Exclaimer Signature Manager Outlook Edition overview

Exclaimer Signature Manager Outlook Edition allows you to create great looking, professional signatures centrally (including company branding, legal disclaimers and promotional content) for use in all email messages sent from Microsoft Outlook and Microsoft OWA.

How does it work?

Within Exclaimer Signature Manager Outlook Edition, a signature is not just a block of contact information for the message sender. In this context, a signature is comprised of three distinct parts:

• Signature (business card content)

• Campaign (sales / promotional content)

• Disclaimer (legal / corporate) content

These parts are defined in separate Outlook policies which are combined (when given criteria are met) to form the final signature. An Outlook policy can be thought of as a set of rules which are used to control how signatures are applied to email messages. It includes:

• The policy type - signature, campaign or disclaimer

• The circumstances under which the policy should be triggered (using conditions, exceptions, date range and next policy options)

• Signature content (using templates)

• How the signature should be deployed

You can create as many policies as required - for example, you might choose to apply different campaign content for each department within your organization. In this situation you could create one signature and one disclaimer policy for all users, but a separate campaign policy for each department.

Similarly, some users may not require any campaign material; therefore you would define a signature where only signature and disclaimer content are applied.

When Exclaimer Signature Manager Outlook Edition is installed and appropriate deployment options have been set, it is running in the background all of the time. Any new or updated signatures are copied to a specified deployment folder (the network share) and then deployed to users automatically.

So, when a user chooses to create a new email message (or if they choose to reply to / forward a message), they will see any applicable signatures in their message.

If more than one signature applies, the last one processed will be used but users can right-click (on the signature) to view / select from a list of additional signatures. If required, users can amend the content of a signature within their message.

But that's not all...

Exclaimer Signature Manager Outlook Edition includes a library of professionally designed signature, campaign and disclaimer templates which can be used as-is, or as a start point for creating your own versions. Templates are created and edited using an intuitive template editor, which will be familiar to anyone who has worked with Microsoft Outlook.

Versions are created in HTML, RTF and Plain Text formats, with an instant preview feature so you can see how your template will be displayed in email messages, at a glance. With the ability to include tables, images, RSS feeds and dynamic Active Directory fields, you can be as creative as you want to be.

And there's more...

A key benefit of using Exclaimer Signature Manager Outlook Edition is the ability to apply smart, sophisticated signatures throughout your organization, helping to create a professional, consistent brand image. But what happens if users define their own signatures locally, using standard options in Microsoft Outlook?

Exclaimer Signature Manager Outlook Edition allows you to control Outlook mail format settings for all users so that every new, replied or forwarded email complies with your organization's house style. This is achieved with Outlook mail format policies; with this type of policy you can control:

• Message format options - control the default format for message composition and preferred editors to be used.

• Message font options  - enforce your organization's house style by specifying default font settings for new messages, together with replies, forwarded messages and plain text email.

• General Outlook options - choose whether any signatures or stationery that a user might have set locally are retained or overwritten by Exclaimer Signature Manager Outlook Edition.

Having defined your templates and policies, there's no need to worry about complicated testing processes, since Exclaimer Signature Manager Outlook Edition includes an intuitive policy tester. This simulates the generation of signatures for given Outlook users, so you can quickly see if policies are defined correctly.