How to add personalized email signatures to emails sent from shared mailboxes

Problem:

Emails sent from shared mailboxes, like [email protected], have a team-specific email signature added, but the signature doesn’t contain any information about the specific user who sent the email.

Solution:

If you want to add a personalized signature to a message sent from a shared mailbox, as a CodeTwo software user, you have several options:

• Use one of your existing personal signatures
• Create a dedicated signature for a shared mailbox with sender’s personal details
• Set up a combination of a native Outlook signature and a cloud (server-side) signature added by CodeTwo

Use one of your existing personal signatures

This solution applies only to CodeTwo Email Signatures 365, our cloud email signature manager, when you use it in Outlook (client-side) or combo mode, and makes use of CodeTwo Outlook Web Add-in. Additionally, for this to work, the advanced setting Change CodeTwo Outlook (client-side) signatures to match the email address in the From field (instead of the default address) should be disabled for the add-in in CodeTwo Admin Panel (learn more).

If your setup meets the above-mentioned conditions, while composing an email in an Outlook, proceed as follows:

1. In the From field, provide a shared mailbox address instead of your personal one.
2. Next, open the Web Add-in’s pane in Outlook (e.g. click CodeTwo Signatures on the ribbon in Outlook for Windows) and simply insert one of your personal email signatures by clicking Use this signature (Fig. 1.). Learn more

Fig. 1. Manually inserting a personal signature to an email send from a shared mailbox (Outlook for Windows).

Create a dedicated signature for a shared mailbox with sender’s personal details

This solution applies only to CodeTwo Email Signatures 365, our cloud email signature manager, when you use it in Outlook (client-side) or combo mode, and makes use of CodeTwo Outlook Web Add-in.

First, create a separate Outlook (client-side) email signature to be used specifically with a shared mailbox (Fig. 2.). The shared mailbox signature should contain both:

• sender’ personal details that vary from user to user, fetched from Entra ID (Azure AD) using the placeholders feature; and
• fixed (non-changing) shared mailbox contact info.

While setting up the shared mailbox email signature, in the Senders step, add email addresses of the users who are going to send emails with this signature from the shared mailbox. Learn how to create an Outlook (client-side) signature

Fig. 2. The signature for a shared mailbox (with user’s personal data), created in addition to a basic user’s signature.

When users compose an email in Outlook, they can easily select which signature to use, depending on whether they intend to send the email from their personal mailbox or from a shared mailbox. To do it, after selecting a desired mailbox in the From field, they need to open the Web Add-in’s pane and manually insert a chosen signature, as shown in Fig. 3. Learn more

Fig. 3. Inserting a signature for a shared mailbox.

Set up a combination of a native Outlook signature and a cloud (server-side) signature added by CodeTwo

You can use a combination of a native Outlook signature that will contain just sender’s personal details and a cloud (server-side) email signature (added by CodeTwo) that contains the remaining information (company logo, marketing banner, contact details, etc.) and is inserted to all messages sent from, for example, shared mailboxes.

The procedure to set up such a signature will be different depending on your users’ email clients and which CodeTwo software you are using. Follow the links below for more information on how to:

1. Set up a personal email signature in an email client.
2. Set up an email signature template for a shared mailbox in:
   1. CodeTwo Email Signatures 365,
   2. CodeTwo Exchange Rules family of products.

Set up a personal email signature in an email client

Users can create their own simple signatures by following these steps:

• Create an email signature in Outlook on the web
• Create an email signature in Outlook

After setting up a personal email signature, the signature can be added to messages automatically or manually by the user. For example, a signed reply from a shared mailbox in Outlook will look as shown in Fig. 4.

Fig. 4. A personal email signature added to a message sent from a shared mailbox.

Set up an email signature template for a shared mailbox

The best way of managing signatures for shared mailboxes, regardless of your environment, is to create a separate signature template for each shared mailbox.

CodeTwo Email Signatures 365 (cloud/server-side mode)

1. To create a signature template for a shared mailbox in CodeTwo Email Signatures 365, you first need to sign in to app.codetwo.com and add a new cloud (server-side) signature rule (Fig. 5.).

Fig. 5. Creating a new cloud (server-side) signature rule.

2. Name the new signature rule (Fig. 6.). It’s a good practice to add a description to the rule.

Fig. 6. Providing a name and description of a signature rule.

3. Go to the Senders step, click Add>Selected senders and choose the shared mailbox for which you want to set your signature (Fig. 7.). You can choose more than one shared mailbox at a time, as long as the email signature template you will be using for this rule can be applied to all chosen shared mailboxes.

Fig. 7. Choosing a shared mailbox for the cloud (server-side) signature rule.

4. Go to the Design step and click Edit signature (Fig. 8.) to access the Signature template library.

Fig. 8. Opening the Signature template library.

5. In the Signature template library (Fig. 9.), choose any signature design you like.

Fig. 9. Browsing through the available signature templates.

6. Clicking a design will open a quick customization window, in which you can, for example, remove the Name and Job title sections (Fig. 10.). This will let you quickly limit the signature fields to the ones best fitting the shared mailbox signature.

Fig. 10. Selecting sections that you want to include in a signature template.

7. Once you make the necessary modifications, click Apply & Close in the signature template editor to save your template (Fig. 11.)

Fig. 11. Saving changes to the modified email signature template.

8. The signature for your shared mailbox can be previewed in the Design step (Fig. 12.).

Fig. 12. Previewing your cloud (server-side) email signature template.

9. Finally, click the Save & Publish button to apply the signature rule in your organization.

If you need more information on creating a cloud (server-side) signature rule, refer to this article.

After sending the email, the shared mailbox signature will be added below the personal signature inserted in an email client (Fig. 13.).

Fig. 13. A signature inserted to an email sent from a shared mailbox.

Learn more about signature modes available in CodeTwo Email Signatures 365

Troubleshooting a missing shared mailbox signature

If you followed the above steps but emails sent from a shared mailbox are still missing your signature, check whether the shared mailbox is included in:

• the scope of users (senders) for CodeTwo Emails Signatures 365, as described here.
• the scope of licensed users, as decribed in this article.

CodeTwo Exchange Rules family of products

1. To create a signature rule for shared mailboxes in any version of CodeTwo Exchange Rules, first open the program’s Administration Panel and add a new signature-adding rule (Fig. 14.).

Fig. 14. Creating a new signature rule in CodeTwo Exchange Rules.

2. Next, go to the Conditions tab and add a condition if Sender’s email equals (the email address of your shared mailbox) (Fig. 15.). You can add more than a single shared mailbox address by adding a similar condition with the OR operator between each entry.

Fig. 15. Setting up signature rule’s conditions.

3. After specifying the rule’s conditions, go to the Actions tab, and create a template adjusted to your shared mailbox (or mailboxes) by accessing the built-in signature editor (Fig.16.).

Fig. 16. Accessing the built-in email signature editor.

The rest of email signature rule’s settings can be default. To learn more about creating email signature rules in CodeTwo Exchange Rules, visit the quick guide. The Actions tab can be used to preview how the signature template will look like in an email (Fig. 17.).

Fig. 17. Email signature preview on the Actions tab.

Once an email is sent from a shared mailbox, signature added by CodeTwo Exchange Rules will appear under the sender’s name and job title inserted in an email client (Fig. 18.).

Fig. 18. A shared mailbox signature consisting of an Outlook (client-side) and cloud (server-side) signature.

See also:

• How to remove email signatures added by mobile devices
• How to prevent Outlook from adding signatures