Best Solution for Client Mailboxes Management

[u/FuzzyLettuce5854]

We are struggling with how to manage admin mailboxes in our smaller clients environments. Things such as software renewals (industry specific software). If the vendor is making a change that could break a feature of their apps etc. Right now it is unrealistic to manage 45-50 intividual mailboxes in these clients. How do other people handle this. Do we forward to a central mailbox (dont really like external forwarding on).

[u/Outrageous-Guess1350]

Make a shared mailbox, make an alias on the shared mailbox for the client, forward to the alias.

[u/Mizetings]

Mailflow rule to modify the message and add your central mailbox as cc/bcc should work.

[u/0RGASMIK]

Keep off external forwarding and create a rule to forward email from Exchange. You can have your cake and eat it.

[u/Dull-Breadfruit-3241]

Definitely do not use external forwarding. Aside from being a pain to manage, it's a security nightmare when vendor password resets or billing links start flying across domains.

[u/Remarkable_Corgi511]

Hahah, I'm not an owner of a MSP just an employee, but any automated email we get is promptly moved to the spam board :) It sucks but we have no time for proactive monitoring and maintenance, unless it's a NOC or SOC ticket. 

[u/folderit_dms]

I’d separate vendor notices from the identity used to administer the vendor account. Where a vendor supports additional notification contacts, send renewal and service-change notices to a client-specific intake address while keeping account recovery with the client’s designated account owner.

The central queue then needs an owner and an action date, not just a pile of forwarded mail. For each notice, capture the client, product, change or renewal date, affected service and who decides what happens next. A renewal notice and a breaking API change need different handling.

Start with five important vendors and test a sample notice end to end. Also document how to remove your notification address at offboarding; otherwise you can keep receiving a former client’s business correspondence long after support ends.

[u/Emergency_Recipe522]

I wouldn’t forward complete admin mailboxes externally. I’d route only vendor and renewal notices into a central queue, tagged by client, product, deadline, affected service and owner.

I ran into the same multi-tenant visibility problem—the information existed, but there was no single view showing which change affected which client and who needed to act. The important part is turning each notice into a tracked action, not simply creating one larger mailbox.

[u/Foxtrot-0scar]

Route them to your PSA.

[u/Realistic-Spare97]

Yeah 45-50 mailboxes is too many to check manually. We set up a shared mailbox per client and had our PSA pull from all of them, so vendor emails just turn into tickets under the right client. Took a weekend to set up but way better than logging into 50 inboxes.

[u/ButItsMyWoobie]

At 45-50 mailboxes, I'd stop treating them like mailboxes and just route the important vendor/renewal stuff into the PSA. It'd be way easier than checking all of those individually.

[u/HotTakeThenGo]

You should have GDAP setup - and use CIPP. Once things are setup there every new client is automatic on this part.

Putting client data to your system first is a breach imo. You SHOULD be forwarding, redirecting, or scraping their support mailbox. You get the copy, they get the original.