MobilePrint v2 - Mail forward vs. proxy address (i.e. mail alias)

Chris,

In my experience, as long as the address listed in the To: field survives the alias mapping/interpretation, you should be fine.  Since Exchange does not preserve the original To: address when utilizing an alias, I typically recommend that you set up two mailboxes (one as the IMAP box that MP checks, and the other to forward jobs to the primary mailbox).

Exchange Only:

The first address/mailbox would be something like mobileprint@mydomain.edu with an alias of bwprints@mydomain.edu.  This results in being able to advertise the email address bwprints@mydomain (which is parallel in name to the one for color jobs) so that emails sent to the bwprints address are delivered to the mobileprint mailbox, and appearing to have been sent to mobileprint@mydomain.edu (which is defined as the primary email address in the MP web admin).

I then recommend setting up a second mailbox with an email address of coloprints@mydomain.edu.  It should be set to forward all mail to mobileprint@mydomain.edu.  (If using PowerShell... Set-Mailbox -Identity colorprints -ForwardingAddress mobileprint@mydomain.edu -DeliverToMailboxAndForward $False). 

The reason for the triple email addresses is that MP (at least 1.3.2) sends out the job status notifications and registration requests from the primary email address as defined in the we admin.  This configuration allows the outgoing emails that students receive to originate from mobileprint@mydomain.edu instead of bwprints@mydomain.edu which could be confusing if a student is printing a color job and receiving a confirmation from bwprints.  The mail forward on colorprint allows emails sent to colorprints to be delivered to the mobileprint mailbox while preserving the original destination in the To: field, and setting the mailbox delivery option to false prevents the mailbox from filling up.

Edit:  To answer your question more specifically, I have used both aliases and forwards.  When Pharos checks the single IMAP mailbox for which it has been configured, the important thing is that MP is going to attempt to match up the To: address on each of the emails in the inbox to the various email addresses configured in the web admin in order to determine mono vs. color, and simplex vs. duplex.  If the to address is modified - as Exchange does for aliases - the student is not going to get a print job that matches what they wanted.  As long as the To: address is maintained (or the change is anticipated as with the Exchange configuration above), you should be fine regardless of wether you are using separate mailboxes with forwards, aliases, or any other configuration.

Regards,

Steven

P.S.  If you are not using exchange, just set up a single email address with a single alias for color jobs.  I typically recommend a generic name so that outgoing emails do not generate confusion.