Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!ucbvax!ucsd!nosc!humu!uhccux!kahala!bob
From: bob@kahala.hig.hawaii.edu (Bob Cunningham)
Newsgroups: comp.mail.misc
Subject: aliasing everyone within an organization
Message-ID: <3498@uhccux.uhcc.hawaii.edu>
Date: 17 Mar 89 00:53:06 GMT
Sender: news@uhccux.uhcc.hawaii.edu
Reply-To: bob@kahala.hig.hawaii.edu (Bob Cunningham)
Organization: Hawaii Institute of Geophysics
Lines: 50

I'm implementing, for an organization of several hundred people, a
scheme where everyone can potentially receive e-mail via standardized
aliases (no matter how cute their username is, or what machine they
actually receive e-mail on, or even if they don't have a current e-mail
address) using individual's first initial and last name.  Thus, I'm

	rcunningham@ourdomain

and for folks who use nicknames (like "Bob"), also

	bcunningham@ourdomain

I've already done this for the 40% or so of people who are active e-mail
users.  It seems to work well, but now I'm working on people who don't
normally use e-mail.

If you've already done (or thought of doing) something like this, I'd
like to hear how you treat:

	1) Ambiguities like Ron Cunningham and Robert Cunningham.
	I've seen setups that capture a message to "rcunningham"
	and send back a message to the effect that's it ambiguous,
	please choose:

			roncunningham
		or	robertcunningham

	Before I "roll my own" program to do this (or in some other
	manner resolve ambiguities) I'd like to find out how others
	might do it.


	2) Addressees who don't or won't handle e-mail themselves.  I
	plan on having several generic mailboxes handled by people
	like secretaries to handle mail for multiple people in
	this category.  If I can't fully resolve delivery this
	way, I plan on knocking loose e-mail off to a printer
	for hand delivery.  Again, before I "roll my own" solution,
	I'd like to hear from others who might have tried this.

	3) Fixing up outgoing "From:" addresses.  If possible I'd
	like to have outgoing mail look as if it is from, for
	example "rcunningham@ourdomain" rather than "bob@mymachine.domain".
	I've don't believe I've actually seen this done before,
	but it sounds interesting...though I'm not sure exactly
	how to do it.  Any rational advice gratefully received.

Bob Cunningham
Hawaii Institute of Geophysics, University of Hawaii
bob@kahala.hig.hawaii.edu