Editing Mailbox Permissions Through Flows/PowerApps

[pcallaghan]

Hi all,

I was wondering is it possible to alter mailbox permissions through Flows (or any other PowerApp)?

I work in an IT Department of a sales company. The sales team's procedure for when a team member is off (either sick or annual leave), is for one of the team members to be given read and manage permissions to that absent user's mailbox. This predates my arrival into the company. I've always been uncomfortable with this as a procedure but it is also the cause of over 10% of our helpdesk tickets (and nearly 30% of the sales team's tickets). I have built webforms and stored procedures to significantly reduce their other frequent tickets in the last 12 months but this has always been my greatest bugbear with this team.

I would like to build some sort of flow (or form) that the sales manager could fill out that would enable them to quickly make these changes themselves and record the changes (for auditing purposes).

I cannot find any forum post like this but I am not sure if that is a bad sign of what I am asking for.

I should add, that I have offered the suggestion of a shared mailbox and explained the reasons why this is not an ideal way to operate (with GDPR considerations to meet) but there is no interest from management to change the process so would love to be able to at least give them a very narrow ability to add and remove these permissions and not have to clog up our support desk with tickets.

Any advice or tips would be massively appreciated!

[jackp514 · Accepted solution]

Personally I would put my foot down and tell them to utilize the functions already built into Outlook: automatic replies and forwarding. Put it back on the user to set this up before they leave. Not leaving you picking up the pieces and making communications happen when someone else calls out.

Other than that, you probably need to look into how to accopmlish this type of automation through POWERSHELL on Power Automate: Run power shell script from Microsoft flow - Power Platform Community

[pcallaghan]

I have had the discussion with the sales manager and general manager about why it's not the best way to operate and they insist that this is the way it needs to be done - talking to the wall unfortunately.

I will try the PowerShell script idea as I have amended permissions this way so appreciate the suggestion!

[Joren]

Hi, 

I'm having the exact same issue and was looking in the same direction (Power Apps/Automate or Powershell) for a solution.

Were you able to resolve this? 

When I look further via the URL provided by jackp514, I can't figure out a solution either.

Thanks.

[Matt20v]

I also have the same problem in the company i now work at. 

I never have liked this process but the argument is that when a customer is dealing with someone they dont want to have to tell them the person is on leave and try and keep it as seamless as possible for the client. 

I want to build a webform where you input the user who is on leave email then type out the email for each person who needs access and then this would be executed the opposite could also happen where you can query who has access and then type out who you want to remove. This way then the managers are the ones who need to keep making the changes not IT.

Would love to know if you managed to get anything running with this?