Forward message

CodeTwo Exchange Rules Pro enables you to set up automatic forwarding of messages that are processed by Exchange Server. Any message that meets the criteria defined in Conditions can be forwarded to one or multiple users without any action on the end user's part. 

Please note that a forwarded message will look exactly the same as the original message, including: the content, the Sender and the recipients defined in the To and CC fields. Furthermore, if the original message has more than one recipient, it will be sent to the original recipients and forwarded to all additional recipients who meet the conditions specified within the action.

Example of usage

This feature may be useful to automatically forward an invoice to the accounting department once the purchasing department receives the document. In such case, there is no need to remember to forward the invoice because the program will do that for every message that meets the defined Conditions.

How to configure this action 

To activate this action in a given rule, go to the Actions tab, click Add and choose Forward message from the menu (Fig. 1.).

Fig. 1. Choosing the Forward message action.

The Forward message action will be added to the List of actions field while the right pane will show the action's properties where the additional recipients' email addresses can be defined. To specify the recipients of the automatically forwarded messages, click Add and choose the type of recipient from the context menu (Fig. 2.).

Fig. 2. Choosing the type of recipient for the Forward message action.

There are three ways to define recipients:

1. Entering SMTP Email Address. You may also insert a placeholder (applies to the original message recipients only).
2. Pick AD User. 
3. Pick AD Group.

If you want to choose an Active Directory user or group, just pick the object via the standard AD picker.

On the other hand, if you want to use an SMTP email address, there is no picker available. Therefore, you need to enter the address manually. 

Once you decide to use placeholders the program will search through the original message recipients' accounts in the Active Directory database to check if they have an email address filled in the attribute specified by this placeholder. If the email address is found, then the original message will be forwarded to this address.

There are two types of placeholders to choose from: Exchange Attributes and Additional AD attributes (Fig. 3.).

Fig. 3. Specifying SMTP Email Address and placeholders.

Exchange Attributes

As Exchange Attributes are custom made and correspond to particular users, you need to fill them individually for each user in AD before using them in the program. The attributes may be specified e.g. via the Exchange Management Console (Fig. 4.).

Fig. 4. Adding Custom Attributes for a chosen user via Exchange Management Console.

The full list of attributes is available via the context menu shown below (Fig. 5.).

Fig. 5. Specifying Exchange Attributes for an SMTP email address.

Additional AD attributes (custom placeholders)

The second type of placeholders are Additional AD attributes that are referring to LDAP attributes (Fig. 6.).

Fig. 6. Specifying custom placeholders for an SMTP email address.

Custom placeholders may only be defined within the program. Therefore, if there are no such placeholders created yet, you may easily add them via the Define additional AD attributes button that appears under Additional AD attributes (see Fig. 6.).

Learn more about creating Additional AD attributes

Fig. 7. Placeholders separated with a semicolon.

The diagram below (Fig. 8.) shows how the Forward message action is processed by the program assuming that:

1. User [email protected] has Additional AD attribute 1 in AD set to [email protected].
2. User [email protected] has Additional AD attribute 1 in AD set to [email protected].
3. There is a Forward Message action defined in the program with {ExchAttrib1} specified on the list of recipients.
4. The message is sent by user [email protected] to users [email protected] and [email protected].

Fig. 8. The diagram showing how the Forward message action is processed by the program.

Modify subject

You may also modify the subject of a forwarded message. To do that, click the Edit button located on the right side, above the list of recipients (Fig. 9.).

Fig. 9. Modifying the subject of the forward message.

Within the subject modification window you may:

• decide to keep the Original subject of the message
• manually enter a new subject that will replace the original one
• choose a variety of placeholders that will replace the subject with the chosen variable from Active Directory: either the original message Sender properties or general info such as Counters or Dates.