If a mailbox is used for sending a high volume of emails, or needs to be linked with an application, or API, it must be converted into an ‘Application Account’. If a mailbox needs to be converted from a personal (user) mailbox into an Application Account, it must be appropriately named to indicate that it is being used for sending high volume of emails as part of a business process, for example: appointment.reminder@nhs.net
Personal email addresses such as ‘john.smith@nhs.net’ should not be converted into Application Accounts by PLA/LAs.
Where a user account with SMTP is identified, we will remove SMTP from these accounts. This may then impact local business processes or procedures. Therefore, it is important that the correct naming convention must be followed when converting application accounts.
Additional Information:
- Local Primary Administrator and Local Administrator roles have the appropriate permissions to update a user mailbox to an application account. Further information on finding and adding PLA/LAs can be found on the NHSmail support page – Finding-Your-Local-Administrator.
- If the user mailbox has Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) enabled prior to the conversion to an application account, MFA will be disabled on the application account.
- Standard forensic process will apply to application accounts.
- The requirement for changing the account password is once a year and will require the following enhanced password criteria:
- At least 20 characters
- 1 upper case
- 1 lower case
- 1 number or symbol
- Must not be a breached password
- Must not contain your first and/or last names
- Must not be a common password
- Must not be the same as the previous four passwords
If you would like to find out more about NHSmail password policy, please refer to the NHSmail password policy.
Once you have converted a user account to an application account, you will have the ability to convert the application account back to a user account. Further information on this can be found on the NHSmail support page – https://support.nhs.net/knowledge-base/convert-application-account-to-user-mailbox/
| Last Reviewed Date | 07/07/2023 |
