Zimbra at the University of Lorraine is not just a webmail service. Behind the interface for sending and receiving emails, the platform includes a set of collaborative functions that most users do not take advantage of. Shared calendar management, delegation of rights on functional mailboxes, integration with internal cloud storage: we detail here the less visible mechanisms of this environment.
Retention Policy and Differentiated Archiving in Zimbra
Since the update of the service catalog dated November 26, 2025, the retention periods distinguish between individual mailboxes and functional mailboxes. This granularity allows administrative services or laboratories to retain their exchanges for periods suited to their regulatory obligations, without personal mailboxes being subject to the same storage constraints.
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In practice, this means that staff attached to an administrative service can configure the retention of their functional mailbox independently of their personal mailbox. Confusion between these two areas is common, leading either to premature deletion of business emails or unnecessary saturation of personal quotas.
We recommend checking the retention policy applied in the settings of each mailbox. This information is available in the digital services catalog of UL, under the Zimbra messaging section. Properly configuring the messaging system of the University of Lorraine at this level avoids unpleasant surprises during an audit or a job change.
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Shared Business Mailboxes: Administration Delegation Without IT Department
One of the most underutilized tools of Zimbra at UL is the shared mailbox that can be managed by the structure’s manager. Services, laboratories, and administrative offices: each entity can have a collective address whose access rights are managed directly by the local referent.
In practice, the manager assigns permission levels (read, send on behalf of, full management) without opening a ticket with the IT department. This mechanism is described in the 2023 Panorama of Collaborative Tools published by the digital management.
Concrete Use Cases for Functional Mailboxes
- A pedagogical secretariat shares a unique address for processing student requests, with a history accessible to all agents of the service, including in case of temporary replacement.
- A research laboratory grants read-only access to a doctoral student on the project mailbox, without exposing internal administrative exchanges.
- A component manages internship registrations via a dedicated mailbox, with sending delegation granted to two managers simultaneously.
The technical point to remember: the delegation of rights works by role, not by individual account. If an agent leaves the service, the manager revokes access and assigns it to the successor without external intervention.
Multi-Device Synchronization and Integration with Internal Cloud
Zimbra at UL does not operate in a silo. The messaging system is integrated with storage and sharing spaces hosted on the university’s data centers. The stated goal is to reduce the sending of large attachments by replacing them with links to shared files.
The email sending limit remains set at 20 MB. Beyond that, using the internal cloud becomes the only viable option for exchanges between staff. This constraint encourages adopting a sharing-by-link reflex rather than by attached file, which also improves version traceability.
Configuring Synchronization on Smartphone
Access to Zimbra is not limited to the web browser or the ENT. The synchronization of emails, calendars, and contacts on a mobile device is natively supported. We observe that many students and staff are unaware of this possibility or configure it incompletely, synchronizing emails without including the calendar.
For staff with a large storage quota (VIP accounts benefit from significantly more space than standard accounts), full synchronization also includes shared address books of the service. This allows having the functional directory of their component on their phone without manual entry.
Zimbra Quotas by Profile: What This Changes in Daily Life
Email quotas vary significantly depending on the user’s status. VIP staff have 100 GB of storage, standard staff have 50 GB, and students have 10 GB. External partners are assigned a quota defined by agreement.
For a student, 10 GB is more than enough for regular email use. The difficulty arises when Zimbra is also used as a task manager and shared calendar, as these elements consume quota. Regularly purging the “Sent Items” folder and emptying the trash frees up a significant amount of space.
Integrated Antivirus and Antispam
Every incoming and outgoing message goes through automatic antivirus and antispam processing, hosted on UL’s servers. This filtering is transparent to the user, but it can occasionally place legitimate emails in quarantine. Checking the spam folder before re-contacting a correspondent remains an underestimated reflex.
Integration into the UL Collaborative Suite and Mailing Lists
Since the end of 2024, Zimbra has officially been part of the collaborative suite of the University of Lorraine, alongside videoconferencing and document sharing tools. This integration means that a Zimbra calendar can directly feed into a video meeting invitation, without copying and pasting a link.
Mailing lists complement messaging for targeted mass communication. They are listed in the digital services catalog and allow reaching an entire component, department, or project group without manually managing recipients.
The digital ecosystem of UL forms a more coherent whole than what a first contact with the ENT might suggest. Zimbra constitutes the daily pivot, provided that its functions are exploited beyond simple email sending. The delegation of functional mailboxes and integration with the internal cloud remain the two most profitable levers for saving time, whether one is a student, a researcher, or an administrative manager.