We’ve been using Google Apps Premier at work for a couple years now. Simply love it – and I’m still learning about features.
For instance, today I learned that Google Apps supports delegation in Gmail. Had a situation where folks needed access to co-worker’s account while she’s on leave. Now, traditionally she would have had to share her username and password with others… I have to say I hate that solution so today I did a little poking around.
Turns out Mail Delegation was announced back in August. I just had never enabled the feature… which was easily handled from the “Email settings” page of the Google Apps admin dashboard. Just one little checkbox:
Note: scroll way down to find it…
Once that option is enabled, users will find a new option in their mail settings. Oh, but allow 30 – 45 minutes for it to show up. It doesn’t instantly happen.
After waiting a bit, visit Settings from the Gmail page and then hit the Accounts tab. New option is “Grant access to your account” and you can specify up to 10 folks.
Now, whomever was granted access will see a slight change on their Google mail page. Their displayed email address at the very top of the page will become a pull down menu. From that menu they can choose any account to which they’ve been granted access. Selecting an account opens it in a new tab or window.
In the example above, I’ve granted myself access to the Apps admin account. I have it configured to bounce all misaddressed mail there for periodic review. This makes it a lot easier and convenient for me to do those reviews.
Works great for assistants, admins and collaboration as well.
Note: This only works for email. If you need to grant access to Google’s calendar or Docs they have different means of accomplishing the same thing. You can learn more about delegation at the Google Apps help page.
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December 3rd, 2009 
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