The Emergency Inbox service was created for mail continuity as indicated on the linked page. Users that can access this feature are able to use a web mail based mail feature while their mail server is down.

The Proofpoint Essentials service will continue to try and check the customer's mail server, as per the standard set-up. As we are unable to relay the email from our system to the customer's server (as it is down), we are required by RFC to send a deferral notice back to the sending mail server that we have not been successful in delivering the email. As long as the customer's mail server is down, we will continue to send deferral messages for some time (we set 30 days) then bounce the message back to the sender. It is important that the customer mail server be brought back as soon as possible to not lose email.

Emergency Inbox is used to provide users access to email in the event that their mail environment is unavailable. Once this occurs Proofpoint Essentials will automatically begin to spool mail for the affected domain and the Emergency inbox will immediately begin to show the spooled mail. Users are able to send new messages as well as reply to received messages. When an email is sent out from Emergency Inbox – new email, reply to email – it is treated like any outbound message. So the email will show up in another internal user’s Emergency Inbox.  Users are unable to see messages that were successfully delivered prior to mail delivery being impacted.

How to access Emergency Inbox

End-user Access:

1. Log into the interface. By default, you are at the Account Setup page.
2. From here, you can go directly to the Emergency Inbox from the sub-heading under Account Setup.

Admin Access

1. As an admin, once you are logged in, go to the Users & Groups tab.
2. By default, you are in the Users sub-heading.
3. Find the end-user you want to go to.
4. Click the end-user's name/email address or the 'Edit" link on their line
5. A new sub-heading bar will be available, and click on Emergency Inbox.

Testing Emergency Inbox 

For testing the Emergency Inbox, you can deadhead the SMTP delivery address by changing the delivery server to 1.2.3.4 This should start spooling and deferring the messages putting them in the Emergency Inbox.

• To accomplish this go to Company Settings -> Domains 
• Click on the Pencil Icon to the domain your looking to change. 
• In the SMTP Delivery destination put in 1.2.3.4 or any other bogus IP address 
• When your done testing just reverse the changes made. 

 Note that Strategic Partners and Channel Administrators cannot access other customer's Emergency inbox's but their own. When attempting to launch an Emergency inbox that you do not have permission to view - a blank window will be displayed.

Spooling Alert

 Below few lines explain how to turn on spooling alerts and get notifications to an Email address and/or mobile number.

Following are the steps to get alerts turned on :

1. Click the ‘Alerts’ tab within the UI
2. Under ‘the spooling alerts’ there are three options i.e.

                  a. Enable spooling alerts: Toggle to turn alert on or off

                  b. Send To: Drop down having these three options : 1. Admin Contact 2. Tech contact 3. Both

                  c. Alert delivery Method: Drop down having these three options : 1. Email  2. SMS 3. Both

Admin Contact and Tech contact can be modified by going back to Company settings then ‘Change Profile Information’.

SMS would be only sent to mobile numbers for Admin contact and/or tech contact.

To make sure mobile details are correct just go to the desired admin / tech contact Profile info and update Mobile number field there.

PS : If alert is turned on after spooling has already started no alerts would be sent out . This has to be setup prior your mail server is down and spooling starts.