Hope this might be helpful:
No, you cannot set up a shared email address as a user in Business Central in the way you're describing for direct login or for facilitating approvals in Continia as a single, shared identity.
Key Reasons & Considerations:
- User Identity: Business Central users (especially in cloud/Azure AD environments) are fundamentally tied to a unique Azure Active Directory (AAD) identity (an individual email address associated with a person or a dedicated service account). You cannot simply map multiple people to a single, shared email for login.
- Licensing: Each distinct individual accessing Business Central requires their own named user license (Essential, Premium, or Team Member). Using a shared account violates licensing terms.
- Auditability: A shared login removes all audit trails. You lose visibility into who performed specific actions or approved documents, which is critical for compliance and troubleshooting.
- Continia Approvals: Continia Document Capture and similar approval workflows in BC rely on specific user IDs for accountability and routing. A shared login would confuse the workflow system.
Alternative Approaches for Shared Responsibilities (Recommended):
Dedicated "Service Account" User for Automated Processes (Limited): If the shared mailbox is primarily for automated processes or system notifications (e.g., a Job Queue user), you can create a dedicated AAD service account user for it. However, this user is not for multiple human logins.
User Groups and Approval Workflows (Best for Approvals):
- Proper User Setup: Each of the 5 people should have their own unique Business Central user account and license.
- User Groups: Assign these 5 people to a User Group in Business Central.
- Continia Approval User Groups: Configure your Continia approval workflow to use an Approval User Group rather than a single user. This allows any member of that group to approve documents.
- Notifications to Shared Mailbox: You can still configure notifications from Continia or BC to be sent to the shared mailbox, but the approval action itself is tied to the individual user.
- Teams/Queues (Less common for direct BC login, more for external systems): For some external systems, you might route things to a queue, but in BC's core approval engine, it's about User Groups.
In summary, do NOT use a shared email address as a direct Business Central user for multiple people. It violates licensing, ruins auditability, and isn't supported for direct human login. Instead, set up individual users and leverage User Groups for approvals in Continia.
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