Introduction

A Virginia Tech Personal Access for Collaborative Email (VT PACE) account is a public-facing @vt.edu address backed by (forwarding to) an Exchange Resource Account or a Google Group.

A VT PACE address is useful for situations when:

• A department or workgroup needs a long-term, stable email address, and
• Multiple members of the department or workgroup need to access the same electronic correspondence.

With a VT PACE address, a department or workgroup gets:

• A simple email address (e.g., accountname@vt.edu)
• The ability to control who may access the email
• Accountability of the individuals who view and respond to email sent to the address

Explanation

Types of VT PACE Accounts

There are two different types of VT PACE accounts:

Google Business

The back end of the PACE account is a Google Group that the email will be forwarded to. You can change membership through the Google Group management page, for more information see the knowledgebase article on group management. These PACE accounts are student friendly since anyone can be a group member.

Pros

• Anyone can be added to the group to receive mail.
• Membership can be easily managed online.
• Everyone gets copies of the email.

Exchange

The back end of your PACE account is a resource Exchange account. This type of PACE is useful if you must have a single location for the mail or need calendar features for the address. Your group must have an organizational unit (OU) in the Hokies domain and an OU administrator to qualify for an Exchange PACE account. Only users who have Hokies accounts can be members of the Exchange account. Hokies accounts are limited to faculty, staff, students, and sponsored individuals, therefore non-Virginia Tech individuals cannot be included. A Google Business option PACE is recommended if you intend for non-Virginia Tech individuals to receive mail from the PACE address.

Pros

• Single separate mailbox that multiple people can use
• Exchange calendaring

Cons

• Only users with Hokies accounts can be members
• Your department must have a Hokies OU and an OU administrator

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

How Do I Get a VT PACE Account?

Complete the online service catalog form.

What Exactly Do I Get with My PACE Account?

You will get a forwarding email of [your-pace-choice]@vt.edu and a Google Group with "[your-pace-choice]-g@vt.edu". Or for Exchange PACE accounts you will get a forwarding email of [your-pace-choice]@vt.edu and an Exchange resource account in your OU of "[your-pace-choice]-resc@exchange.vt.edu".

How Do I Add Members to My PACE Account?

If the account is Google-based see the online knowledgebase article here.

If your PACE is Exchange-based access can be granted by an OU admin by having them add you to the account's security group. See the Exchange FAQ for more information on managing resource accounts.

Can I Use Special Characters in My PACE Address?

Yes, and no. The actual PACE account forwarders do not support special characters. However we can create an alias for your forward address which can use dashes "-", dots "." and underscores "_".

Example: If you request "our-department@vt.edu", you will get "ourdepartment@vt.edu" with a PACE alias of "our-department@vt.edu". Your Google Group will be "ourdepartment-g@vt.edu" or your Exchange account will be ourdepartment-resc@exchange.vt.edu.

It doesn't matter which address the email is sent to; both will forward into your backend and you can send as the address with the special character.

Are There Other Options besides VT PACE?

Yes, if you have a large volume of email and enough complexity in your needs you might want to consider a ticketing system which can offer more functionality than VT PACE accounts can. Or if you have only one person acting as a receiver for mail (such as a secretary) then you should use an email alias instead. You may have a maximum of 5 aliases for each PACE account. For help with management of PACE accounts please open a ServiceNow ticket and assign the ticket to CCS.