Author: Adam the 32-bit Aardvark

GDPR-compliant disclaimers on your Exchange Server

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The introduction of GDPR, the European Data protection law, has caused companies all around the world to revise the way they handle personal data. This is, no doubt, a great responsibility which often includes setting up a complicated process and adjusting internal procedures. On the other hand, it is worth remembering that those changes are designed to ultimately ensure the privacy and security of consumers’ personal data. Because of that, you might view GDPR as an opportunity, and not only as a heavy burden. European-based customers are more likely to trust your organizations which have a clearly-formulated privacy policy and care for the security of personal data. GDPR compliance might become a deciding factor when a customer is faced with a choice between you and your competition.

GDPR compliant email disclaimers

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How the smart unsubscribe mechanism can help you stay GDPR-compliant

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Since the GDPR changes the way personal data needs to be handled, the approach to email marketing will also be affected. For example, not only you need to obtain consent from your subscribers to receive commercial emails, but you also need to provide means to unsubscribe from your mailing lists. The latter can be easily achieved by using the unsubscribe mechanism in CodeTwo Exchange Rules Pro.

How the smart unsubscribe mechanism can help you stay GDPR-compliant

Besides being used to centrally manage email flow and set up organization-wide email signatures and disclaimers in an Exchange environment, CodeTwo Exchange Rules Pro is also a great tool that can be used for marketing purposes. Additionally, it comes with an unsubscribe mechanism that allows you to insert an unsubscribe link in each email. Once this link is clicked by the recipient, their email address is added to a blacklist, based on which the program can either block all outgoing messages or only those relating to a specific campaign.

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How advanced email forwarding can help you stay GDPR-compliant

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One of the main requirements of the GDPR is to keep personal data safe. When it comes to electronic communication, you need to use every means possible to ensure that this type of data is not disclosed or accessed by any unauthorized persons, including your employees as well as people outside your organization. And since emails are sent in both directions, to and from your company, it would be beneficial to be able to manage the flow of all messages in your organization. With an appropriate tool in place, you can rest assured that all emails are always sent to the appropriate recipient and that no email containing sensitive data leaves your organization. And CodeTwo Exchange Rules Pro is just that kind of tool.

How advanced email forwarding can help you stay GDPR-compliant

CodeTwo Exchange Rules Pro is an email signature and email flow manager for Exchange that is packed with many features that can help you process, protect, and monitor personal data exactly as you want. One of these features is advanced email forwarding. You can forward emails to specific recipients based on many different factors, for example:

  • whether the message contains specific keywords in its body or subject (such as name, address, date of birth, etc.)
  • who is the sender of the message (specific email address, email address included (or not) in your Active Directory, the message comes from outside of your company, etc.)
  • whether the message contains (or not) attachments
  • type of the message (new email, reply, forward, etc.).

Take a look at the following examples of use for email forwarding feature in relation to the GDPR and see how easy it is to implement automatic and controlled processing of personal data.

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A complete list of Office 365 language IDs

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Below, you will find a complete list of Office 365 language IDs. All of those languages are supported in Office 365. The list includes a language name in English, in the respective language and a language code (ID) used, for example, as an Active Directory attribute.

Office 365 Language ID full list

In most cases, you can take a look at the list of available languages in an Office 365 profile. You can go to Settings>Language and time zone and easily scroll through the list. However, there are two problems you might encounter:

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Office 365 groups vs distribution lists – an in-depth comparison

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In the on-premises Exchange Server, there are three basic group types: distribution groups (a.k.a. distribution lists), dynamic distribution lists, and security groups. Office 365 presents another type: Office 365 Group. After a quick look, you can see that those Office 365 Groups can be used for the same purpose as distribution lists. The thing is, on numerous occasions, you can see that distribution lists are becoming obsolete, while Office 365 Groups are a recommended and a continually improved feature. So how are distribution groups different from Office 365 groups? I explain shortly in the article below.

Distribution Lists vs O365 Groups

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How to delete mailboxes in Exchange Server 2007/2010/2013/2016

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There are many reasons you might want to delete mailboxes from an Exchange Server. You might want to clear a database from some test users or remove those who have left the organization. Remember that you might need to delete mailboxes as soon as an employee leaves an organization. Mailboxes are a potential gold mine of Personal Information. They may contain sensitive information concerning both clients and other employees. That is why, in most situations, it is best to delete mailboxes quickly to ensure a high level of data protection. It is not worth risking any security breaches, especially if you want to comply with the GDPR. This article shows how to delete mailboxes along with AD users in the on-premises Exchange using PowerShell.

How to delete mailboxes from Exchange Server

Before I get technical, a word of warning. Please, make sure you are removing the right mailboxes. Just in case, temporarily forget about using -Confirm:$false parameter.

Before you start deleting mailboxes, make sure you have sufficient permissions. To run the Remove-Mailbox cmdlet, you need to have the Mail Recipient Creation role assigned. By default, only members of Organization Management and Recipient Management role groups have sufficient privileges.

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Message tracking logs in Exchange Server

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Message tracking logs are a valuable source of information for any Exchange admin. While Office 365 has its message tracing, which works just fine, on-premises Exchange stores much more data in the logs, which can serve many purposes.

Message Tracking logs Exchange

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How to migrate from Exchange 2010 to Office 365

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How is the migration from Exchange 2010 to Office 365 any different than other scenarios? First, before Exchange 2010, there was no way to create a Hybrid environment with Office 365. What is more, Exchange 2010 is one of the most popular source servers. That is because for companies which have more recent server versions, it would be a shame to leave to the cloud just yet, relatively soon after deploying a new Exchange release, and when the support is still available. Finally, there are some additional steps you need to take when you migrate from Exchange 2010 to Office 365.

Migrate from Exchange 2010 to Office 365

This article presents a short Exchange 2010 to Office 365 migration guide, to show you how to plan this journey. And how to make it easier.

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GDPR compliance and Office 365 backup

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GDPR, or General Data Protection Regulation, is a phrase that has become quite popular lately. No surprise there – it is hard not to get interested when you hear about fines which can go up to €20 million or 4% of a company’s annual revenue. Although it is legislation which is introduced by the European Parliament and it concerns personal data of EU residents, it applies to businesses all around the globe. But you probably know that already. What you might not know is that businesses have to review the way they secure and back up their data to comply with the GDPR. But before I get to that, here is some general information on GDPR.

GDPR vs backup: a GDPR-compliant backup solution for Office 365

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