Top 5 practical tools for Exchange Server from CodeTwo

[Update]: This blog post was updated on April 4, 2019.

Microsoft Exchange Server is a tremendously powerful platform that offers many useful native tools to help administrators deal with their everyday challenges. However, despite of the wide range of instruments facilitating their work with the Exchange Server, it still leaves the field clear for improvement that can be handled by third party tools – that is why CodeTwo developed programs that aim at making admin’s life even easier.

CodeTwo programs complement Exchange Server functionalities mainly in such areas as email signatures management, mailbox migration across different Exchange versions (or to Office 365) and backup solutions, which help keeping user’s mailbox data safe on local drives. All the programs can be easily administrated via handy editors and administration panels with clear and transparent UI eliminating the need for PowerShell scripting.

Let’s see the best tools for Exchange server provided by CodeTwo that ease the admin’s life.

Email signature software for Exchange

Mail flow rules will definitely help you manage basic email signatures and set up certain conditions that will determine when and to which messages the signature should be applied. However, if you want to add your signature or disclaimer right under the latest response or view your signatures in Sent Items folder, you should consider one of the following tools.

CodeTwo Exchange Rules Pro

When you need a powerful tool for email signature/disclaimer and email flow management, you should consider CodeTwo Exchange Rules Pro. This software not only will help you design and configure unified email signatures for entire organization but also will assist you in other administrative tasks related to email flow in your company. For example, you will be able to create a rule that will send auto reply messages, remove attachments from emails or rewrite sender’s email address. These are only a few examples of how you can benefit from the program. To check its full range of functionalities, it is worth downloading CodeTwo Exchange Rules Pro and testing it directly in your environment.

This program is compatible with Exchange Server 2019, 2016 and 2013. It also works flawlessly in hybrid and multi-server environments (including mixed environments with different server versions installed).

The program is the best solution for those who:

have at least Exchange Server 2013 or multi-server environment with same or different Exchange versions (multi-tenant and hybrid environments are supported).
want to manage unified email signatures and disclaimers centrally.
need signatures upgraded with company logo, user’s photos or other visual elements.
look for a powerful software that not only stamps corporate emails with signatures but also automatically compresses attachments, forwards messages, modifies email subjects, removes sensitive content and attachments from email messages or rewrites sender’s address. More actions available here.
don’t want to worry whether certain email clients or mobile device are supported – all devices that work with Exchange are supported.

Learn more about other features

In the screenshot below, you can see the Administration Panel of the software. From the panel, you can manage all the rules, check the server connection, configure access rights to rules and many more.

Download and test CodeTwo Exchange Rules Pro

CodeTwo Exchange Rules

For those of you who look no further than a need of inserting professionally designed signatures and disclaimers to your online correspondence, CodeTwo Exchange Rules would be a nice alternative to the Pro version discussed above. This program will help you create not only informative but also attractive email signature templates with logos and graphics that will be automatically inserted to your emails traveling through Exchange Server 2019, 2016 or 2013.

What should be mentioned here is that the program’s version needs to correspond to a certain server version. For example, if your organization works on Exchange Server 2016, you need CodeTwo Exchange Rules 2016 to make it work. The program also supports multi-server settings but each server needs to be of the same version. For example, all servers in the organization should be Exchange 2016.

It is the best choice for those who:

have Exchange Server (at least 2013) or have many servers of the same version.
need to manage professional email signatures and disclaimers for internal and outgoing messages.
want to have different signatures for new emails and different for replies/forwards that are managed centrally.
don’t want to spend extra money on functions that are dispensable for them – such as, for example, blocking messages or modifying email’s subject.
are fed up with signatures added at the end of the conversation thread instead of right under the latest response.

See other reasons for this program

The screenshot below shows the program’s WYSIWYG editor where you can create your signature template. It has never been that easy to insert social links, logos, images or placeholders that will be filled with Active Directory user’s personal data on the fly. You can also decide where in the message you want to place the signature.

Here you can download CodeTwo Exchange Rules to test if for free

Migration tools for Exchange

Of course, you can perform migration using native Exchange tools but the process may be troublesome in some scenarios. For example, when migrating from Exchange 2010 to 2019, you need to perform the upgrade to Exchange 2016 and then move to 2019. CodeTwo migration software is able to perform direct cross-forest migration from legacy Exchange servers.

CodeTwo Exchange Migration

Once you face the challenge of migrating mailboxes between two Exchange Servers, you would perhaps be willing to accomplish the task without using PowerShell. If that is true for you, CodeTwo Exchange Migration is the program you should consider. It allows for performing the migration in a more admin-friendly way thanks to a clear and intuitive GUI.

The program can handle migration directly from 2010/2013 to 2016/2019 so it eliminates the need for double-hop migration. You can also use it to migrate mailboxes from Office 365 and emails from IMAP servers to on-premises Exchange. Here you can see all supported scenarios.

CodeTwo Exchange Migration provides a straightforward console. This allows you to easily configure source and target server connections, create a migration job or monitor the whole migration process from the Administration Panel.

This program is for you if you:

need to perform Exchange-to-Exchange, IMAP-to-Exchange or Office 365-to-Exchange migration. See supported scenarios.
don’t want to spend much time and resources on migration and play with PowerShell.
look for full control over migration with real time reporting.
need to schedule the migration in advance so that it starts and stops automatically.
want to be assured that in case of any questions you can always contact CodeTwo’s Customer Service for assistance.

Here you can get more information on its plus points

In the screenshot below, you can see the Jobs tab from the Administration Panel of the software. Under this tab, you can manage individual migration jobs. For example, you can match each user’s source mailbox with its target equivalent, see what the progress of the move is or whether there are any bad news reported. On the left pane, you can navigate between different migration jobs – each job can be edited, stopped or deleted.

Download CodeTwo Exchange Migration and test it in your environment

CodeTwo Office 365 Migration

Another tool that can ease admin’s work is CodeTwo Office 365 Migration. The program is designed to manage Exchange-to-Office 365, IMAP-to-Office 365 or tenant-to-tenant migrations. You just need to install the software, activate it, and create a migration job in which you can decide about the source and target server connections, select user mailboxes to be migrated within that job and set up filters that will skip certain items during the migration process.

The program will help you migrate Exchange public folders to public folders in the cloud (you need to create an empty mailbox for them in Office 365 to accomplish the move).

This tool is for you if you need to:

migrate user mailboxes and public folders from Exchange on-premises (2010 and newer) to Office 365 (it also lets you migrate between Office 365 tenants or move emails from a server supporting IMAP).
manage the whole process from one place via the 100% GUI-based Administration Panel (no PowerShell scripting required) that provide you with all important reports and statistics about the migration progress.
freely stop and resume migration process with no duplicates created.
be assured that at any stage of the configuration or migration process you can contact CodeTwo Customer Service to get assistance.

Below you can see what the main window of the Dashboard looks like. From this place, you can quickly navigate to all important functionalities. For example, to migration jobs, good and bad notifications or source and target server connections.

Download and test CodeTwo Office 365 Migration

Backup solutions for Exchange

Hopefully no one needs to be convinced to create backup copies of Exchange mailboxes. You may have already been asked to recover some deleted emails or search for certain items to fulfill any legal action taken in your organization. The following program from CodeTwo is designed to help you accomplish those tasks.

CodeTwo Backup for Exchange

This software will help you create backup copies of user mailboxes and SharePoint data and store it on local drives in your organization. CodeTwo Backup for Exchange can perform continuous or one-time backups. A continuous backup job runs in cycles where the first cycle is a full backup and every next is an incremental backup. A one-time backup job performs a full backup and stops. But it can be started manually again and then it runs an incremental backup and stops.

For each backup job, you can set up activity periods so that the job starts and suspends automatically. If the option of activity periods is not enabled, then you need to start the job manually. Additionally, you can backup items depending on their age or exclude some special folders NOT to be included in the backup job. Backed up data can be restored to an original or a different mailbox or site.

CodeTwo Backup for Exchange will help you if you:

want to keep your Exchange mailbox and SharePoint data safe and secure to protect it against damage or loss.
need to meet certain legal requirements regarding electronic records retention policy. Learn more here.
don’t want to keep an eye on mailbox backups all the time – if any problem occurs, the program can send you an email in which it reports the problem (if you configured email alerts).
not only need backups but also want to archive backed up mailboxes (archive to PST available as well).
simply want a software that is easy to use and eliminates the need for scripting.

Find out more about other examples of use
See also why creating a backup is worthwhile

What seems to be especially attractive is the possibility of previewing single items under the Backups tab in the Administration Panel of the software (see the screenshot below). What is more, you can restore individual items, folders or entire mailboxes.