How SmtpMan Works

SmtpMan follows four operating stages for employee email: Activate, Secure, Archive, and Reactivate. Use this overview to see how seats move through the lifecycle, then open the linked guides for step-by-step archive, reactivation, and deployment detail.

Activate → Secure → Archive → Reactivate

Four operating stages for the employee email lifecycle—billing follows the seat, not the calendar.

1

Activate

Provision seats and mailboxes for new or seasonal staff.

Billing Starts
2

Secure

Keep internal delivery protected by default allowlists.

Walled Garden
3

Archive

Pause seats off-season while retaining mailbox history.

Billing Stops ($0.00)
4

Reactivate

Restore access and history when staff return.

Billing Resumes

Full seasonal lifecycle context: Seasonal employee email lifecycle

Activate employee accounts

Create active seats when people join—individually or in bulk—so billing starts only when the mailbox is live.

CSV Bulk Import

Upload a roster, map columns, and provision seasonal hires without one-by-one clicks.

Smart Grouping

Organize staff by store, shift, or role so managers can reach the right people quickly.

Broadcast Templates

Save weekly schedule or safety alert formats—consistency without copy-paste once seats are active.

bulk_import.csv
Import Successful
142 Users Added

Secure internal communication

A walled-garden default: trusted senders reach staff; unknown external mail stays out of employee inboxes.

Internal email for frontline teams

Allowed: Whitelisted Senders

Payroll, HR, and manager addresses you approve—with SPF/DKIM/DMARC checks where configured.

Blocked: Everything Else

Unknown external mail goes to an admin quarantine path—not the employee inbox.

Archive when work pauses

When a season ends or a role pauses, archive the seat. Billing for that mailbox stops while history stays available for later return.

Archived seat $0.00

Mailbox data retained—not a hard delete. Use archive when you need continuity without paying for idle seats.

Deep guide: Archive employee email without deleting data

Reactivate returning staff

When someone comes back, reactivate the same account so access and prior mail history return together—billing resumes only while the seat is active again.

Billing Resumes

Prefer reactivation over creating a duplicate mailbox when the same person returns for another season.

Deep guide: Reactivate a former employee email account securely

Prerequisites and boundaries

SmtpMan sits beside your primary mail stack—typically on a subdomain like team.example.com—so frontline mail stays separate from HQ M365/Google.

Separate frontline employee email from your primary domain

IT-friendly boundary

  • ✓ No changes to root domain MX records
  • ✓ Isolated IP reputation
  • ✓ Zero HQ mailbox migration required