Managing User signatures is not that difficult when you have a small organization with onsite IT or Even remote access to the user profiles to quickly make the necessary changes. But what happens when you have a Large Organization with hundreds of users and probably a small IT department. Well hopefully if you have Centralized software in place you can manage it all from one location.

Unfortunately

Microsoft Office 365 does not have this Global Signature Feature. That being said there is a work around on this although not being perfect for signatures in Legacy Sense it will allow your first mail you send to have a Signature attached to it. This Feature is call Disclaimer and in that it work perfectly.

The Disclaimer

So a Disclaimer is typically found at a set location of you documentation every time and with this Office 365 Feature this is exactly where it will go every time. While doing test I found that without having the necessary exceptions in place the signature created was added to the bottom of the mail causing all the signatures to be clustered together. It also has the option to add it to the Top of every mail sent out which does have potential for great Advertisements. As a side note I have seen this disclaimer at the top of the mail before and got more annoyed with this than what the advertisement was worth.

Before we go through the Setup

Luckily for all IT administrators out there the need for better signatures was seen and a few third party tools does exist that can assist in getting this done correctly. Although I am not able to test all of them as I get the opportunity I will update this post. Currently Exclaimer and CodeTwo specializes in adding signatures on a Global Level. Fortunately we are using MimeCast for our Archiving and they have a feature built in to assist with adding the required Signatures on outgoing mail.

The Setup

Log onto Office 365 and browse to the Exchange Admin Center: https://outlook.office365.com/ecp/

Go the Mail flow section on the Right Side of the page.

Click Create New rule and choose the option “Apply disclaimers…”

In the new rule, window choose to apply the rule where “the sender is Located…”

Left to this a “Select One…” will appear click it and choose the option “Inside the organization”

Choose the Dropdown below “Do the Following…” and choose “Append the disclaimer”

On the right click on “Enter Text…”

Here you are able to add the HTML code for you signature, if you are using fields that needs to pull from the AD in Office 365 these options can be put between two percentage signs on each side of the Variable. Ex. %%DisplayName%%.

See List of all default available Variables
External links to images can also be used.

Once done choose your “Fall Back Action”.

There is Three option available which will determine what will happen to the mail if the the disclaimer  can not be added in the mail thread.

1. Wrap This will add the current mail as an attachment in a new mail with the Signature
2. Ignore This will ignore adding the Signature
3. Reject This will reject the Email

Lastly go the Add More Option and choose “Add Exception” within the “Except If..” Section.

In the Drop down choose “The Subject of Body…” and then “Subject or body includes any of these Words”

From Here you can add any fixed wording that will only appear in the Signature you created. This will prevent the Signature from being Reattached to the mail thread if the signature appears in the mail thread once. The disadvantage of this is that a second person that sends mail internally from the Same thread will not have the Signature.

So as a Recap although not Ideal there will at least always be one mail going out with the Company signature.