Now that the Exchange 2010 Beta is here I thought I’d take a closer look into some of the new features. While the list of proposed improvements is vast and sorely needed, there are a few little ones that most will appreciate, like being able to add AD attributes to disclaimer messages. I know, it’s not earth-shattering, but it’s one of the many improvements that you might appreciate now or in the future. Some customers have had to purchase third party products to achieve the same goal, so this might save you a few dollars.
Here’s a quick example of how to set this up. It’s really easy and is basically a standard Hub Transport rule for an e-mail disclaimer with some minor tweaks. So, go ahead a create a normal Hub Tranport rule for an email disclaimer, like the one shown below then add your AD attributes surrounded by ‘%%’ on both ends and let Exchange do the rest. You can get really creative with this, however, you need to be relatively sure that the attributes you’re placing into your disclaimer are present and what you’d expect. It could be potentially embarrassing for the sender or company if inappropriate or unintended content was included in your emails.
If you are using a identity management product like MIIS/ILM you will probably have better control over the content in these attributes.
Add your disclaimer text. Since you can use HTML code in the content, you can be pretty creative. This example is pretty basic. Another thing to keep in mind when creating your disclaimers, especially with HTML code in them is that there is a risk that some anti-spam software may flag the email as being spam so I would suggest using it sparingly.
<p>%%DisplayName%%<br />
%%title%%<br />
%%Company%%<br />
%%streetAddress%%<br />
%%Phone%%<br />
</p>
<p><code><em>IMPORTANT NOTICE: This e-mail message is intended to be received only by persons entitled to receive the confidential information it may contain. E-mail messages to clients of Contoso may contain information that is confidential and legally privileged. Please do not read, copy, forward, or store this message unless you are an intended recipient of it. If you have received this message in error, please forward it to the sender and delete it completely from your computer system. Contoso LTD, Suite# 1, AnyStreet, AnyTown, USA, www.contoso.com </em></code></p>
%%title%%<br />
%%Company%%<br />
%%streetAddress%%<br />
%%Phone%%<br />
</p>
<p><code><em>IMPORTANT NOTICE: This e-mail message is intended to be received only by persons entitled to receive the confidential information it may contain. E-mail messages to clients of Contoso may contain information that is confidential and legally privileged. Please do not read, copy, forward, or store this message unless you are an intended recipient of it. If you have received this message in error, please forward it to the sender and delete it completely from your computer system. Contoso LTD, Suite# 1, AnyStreet, AnyTown, USA, www.contoso.com </em></code></p>
This will produce the following results when delivered to the recipient:
I’m interested in running some more tests to see to what level this new feature can be used.
