleted or doubly replied to, and calendar events are not modified or deleted by accident.

For domain administrators:

  • The linked NetIDs very often do not have access to the account in spite of the fact that the Office 365 Wisc Account Administration page shows them as linked. The only “fix” is to unlink a given NetID, wait about 30-60 minutes, then re-link the NetID and wait about 30-60 minutes before notifying the user to try accessing the account.
    Important: Only do one NetID at a time until everyone has access.
  • When the WiscMail Plus account was created there was one line to enter a display name. Service Accounts have a "first name" and a "last name" field. After migration, a WiscMail Plus account with the name of “Deptx Shared Account” becomes “. Deptx Shared Account” because the entire original display name is dropped into the “last name” field and a period is entered into the "first name" field. Since this matters to the staff who use the account (from name and GAL display) you have to edit the Account Profile in Office 365 and split the original name so it is a first name and last name.
  • If a user is unable to access the service account via Outlook on the web and they receive one of the following errors: "Something went wrong" or "Bad Request", please review our known issues - search for 'something went wrong'.
  • Service Accounts are hidden by default. Control this setting.
  • Our known issues document contains some other useful information regarding service accounts - search for 'service account' to find it more easily.

Note: If you experience any issues related to a service account, please review the known issues documentation before contacting the DoIT Help Desk.