Best practices for group accounts

To reduce the need for using Two-Step Login (Duo) with group accounts, consider the following UITS recommendations.

• Email sharing: If you work with a team that uses Outlook to access a shared account, rather than accessing it through mail.iu.edu and authenticating with IU Login, work with your local UITS support person to set up "full access". This allows all your team members to access the account via Outlook or Outlook on the web without having to log in directly with the group account credentials.
  Note:

  Some users on IU Health networks cannot set up an Outlook client. If you set up "full access", you will need to open the shared mailbox from Outlook on the web, rather than an email client.
• Voice mail with Microsoft Teams phones: If your department has shared Microsoft Teams phones, they may be configured to log in with a group account. Voice mail messages left for these phone numbers will be sent as email attachments to the group account's Exchange Inbox. This experience can be improved in the following ways:
  • Your local UITS support person can help set up "full access" for the group account's Exchange mailbox.
  • If team members would rather not have to check the group account separately for voice mail, the group account owner can set an Inbox rule to have all voice mail messages forwarded to certain individuals, to a mail-enabled Exchange group, or to an IU List distribution list.
• Other services: If you're using a group account for shared access to content in services such as Zoom, Google at IU, or Qualtrics, you could instead create the initial file using the group account, and then share/collaborate with the team members who need access.
  Note:

  If you are storing institutional data, there are services other than group accounts. See Options for storing files at IU.

  To request a new institutional storage account, fill out the Institutional storage request form.

  This approach spares you from having to share account credentials with a large number of people in the group account, which will also spare you from having to add their Duo devices to the group account's Duo profile.

  Your teams may use other tools with your shared account that require IU Login; contact your local UITS support person to look into sharing and delegating with those services.