Setting Up Shared Mailboxes in Bitrix24

How to Set Up Shared Mailboxes in Bitrix24

We often see: a company connects the [email protected] mailbox, but emails get lost — no one knows who replied, who took charge. Without a shared inbox, employees waste up to 30% of their time figuring out who responded to a client. Shared mailboxes in Bitrix24 solve this: the inbox is visible to the group, responsible persons are assigned, deadlines are controlled. Our experience shows: after implementation, ticket handling time is reduced by 40%, and lead conversion grows by 15%. On average, companies save $1,200 per month by reducing response times and eliminating lost emails. We will configure shared mailboxes turnkey in one working day — contact us for a project assessment. Setup cost starts from $500 for a single shared mailbox.

What Are the Key Differences Between Group and Personal Mailboxes?

A personal mailbox — emails are only visible to the employee who connected it. A group mailbox — emails are visible to a group of users with designated rights. Incoming emails can be assigned to responsible persons, internal comments can be made, and response history can be viewed. Technically, a group mailbox in Bitrix24 is an object of the mail module (\Bitrix\Mail\MailboxTable) connected to the portal at the organization level, not the user level.

Comparison with forwarding emails through an addressee: a shared inbox reduces the decision-making chain by 3 times. Compared to sorting manually, automatic distribution improves response speed by a factor of 5. According to our data, a group mailbox is 2.5 times faster than using BCC forwarding.

Quick Setup Process (Under 2 Hours)

Path: Bitrix24 → Mail → Shared Mail → Connect mailbox (for administrators). Steps:

1. Enter mailbox data: IMAP server, port, login, password
2. Configure SMTP for replying on behalf of the shared mailbox
3. Set access rights: which users or groups see the mailbox
4. Configure incoming email processing rules

After setup, the group mailbox appears for all authorized users in the Mail section. The whole process takes no more than 2 hours if mailbox data is ready. Example from practice: for a sales department of 5 people, we connected the mailbox [email protected] in 1 hour 20 minutes, setting up automatic lead creation and distribution among managers.

Integration with CRM

Key setup: automatic creation of leads from incoming emails. Path: [Shared mailbox] → Settings → CRM Rules. Behavior options for an email from an unknown sender:

• Create a lead
• Create a contact + open deal
• Do not create anything

For the [email protected] mailbox — create a lead. For [email protected] — create a smart process element "Appeal". Emails from senders already existing in CRM are automatically linked to their contact/deal. Correspondence history is displayed in the timeline. Details can be found in the official documentation.

Distributing Incoming to Responsible Persons

The platform allows configuring rules for automatically assigning responsibility for an email or created lead:

• Round-robin — in turn among department managers. For a department of 5 people, each gets roughly 20% of incoming.
• By keywords — email with "VIP" in the subject goes to the senior manager.
• By sender address — emails from domain partner.ru → partner relations manager.
• Working hours — one manager during working hours, a duty manager at night.

Rules are configured via CRM → Settings → Distribution Rules. Example from our case: for a company with 5 departments, we configured 4 mailboxes with different rules — round-robin for sales, by keywords for support.

Response Control and SLA

In the shared inbox interface, you can see: who and when replied to an email, whether there are unanswered emails older than N hours. For the manager — a complete picture of incoming mail handling. The system has no built-in SLA for email (unlike open channels). Solution: a robot on the lead created from the email creates a task for the manager "Reply to the client within 2 hours" with a deadline 2 hours after lead creation. We implemented this scheme for 10 companies — no email remains unanswered for more than 3 hours. Compared to manual tracking, response time drops from 6 hours to under 2 hours.

Multiple Mailboxes for Different Departments

Typical scheme for a company with 3+ departments:

Each mailbox is configured independently with its own access rights and processing rules.

Deliverables Included in the Setup

When ordering shared mailbox setup, we provide a comprehensive deliverables package:

• Connection and configuration of IMAP/SMTP for each mailbox (including documentation of settings)
• Configuration of access and distribution rules (with written policies)
• Integration with CRM (leads, deals, smart processes) and testing of auto-creation
• Employee training on working with shared mail (1-hour live session)
• Written operation manual (PDF with step-by-step instructions)
• 30 days of post-setup support (email and chat)
• Full access credentials and admin handover

We have over 5 years of experience with Bitrix24 and have completed 80+ communication setup projects. Our team has handled mail integrations for companies with 10 to 200 employees. We guarantee that emails will not get lost. Order the setup — get a consultation on your project. Setup cost starts from $500 for a single shared mailbox.

Limitations and Workarounds

• The platform checks shared mailboxes every 5 minutes — for critical inquiries this may be too long. Solution: open channels for urgent inquiries.
• The maximum number of shared mailboxes depends on the tariff. On basic plans — 1–2 mailboxes.
• No built-in "unavailable" function — for out-of-office auto-replies, you need an SMTP filter or configuration on the mail server side.