Disclaimers and signatures

On-premises Exchange

This page covers hosted on-premises Exchange, not Exchange Online.

Two related features, applied at different points.

	Disclaimers	Email signatures
Applied	To mail in transit, by the server	To the message as composed
Typical content	Legal or regulatory text	Name, role, contact details, branding
User can remove it	No	Depends on configuration

Disclaimers

A disclaimer is text appended to outbound mail — the confidentiality notices and regulatory statements many organizations are required to attach.

Exchange > Disclaimers lists them. Each has its content and a Users view controlling who it applies to, so a disclaimer can be scoped to part of the organization rather than everyone.

Disclaimers append to every message, including short ones

A three-paragraph legal notice on a two-word reply is the normal outcome, and on a long thread it accumulates. That is usually accepted as the price of the requirement, but it is worth showing the customer a real example before rolling one out — the reaction is often to shorten the text.

Where a disclaimer exists for legal reasons, its wording belongs to the customer. Implement what they give you rather than editing it for length or style.

Email signature management

Centrally managed signatures let you apply consistent signatures across the organization instead of relying on each person to configure their own.

Email Signature Management lists the signatures; each has an Add/Edit screen and a Users view assigning it.

Signatures typically draw on directory attributes — name, job title, telephone number — so the signature is generated per person from one template.

A managed signature is only as good as the directory

If titles and telephone numbers are wrong or missing on user records, the signature publishes those errors to every external recipient. Tidy the directory before rolling signatures out, not after someone notices their old job title on a customer email.

Both are hidden for consumer spaces

Disclaimers and email signature management are among the nine screens hidden for consumer spaces.

Related

• Transport and journaling rules
• Exchange mailboxes

Who a disclaimer or signature applies to

Disclaimer Users and, for signatures, Users, set which people the rule applies to. A disclaimer or signature that is configured but assigned to nobody is inert — it exists, it validates, and it never appears on a message.

When a signature is not being applied, check the user assignment before the signature content.