Exchange (on-premises)

MSPControl manages two entirely different mail products, and they look similar enough in the menu to be confused constantly.

This section is on-premises Exchange, not Exchange Online

Exchange is a hosted on-premises Exchange Server organization, running on infrastructure the platform operator controls, managed through a different provider.

Exchange Online is Microsoft 365 mail, managed through the customer’s Microsoft tenant.

The screens differ, the capabilities differ, and a procedure written for one will not work on the other. Check which you have before following anything here.

Which one does this organization use?

Signal	On-premises Exchange	Exchange Online
Menu group name	Exchange	Exchange Online
Hosting plan	Includes the Exchange resource group	Includes Microsoft Online Services
Mailbox storage	On the operator’s Exchange servers	In the customer’s Microsoft 365 tenant
Requires a Microsoft tenant	No	Yes

An organization can have both, in which case both menu groups appear and each manages its own set of mailboxes. They are not synchronized with each other.

What is in this section

MailboxesCreate and manage mailboxes, and everything on the mailbox tabs.

Contacts and distribution listsMail contacts, distribution lists and dynamic distribution lists.

Public foldersShared folders, and mail-enabling them.

Mailbox plansThe templates that decide what a mailbox gets.

Transport and journaling rulesOrganization-wide mail flow and compliance journaling.

Retention and ActiveSync policiesRetention policies and tags, and mobile device policy.

Disclaimers and signaturesAppended disclaimers and managed email signatures.

Storage usageWhere mailbox storage is going.

Why another customer sees more menu items than this one

Two things control what appears under Exchange, and both are set in the hosting plan.

Quotas turn individual items on

Each menu item requires its own quota. No mailbox quota, no Mailboxes item; no public folder quota, no Public Folders item. This is why a plan that provisions Exchange can still show a nearly empty Exchange menu.

The consumer flag hides nine of the fifteen

A hosting plan can mark a space as consumer. When it does, and the person viewing is the customer themselves, nine of the fifteen Exchange screens disappear:

Always available (subject to quota)	Hidden for consumer spaces
Mailboxes	ActiveSync mailbox policy
Contacts	Mailbox plans
Distribution lists	Mailbox rules
Dynamic distribution lists	Transport rules
Journaling rules	Retention policy
Public folders	Retention policy tags
	Storage usage
	Disclaimers
	Email signature management

The pattern is deliberate: consumer spaces keep the recipient screens and lose the organization-wide policy screens.

The flag applies to the customer, not to you

The consumer restriction only takes effect when the account being administered is the customer themselves. Administering the same space as a platform administrator or reseller shows the full menu — so a customer reporting a missing screen may be seeing correct behaviour that you cannot reproduce.

Related

• Exchange Online — the other mail product
• Hosting plans — where Exchange quotas and the consumer flag are set
• Accounts, roles and what you can see