Resource accounts is what you are looking for. Resource accounts do not use licenses. I think if you share the folder read only the flag may not change, but I don't know if read only is sufficient in your case.
From: "Amos" <a.goo0h@gmail.com>
To: "zimbra-hied-admins" <zimbra-hied-admins@sfu.ca>
Sent: Tuesday, January 25, 2011 4:45:08 PM
Subject: public folders?
Perhaps like some of y'all, we were previously using CMU Cyrus for our IMAP/POP service for students. Now we're mostly finished with migrating all of our Cyrus personal inboxes over to Zimbra. However, one sticking point is with shared ("public") folders.
Setting up public folders in Zimbra is a bit messy for the following reasons:
1) Since there's no concept of public folders, you have to create an account, and then share the public folders from that account. Typically, though, we've tended to just create another account for every public folder we need, then share out the inbox for that account to those that need it. However, that chews up licenses!
2) No per-user read flags. This really bites because it means if one person reads a message in a shared folder, it's marked as read to others. We're used to having the read flag state being per-user, and attempting to change that paradigm has caused a lot of grief.
Some of our old Cyrus public folders have been migrated to Exchange. However, Exchange public folders are not accessible via the IMAP protocol, so that causes pains for some groups. These groups would love for us to place these folders on Zimbra, but they rely on the per-user read state being maintained.
So, this is one particular nasty little headache that Cyrus handled so much easier and without hassles. Do folks here make use of any public folders? If so, how are y'all dealing with them?
Thanks,
Amos