Email signatures in Office 365

Email signatures are included at the end of emails to disclose contact information like trading names, addresses, and other useful contact information. Signatures are created individually for email accounts. Users who rely on desktop clients like Outlook should create email signatures using Outlook. Users who manage email should create signatures in Outlook Web Access (OWA) should create their signatures in OWA. Users who use both Outlook and OWA should create signatures in both Outlook and OWA.

This article shows how to create a signature using OWA. Follow these steps:

– log into Office 365 at http://mail.office365.com

– open the apps dashboard on the left of the toolbar and click open Mail in the dropdown menu

dashboard mail

– next, click open the setting icon on right side of the toolbar, and click ope “Options” in the dropdown menu:

365 options

– look down the options in the next page and click open “Signatures”. Complete the signatures using the editing tools. Also, depending on the operating system you use, you may be able to copy and paste content from Word. Save the the signature when completed.

click open email signature

 

Exchange Email – data leakage & loss protection

From October 1st ComStat can provide support to help organisations and users manage data leakage and data protection.

On a large scale, data leakage is a serious issue which finds its way into national headlines. American retailer Target faced enormous losses and serious reputational damage in November 2013 when the company lost 40 million credit card numbers to hackers.

Small businesses may argue they do not face such risks, however small businesses are subject to the same data protection governance for due diligence regarding personal information, and even if a small business does not store credit card numbers electronically, users can still “leak” senstive date to third parties that can come back to haunt businesses.

ComStat network administrators have access to a large array of geographically relevant “policies” which can be established monitor outgoing email for sensitive information like credit card numbers, drivers licenses, passwords, in fact just about anything. On identification of an imminent “leak” users are notified with a number of options:

1. Users can override and permit transit of email, although the event is logged,
2. Sensitive information can be masked by the system,
3. Sensitive information can be delted,
4. Entire emails can be deleted with user notification.

ComStat’s engineers work with businesses with a strategy of using these kinds of tools to educate users of risk while enabling them to conduct their business with minimal obstruction.

In addition to monitoring email textual content, services also extend to identify attachments, which might comprise forms like applications, patents, etc.

Data leakage and data protection issues are difficult to meaasure because the risk of loss is usually hard to quantify until a significant event, by which time businesses can be exposed to substantial threat. As a lowest common denominator, however, businesses have an strict obligation to protect customer and third party personal information, and increasingly free email services like GMail, Yahoo, and Live do not provide tools to manage with the responsibilities European and UK law impose on businesses.

Although these services are aimed primarily at ComStat’s Exchange email users, the same tools are being expanded in 2014 and 2015 to encompass raw data storage like document libraries, spreadsheets, pdf’s, etc.

Please contact us to find out more about how our data protection services can help you.

Reset Office 365 password expiration policy

Office 365 help series – Password expiration policy

Office 365 Security

This guidance applies to Office 365 Enterprise, Office 365 Business Essentials or Office 365 Business Premium.

User passwords expire on a regular basis in Office 365. This setting is a default established by Microsoft when tenancies are established. If you are a Global Admins you can change the number of days before users are notified of password expiration. Password expiration policies can also be set so that passwords never expire.

  1. Sign in to Office 365 with your account
  2. Go to the Office 365 admin center
  3. Go to <Support > PSecurity & Privacy>
  4. Find Password policy section and click <Edit>
  5. If you want user passwords to expire, type the number of days before the password should expire. Choose a number of days from 14 to 730.
  6. Type the number of days before users are notified that their password will expire, and then click <Save>. Choose a number of days from 1 to 30.

See Microsoft Office 365 Support page

In-Place email archiving

In-Place Archiving eliminates the need for Outlook personal store (.pst) files and allows users to store historical messages in an archive mailbox accessible in Microsoft Outlook 2010 and later and Microsoft Office Outlook Web App.

In Microsoft Exchange Server 2013, In-Place Archiving provides users with an alternate storage location in which to store historical messaging data. An In-Place Archive is an additional mailbox (called an archive mailbox) enabled for a mailbox user. Outlook 2007 and later and Outlook Web App users have seamless access to their archive mailbox. Using either of these client applications, users can view an archive mailbox and move or copy messages between their primary mailbox and the archive. In-Place Archiving presents a consistent view of messaging data to users and eliminates the user overhead required to manage .pst files.

You can provision a user’s archive on the same mailbox database as the user’s primary mailbox, another mailbox database on the same Mailbox server, or a mailbox database on another Mailbox server in the same Active Directory site. This provides flexibility to use tiered storage architecture and to store archive mailboxes on a different storage subsystem, such as near-line storage. In cross-premises Exchange 2010 and later deployments, you can also provision a cloud-based archive for mailboxes located on your on-premises Mailbox servers.

in_place_archiving

Exchange – room and equipment resources

A “Resource” is a “contact” in an Exchange/Outlook Calendar that represents a room or a piece of equipment. In the same way that a person can have an email address and can be assigned to meetings, rooms and equipment can be treated the same way in Exchange.

Equipment can include anything from a mobile phone to a fleet vehicle.

Resources are established by an Exchange administrator by creating a unique name and assigning an email address to the resource. Users who have access to Exchange can access a resource list to create a meeting and they can “invite” the resource to the meeting just like setting up a meeting with a person. Network administrators are needed to create and configure resource accounts because these kinds of accounts are created and managed in Exchange Active Directory, which requires expert knowledge.

If the resource is available for a “meeting”, it can be reserved by the user. That resource is then removed from the list of available resources until its “meeting” is finished. If the resource is already reserved for a meeting, it cannot be used. Values can be attached to resources, too. For instance, a limit can be set so that a room can only accept a maximum number of people at a meeting. Also, equipment limits can be set so that a laptop can only be in use once.

The system is scalable and can cope with large volumes and types of resources including equipment. Universities use Exchange resource accounts to manage their rooms and equipment distribution on campus.

Outlook’s includes a scheduling assistant which graphically charts availability of resources.

There are two kinds of resource mailboxes:

1. Room mailboxes –  A room mailbox is a resource mailbox that’s assigned to a physical location, such as a conference room, an auditorium, or a training room. After an administrator creates room mailboxes, users can easily reserve rooms by including room mailboxes in meeting requests.

2. Equipment mailboxes –  An equipment mailbox is a resource mailbox assigned to a resource that’s not location specific, such as a portable computer, projector, microphone, or a company car. After an administrator creates an equipment mailbox, users can easily reserve the piece of equipment by including the corresponding equipment mailbox in a meeting request.

Resources can be reserved in a calendar using Outlook Web Access or with desktop installed versions of Outlook. If other users need to see resource usage, consider shared calendars or group calendars. Once you have decided how to organize your calendar, follow these steps for OWA or Outlook client for desktop.

1. Reserving rooms resources using Outlook Web Access (OWA)

– log in to OWA at http://mail.office365 using your email address and password.
– click down the app menu, and then click on Calendar, as this screenshot shows:

1 OWA dashboard

– in Calendar, click “new” to create a new event:

2 _new_calendar_event

– Fill in the form, making sure the event is something that is meaningful when viewed in the calendar. There are two ways to reserve a location or a room. Firstly, you can click the “add room” button to display the room resource available. Secondly, you can click open the Scheduling assistant to find a view of resources that are already committed to meetings. The scheduling assistant is useful because it show what resources might already be reserved when you want to use it. You can add rooms using the scheduling assistant.

You can reserve rooms and equipment for one meeting. To add equipment, you must select it from the “attendees” button which sits behind the dropdown menu in the illustration below. When you have finished creating your event, be sure to click “save”.

3_room_resource

2. Reserving equipment resourcing using Outlook Web Access (OWA)

The process for reserving equipment resources differs from the method for reserving rooms. Firstly, there is not a button like the “add room button illustrated above. Instead, equipment is selected from the attendees button which you can see in the illustration below. Lastly, equipment cannot be selected in the scheduling assistant, although the scheduling assistant lists equipment which is being used. Unless you are sure the equipment you want is available for a meeting, you should always check the scheduling assistant to save work.

4_select_equipment

Note that in this example, a room resource has already been assigned to the meeting. The location reserved is Workshop 1, and the room is included in the “Attendees” field. Also, the “add room” button has changed to “change room”. When you select equipment, it will be added to “Attendees”.

When you have finished creating your event, be sure to click “save”. You will receive an email either accepting or declining the event. Events are usually declined because of conflicts, or because the reservation duration or date falls outside the scope of scheduling.

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