Exchange & Office 365 Admin's Blog
Windows Server, Exchange, Office 365 and more - a spam-free diet of tested tips and solutions.
Posted on Office 356 is where most organizations head for today. “Most” as there are still companies that prefer or need to stay on-premises whatever the reason is. If you have already moved to Office 365 and want to get back to the on-premises environment keep reading to see what your options are.
Continue reading ‘How to migrate from Office 365 back to on-premises Exchange?’
Posted on Data migration isn’t one of those tasks faced by the companies on a daily basis. And the full migration of email data will probably take place no often than once every couple of years. However, there is a high chance that sooner or later you will begin to look around for a way to migrate your mailboxes. And when the time comes, many questions will arise: Should you migrate to a new Exchange on-prem or Office 365? What types of data should be migrated? Can you migrate only selected data? And most of all: how to migrate your email data?
In this article, I’ll try to answer some of these questions. And I’ll also toss around some of the pros and cons of taking advantage of third-party companies offering Exchange migration services vs. using a migration tool by yourself or by your IT team.
Continue reading ‘Exchange migration services vs. exchange migration tools – which is best for you?’
Posted on The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) introduces many changes in the way companies handle data. And although the regulations are the same for every company, the way each organization handles their data security is hardly similar. In this article, I will show you how you can get closer to a complete GDPR compliance by blocking possible data leaks in your Exchange Server.
Emails are one of the most potent channels for data leaks – sometimes, an honest mistake can cause an email with personal data to leave an organization and end up in an unauthorized mailbox. Such a data breach is unacceptable and a disclaimer asking to “delete the email if it is not intended for this email address” is not enough under the regulations introduced by GDPR. Thankfully, you can ensure a much higher data security level of your Exchange Server, using CodeTwo Exchange Rules Pro.
Continue reading ‘GDPR-compliant Exchange Server – remove sensitive content’
Posted on 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 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.
Continue reading ‘GDPR-compliant disclaimers on your Exchange Server’
Posted on 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.
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.
Continue reading ‘How the smart unsubscribe mechanism can help you stay GDPR-compliant’
Posted on 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.
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:
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.
Continue reading ‘How advanced email forwarding can help you stay GDPR-compliant’
Posted on 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.
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:
Continue reading ‘A complete list of Office 365 language IDs’
Posted on 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.
Continue reading ‘Office 365 groups vs distribution lists – an in-depth comparison’
Posted on 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.
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.
Continue reading ‘How to delete mailboxes in Exchange Server 2007/2010/2013/2016’
Posted on 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.
