Best Approach to Combine Email and Calendar?

[CMSCMSCMS]

Hi folks,

I work at a school. Our Headteacher is now managing a second school with a separate Office 365 tenancy. We do not want to merge the tenancies.

The Headteacher wants to be able to reply back to parents who email to school 1 with school1's email address/domain, and ditto for school 2. The only way I can see to do this is use the Outlook app, and have the accounts from both schools added.

The Headteacher prefers not to do this though, he wants to manage everything together in a single account. The only way I can see to do that is to create a new Office 365 account/sub for a single person, then forward both accounts to that. The new email address would need to be professional looking, but then can't mention either school. An extra complication! I'm sure he won't be able to get "Send As" permissions from the two individual tenancies.

Can anyone see a way of achieveing this elegantly?

Thanks

[#2]

Hi @CMSCMSCMS 

The closest you can get to achieve this is to use the built in 'Mail' App in Windows 10, add both mailboxes and link the mailboxes together to all emails appear as a single mailbox - I've not dealt too much with that app so unsure how well it handles replying from the correct account etc. The Outlook app on iOS and Android can do the same thing.

To be honest, I'd be inclined to avoid trying to set up a third mailbox and mess about with routing as I think it will cause more headaches than solve. 

Also goes without saying that the functionality on the Mail App is far less advanced than Outlook.

[#3]

@HidMov I've found out that the Mac version of Outlook has the unified inbox, same as the iOS app. The Headteacher is likely to be using a Mac laptop, so that might help somewhat.

I don't think I mentioned calendars in the original post, as those are an issue as well. The Headteacher wants to try and maintain one calendar, but I'm not sure there's an easy way to achieve that. Most of the appointments are put in by one of the PAs, although some come from external sources in the form of email invites. Those will go to both mailboxes.

[#4]

Hi @CMSCMSCMS 

It's been years since I've used the Mac version of Outlook, but I know the Windows version of Outlook can combine the calendar view so two or more calendars can be merged - you can colour code it to keep track of which mailbox the appointment belongs to, but otherwise appears as a single calendar. I would hope Outloo for Mac would also have this ability?

[#5]

@HidMov Not sure about the Mac version. The Headteacher's PA will need to see the calendars from both accounts, and this has been tested with the Windows version, and I understand is possible.

[#6]

Hi @CMSCMSCMS, a headteacher can use this cloud service to send using different addresses.