How to Configure a Disclaimer

How to Configure a Disclaimer

Applies to: Exchange Server 2007 SP1, Exchange Server 2007 Topic Last Modified: 2007-01-02

This topic explains how to use the Exchange Management Console or the Exchange Management Shell to configure disclaimers on computers that have the Hub Transport server role installed.

Disclaimers are typically used to provide legal text or other text that administrators want to apply to all e-mail messages that enter or leave their Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 organization.

For more information about disclaimers, see Overview of Disclaimers.

Before You Begin

The procedure that you use to create a new disclaimer is the same procedure that is used to create a new transport rule. This is because a disclaimer is a configurable action that exists on transport rules that are available on Hub Transport servers.

As with transport rules, when you create a new disclaimer, you can configure conditions and exceptions to control which e-mail messages receive the disclaimer. If you want the disclaimer to apply to all e-mail messages that enter and leave the Exchange 2007 organization, do not configure any conditions or exceptions.

To perform the following procedures, the account you use must be delegated the following:

Exchange Organization Administrator role

For more information about permissions, delegating roles, and the rights that are required to administer Exchange Server 2007, see Permission Considerations.

Caution:
This topic describes how to configure disclaimers. Disclaimers require the creation or modification of transport rules. Before you modify existing transport rules or create new transport rules in your production environment, use a test environment to learn how to modify existing transport rules and test them thoroughly. The following procedures are not intended to be run in a production environment without modification to support your organization.

Caution:

This topic describes how to configure disclaimers. Disclaimers require the creation or modification of transport rules. Before you modify existing transport rules or create new transport rules in your production environment, use a test environment to learn how to modify existing transport rules and test them thoroughly. The following procedures are not intended to be run in a production environment without modification to support your organization.

Important:
For transport rules to be applied to e-mail messages, a route must exist that enables the message to enter and leave a server that applies transport rules. Also, the message must not be subject to an administrator-configured transport restriction that prevents delivery of the message. If a transport restriction prevents delivery of a message, the Transport Rules agent cannot act on that message, and no Transport Rules agent events are logged.

Important:

For transport rules to be applied to e-mail messages, a route must exist that enables the message to enter and leave a server that applies transport rules. Also, the message must not be subject to an administrator-configured transport restriction that prevents delivery of the message. If a transport restriction prevents delivery of a message, the Transport Rules agent cannot act on that message, and no Transport Rules agent events are logged.

Note:
It is possible to apply multiple disclaimers to a single e-mail message. If a message matches more than one transport rule, and a disclaimer action is configured on each transport rule, the transport rule applies each disclaimer action to the message.

Using the Exchange Management Console to Create a Disclaimer

To use the Exchange Management Console to configure a disclaimer on a Hub Transport server

Open the Exchange Management Console on the Hub Transport server.
In the console tree, click Organization Configuration, and then click Hub Transport.
In the result pane, click the Transport Rules tab, and then, in the action pane, click New Transport Rule… .
In the Name field, enter the name of the disclaimer.
If you have notes for this disclaimer, enter them in the Comments field.
If you want the disclaimer to be created in a disabled state, clear the Enabled check box. Otherwise, leave the Enabled check box selected.
Click Next.
In the Step 1. Select Condition(s) box, select all the conditions that you want to apply to this disclaimer. If you want this disclaimer to be applied to all e-mail messages, do not select any conditions in this step.
If you selected conditions in the previous step, in the Step 2. Edit the rule description (click an underlined value) box, click each blue underlined word.
When you click a blue underlined word, a new window opens to prompt you for the values to apply to the condition. Select the values that you want to apply, or type the values manually. If the window requires that you manually add values to a list, type a value. Then click Add. Repeat this process until you have entered all the values, and then click OK to close the window.
Repeat the previous step for each condition that you selected. After you configure all the conditions, click Next.
In the Step 1. Select Action(s) box, click append disclaimer text using font, size, color, and wrap messages if unable to comply.
In the Step 2. Edit the rule description (click an underlined value) box, click each blue underlined word. Each word, except disclaimer text, is the default value for each field. For more information about these action properties, see "Disclaimer Action Properties" in Transport Rule Actions. The fields are Location, Disclaimer Text, Font, Font Size, Font Color, Separator, and Fallback Action.
When you click a blue underlined word, a new window opens to prompt you to select the items that you want to add or to type values manually. When you are finished, click OK to close the window.
Repeat the previous step for each action that you selected. After you configure all the actions, click Next.

In the Step 1. Select Exception(s) box, select all the exceptions that you want to apply to this rule. You are not required to select any exceptions.

Note:
If you don't apply an exception to this transport rule and all the transport rule conditions are met, a disclaimer is added to every message. This includes messages to which this disclaimer has already been added. To avoid having disclaimer text added repeatedly to messages that meet the conditions of this transport rule, add the except when the text specific words appears in the subject or body of the message transport rule exception with a value that is unique to the disclaimer text in this transport rule.

Note:

If you don't apply an exception to this transport rule and all the transport rule conditions are met, a disclaimer is added to every message. This includes messages to which this disclaimer has already been added. To avoid having disclaimer text added repeatedly to messages that meet the conditions of this transport rule, add the except when the text specific words appears in the subject or body of the message transport rule exception with a value that is unique to the disclaimer text in this transport rule.

If you selected exceptions in the previous step, in the Step 2. Edit the rule description (click an underlined value) box, click each blue underlined word.
When you click a blue underlined word, a new window opens to prompt you to select the items that you want to add or to type the values manually. When you are finished, click OK to close the window.
Repeat the previous step for each exception that you selected. After you configure all the exceptions, click Next.
Review the Configuration Summary. If you are happy with the configuration of the new rule, click New, and then click Finish.

Using the Exchange Management Shell to Create a Disclaimer

To create a new disclaimer, follow the procedure in "Using the Exchange Management Shell to Create a Transport Rule" in How to Create a New Transport Rule.

Controlling Where Disclaimers Are Applied

The following procedure shows how to add conditions to control where disclaimers are applied.

To use the Exchange Management Shell to apply a disclaimer only to e-mail messages that originate from users who are members of the Brokerage Group

Run the following commands:

$Condition = Get-TransportRulePredicate From
$Condition.Addresses = @((Get-DistributionList "Brokerage Group"))

If you configure conditions but no exceptions on a transport rule that applies disclaimer text to messages, the transport rule applies the disclaimer text to all messages that meet the conditions of the transport rule. The transport rule will also apply disclaimers to messages, such as replies, even if the disclaimer text has already been added.

The following procedure shows how to configure an exception that instructs the transport rule to apply a disclaimer to a message only if the disclaimer has not already been added to the message.

To use the Exchange Management Shell to configure an exception that instructs the transport rule to apply a disclaimer to a message only if the disclaimer has not already been added to the message

Run the following commands:

$Exception = Get-TransportRulePredicate SubjectorBodyContains
$Exception.Words = @("Sample disclaimer text")

Configuring the Disclaimer Action

The disclaimer message is configured as an action on a transport rule. Each disclaimer message consists of the following six action properties: Location, Disclaimer Text, Font, Font Size, Font Color, and Fallback Action. For more information about these action properties, see "Disclaimer Action Properties" in Transport Rule Actions.

All the disclaimer action properties are set to default values, except the Disclaimer Text action property. You can leave all disclaimer action properties set to their default values. But you must configure the disclaimer text.

To use the Exchange Management Shell to configure the disclaimer text

Run the following commands:

$Action = Get-TransportRuleAction ApplyDisclaimer
$Action.Text = "Sample disclaimer text"

You can also configure disclaimer action properties to meet your organization's requirements.

To use the Exchange Management Shell to modify all the disclaimer action properties

Run the following commands:

$Action = Get-TransportRuleAction ApplyDisclaimer
$Action.Text = "Sample disclaimer text"
$Action.Location = "Prepend"
$Action.Font = "Verdana"
$Action.FontSize = "Larger"
$Action.FontColor = "Blue"
$Action.Separator = "WithSeparator"
$Action.FallbackAction = "Reject"

Creating the New Disclaimer

After you configure the optional conditions and exceptions and the required disclaimer action, create the new transport rule that applies the disclaimer.

To use the Exchange Management Shell to create a new transport rule that applies the disclaimer to all e-mail messages

Run the following command:

New-TransportRule -Name "Sample Disclaimer" -Action @($Action)

To use the Exchange Management Shell to create a new transport rule that is applied only to messages that match a defined condition

Run the following command:

New-TransportRule -Name "Sample Disclaimer" -Condition @($Condition) -Action @($Action)

To use the Exchange Management Shell to create a new transport rule that is applied only to messages that match a defined condition and that do not already contain the disclaimer text

Run the following command:

New-TransportRule -Name "Sample Disclaimer" -Condition @($Condition) -Exception @($Exception) -Action @($Action)

Configuring a Disclaimer

The following example shows how to apply a simple disclaimer only to e-mail messages that are sent from internal Exchange 2007 organization mailboxes to recipients outside the Exchange 2007 organization.

To use the Exchange Management Shell to apply a disclaimer only to e-mail messages that internal users send to external recipients

Run the following commands:

$Condition = Get-TransportRulePredicate FromScope
$Condition.Scope = "InOrganization"
$Condition2 = Get-TransportRulePredicate SentToScope
$Condition2.Scope = "NotInOrganization"
$Exception = Get-TransportRulePredicate SubjectorBodyContains
$Exception.Words = @("Sample disclaimer text")
$Action = Get-TransportRuleAction ApplyDisclaimer
$Action.Text = "Sample disclaimer text"
$Action.Font = "Verdana"
$Action.FontSize = "Larger"
$Action.FontColor = "Blue"
New-TransportRule -Name "Sample disclaimer" -Condition @($Condition, $Condition2) -Exception @($Exception) -Action @($Action)

For More Information

For detailed syntax and parameter information about each command, see the following topics:

For more information about transport rules, see the following topics: