Automating Company Email Signatures

gord

gord

gord

Soldato
Joined
18 Oct 2003
Posts
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Hello all,

I've been tasked with finding out whether this is possible. Basically our company uses Microsoft Exchange, Outlook and everyone has their local signature.

Unfortunately, we still have wildly varying signatures from different people despite our template.

Is there a way I can manage the company's signatures with a global template etc? What I really want is the ability to manage different types of signature and assign it to people where my template is auto-populated with their data.

Any help is much appreciated.
 
Hi,

It might be worthwhile looking at some sofware called EXclaimer, not sure if it will do what you want but might be worth a look.

Cheers
 
Thanks guys, both of those products have come up in my searches. They look like decent enough products, just whether they are worth the cost.
 
Another vote for Exclaimer. We use to standardise company signatures as well as signatures for emails sent from Distribution Lists ([email protected] for example) and auto-response emails. Very easy to set up and you can test the signatures in the program before enabling them.
 
I dont understand why you need anything.

Disclaimer folder with everyones htm, rtf and txt files in on your netlogon folder then something like the below in your login files


IF NOT EXIST "\\DC IP ADDRESS\NETLOGON\Scripts\Disclaimer\%USERNAME%" MD "\\DC IP ADDRESS\NETLOGON\Scripts\Disclaimer\%USERNAME%"

REM Next line is for Windows XP clients
IF NOT EXIST "%APPDATA%\Microsoft\Signatures" MD "%APPDATA%\Microsoft\Signatures" > NUL
IF EXIST "%APPDATA%\Microsoft\Signatures" XCOPY "\\DC IP ADDRESS\NETLOGON\Scripts\Disclaimer\%USERNAME%" "%APPDATA%\Microsoft\Signatures" /S /E /C /Y > NUL
 
Guest2 said:
I dont understand why you need anything.

Disclaimer folder with everyones htm, rtf and txt files in on your netlogon folder then something like the below in your login files


IF NOT EXIST "\\DC IP ADDRESS\NETLOGON\Scripts\Disclaimer\%USERNAME%" MD "\\DC IP ADDRESS\NETLOGON\Scripts\Disclaimer\%USERNAME%"

REM Next line is for Windows XP clients
IF NOT EXIST "%APPDATA%\Microsoft\Signatures" MD "%APPDATA%\Microsoft\Signatures" > NUL
IF EXIST "%APPDATA%\Microsoft\Signatures" XCOPY "\\DC IP ADDRESS\NETLOGON\Scripts\Disclaimer\%USERNAME%" "%APPDATA%\Microsoft\Signatures" /S /E /C /Y > NUL
Click to expand...

Please tell me you have not allowed everyone in your domain write access to the netlogon share ????
and why use the DC's ip address, why not use the domain's netbios address, then it does not matter which DC is available, anyone will do, and will use the DC that you used to logon with.
 
DustyMiller said:
Please tell me you have not allowed everyone in your domain write access to the netlogon share ????
and why use the DC's ip address, why not use the domain's netbios address, then it does not matter which DC is available, anyone will do, and will use the DC that you used to logon with.
Click to expand...

No, no-one has write access to the netlogon share

It was setup like this when I joined the company by my boss. It has worked like this for years with no problems
 
Guest2 said:
I dont understand why you need anything.

Disclaimer folder with everyones htm, rtf and txt files in on your netlogon folder then something like the below in your login files

IF NOT EXIST "\\DC IP ADDRESS\NETLOGON\Scripts\Disclaimer\%USERNAME%" MD "\\DC IP ADDRESS\NETLOGON\Scripts\Disclaimer\%USERNAME%"

REM Next line is for Windows XP clients
IF NOT EXIST "%APPDATA%\Microsoft\Signatures" MD "%APPDATA%\Microsoft\Signatures" > NUL
IF EXIST "%APPDATA%\Microsoft\Signatures" XCOPY "\\DC IP ADDRESS\NETLOGON\Scripts\Disclaimer\%USERNAME%" "%APPDATA%\Microsoft\Signatures" /S /E /C /Y > NUL
Click to expand...
Sorry, can you elaborate in a bit simpler terms. My server admin abilities are quite slim.

So I have everyones signatures in all 3 formats (I assume I need all 3 in-case someone sends out an email in any of the formats?) in a folder on the server that Windows connects to and pulls down to slap on the end of the email?

That sounds quite manageable, we arnt a huge business, and would let me enforce consistency quite nicely. Do you have a link to a simple setup guide for this?
 
Yep, all three formats for stuff like blackberrys etc. Here is a guide (by me)...

Go to your net logon folder on your domain controller. This should have the following access rights. domain admin full access and domain user 'read & execute', 'list folder contents' and 'read'

Create a 'Scripts' folder, inside this create a 'Disclaimer' folder. Same access for both of these

Inside disclaimer we have the following (example)

Dave Smith.txt
Dave Smith.rtf
Dave Smith.htm
Dave Smith_files < this just has a couple of images and link data for the htm

In a .bat file have the code above (but for your DC) Assign this .bat for whoever in active directory. On the users machine open Outlook go to mail format, signatures and they should be there, select the drop down for new messages and select 'Dave Smith' This is pulled from the miscrosoft signatures location that was created on startup, which was copied from the Netlogon
 
Thanks for your help.

Its all very complex. Tell me one thing, do I have to have everyone's signature files in that location and set them up on users machines? I don't mind a 1 off setup, but the use of AD and the multiple sig files is making me cautious that this is a viable setup.

Also, Netlogon folder is the Sysvol\domain\scripts folder?

My manager has expressed interest in Exclaimer, but if there is a free option its always attractive. I will put what you have suggested to our IT guys and see what they say.
 
Netlogon is just in the root of your DC, sysvol is seperate and goes to policies and scripts

Netlogon just looks like another share that links to scripts. Maybe someone else could confirm this?

Its not too complicated really. Yep, put everyone signature files in that location with a different folder for each of them.
When they logon the .bat file will be loaded and the info will be copied from the folder (on netlogon) to their local computer. Its the %username% that does that part.

They, or you, will just need to set the new messages signature in Outlook.

Why not just test it first with a new test user and a blank .bat logon file? Nothing can go wrong then
 
No need to pay anything if your any good with VBS/batch?

The following will simple output Job title and email address.
Code: 
Set Sh = CreateObject("WScript.Shell")
UserID = CreateObject("WScript.Network").Username
Set objSysInfo = CreateObject("ADSystemInfo")
UserCN = objSysInfo.UserName
Comp = objSysInfo.ComputerName
Set objUser = GetObject ("LDAP://" & UserCN )
objUser.GetInfo
strMail = objUser.Get("mail")
strTitle = objUser.Get("title")
Wscript.echo(strtitle)
Wscript.echo(strmail)
Coupled with a batch file that takes the above info and creates the personalised email signature files.

A simple script (albeit long-winded as i'm useless with vbs) that saved my company over £1k if we had gone the symprex route :eek: (no need for its other features)

If your usernames = email address for everyone and you dont want to include the title field then you can do it with batch scripts alone.
Just echo the %username% envirmental variable to a html file.
 
Last edited:
^ another way of doing it. However the easier approach is having signature in an editable format is probably better. This way we can change info in the disclaimer folders as people job titles change and copy people sigs for new users and stuff. Plus we have links, images (1 logo) and text in signatures
 
Just re-read what i wrote and it makes little sense on the capabilitys :)
We have a batch file that sets variables on the output of the above vbs script, that is then echo'd out as the signature file

Heres snippet from the batch file (note - this is not complete nor work but shows how we get the html file from the batch file)
Code: 
for /f "tokens=2*" %%a in ('net user "%Username%" /domain ^| find /i "Full Name"') do set DisplayName=%%b
echo ^<strong^>%DisplayName%^</strong^>
echo ^<br^>
for /f %%a in ('cscript //nologo script.vbs') do set email=%%a
echo Email: %email%^<br^>
echo ^</font^>
echo ^</span^>
echo ^</p^>
echo ^</div^>
echo ^</td^>
echo ^</tr^>
echo ^<tr^>
echo ^<td^>
echo ^<div align=right^>
echo ^<span style="font-weight: bold; font-size: 7.5pt; color: #6e7074; font-family: Arial"^>
echo ^<font color=#666666^>Registered in England No: 123456 VAT Registered No: 123 123 12
echo ^</font^>
We then call the above batch file and have its output piped to a html file, that is then copied to the users signature directory with the logo.

Now i'm useless with VBS but there is no reason why its not possible if you have the knowledge to do all this with just one vbs scrip, and have variables change depending on job title etc.
 
Thanks for the info chaps.

I'm useless with VB and I'm not a server admin. I will get our IT guys to take a look at the solution Guest2 suggested, as that seems like a viable free method.

If others still have more to contribute, any simple guides or anything then post away.
 
LizardKing said:
Just re-read what i wrote and it makes little sense on the capabilitys :)
We have a batch file that sets variables on the output of the above vbs script, that is then echo'd out as the signature file

Heres snippet from the batch file (note - this is not complete nor work but shows how we get the html file from the batch file)
Code: 
for /f "tokens=2*" %%a in ('net user "%Username%" /domain ^| find /i "Full Name"') do set DisplayName=%%b
echo ^<strong^>%DisplayName%^</strong^>
echo ^<br^>
for /f %%a in ('cscript //nologo script.vbs') do set email=%%a
echo Email: %email%^<br^>
echo ^</font^>
echo ^</span^>
echo ^</p^>
echo ^</div^>
echo ^</td^>
echo ^</tr^>
echo ^<tr^>
echo ^<td^>
echo ^<div align=right^>
echo ^<span style="font-weight: bold; font-size: 7.5pt; color: #6e7074; font-family: Arial"^>
echo ^<font color=#666666^>Registered in England No: 123456 VAT Registered No: 123 123 12
echo ^</font^>
We then call the above batch file and have its output piped to a html file, that is then copied to the users signature directory with the logo.

Now i'm useless with VBS but there is no reason why its not possible if you have the knowledge to do all this with just one vbs scrip, and have variables change depending on job title etc.
Click to expand...

Looks like a very complicated way of doing it. What happens if you need to edit someone signature? Say a phone number change or they get married

With a text file you just open it on netlogon, change it to what you want and its done. Then just do the same with the other 2. If your company logo changes just replace the image in the folder
 
Guest2 said:
Looks like a very complicated way of doing it. What happens if you need to edit someone signature? Say a phone number change or they get married

With a text file you just open it on netlogon, change it to what you want and its done. Then just do the same with the other 2. If your company logo changes just replace the image in the folder
Click to expand...

Like i said, i didnt write it very clear :)
Its not complicated at all, it pulls the info from AD so there is no need to edit anything other than keeping AD upto date.
A change in logo would be simply over writing the original.
 
Last edited:
Thats all well and good if you have all your AD info up to date. But i know some of ours is not, the address parts varies a bit between offices and individuals.

How do you have formatting on HTML email?

Would be nice for it all to be pulled from AD but for signatures ive found its easier to edit, manage and set up by keeping a folder for each person
 
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