Rules for particular recipients
Give a signature to mail for particular customers, partners or countries, or keep a rule away from them, with lists of addresses, domains and wildcards.
A rule's Recipient type sorts mail into internal and external. When a signature is meant for particular people outside, such as one customer, your partners or everyone in one country, the two boxes under Who it goes to narrow it further. This article explains what they accept and how they decide.
What an entry can be
Each box takes any number of entries. Each entry is one of:
| Entry | Example | Matches |
|---|---|---|
| An address | [email protected] |
That address only. |
| A domain | partner.example |
Every address at that domain and at its subdomains, such as uk.partner.example. |
| A wildcard domain | *.de |
Every address whose domain fits the pattern, here every domain ending in .de. |
| A wildcard address | sales@* |
Every address that fits the pattern, here every address starting with sales@. |
| A recipient list | the list Key accounts | Every address and domain on the list you made on the Recipient lists page. |
The * stands for any run of characters. Capital letters make no difference. A recipient list is a name for addresses and domains you keep in one place and use in many rules, disclaimers and campaigns. See Keep lists of recipients to reuse.
Add entries
- Open Signature rules and select New rule, or Edit on an existing rule. Where your organisation has the rule wizard, select the arrow beside New rule and then Start blank in the editor, because the wizard does not set recipients.
- Under Who it goes to, type an entry into Only when recipients include or Except when recipients include, then press Enter, a comma or a space. You can also paste a list: entries separated by commas, semicolons, spaces or new lines are each added.
- To use a recipient list, select the box and choose the list from the menu that opens, under Recipient lists. It is added as one entry, with the number of entries it holds.
- Remove an entry with the x on it.
- Select Save rule.
An entry that is not an address, a domain or a wildcard is shown in red when you save, with a message under the list, and the rule is not saved until it is corrected or removed.
Only when recipients include
With entries in this box, the rule matches only an email whose recipients are on them. Once the box has an entry, When the recipients are mixed appears:
- Any recipient is enough: the rule matches when at least one recipient is on the box. An email to one listed customer and one colleague matches.
- Every recipient must match: the rule matches only when all the recipients are on the box. A recipient list counts as one entry, so a recipient is on the box when it is on the list or on another entry.
Leave the box empty for any recipient.
Except when recipients include
If any recipient of an email is on this box, the rule does not match, whatever else it says. The next rule down is tried instead. Use it, for example, to keep a promotional signature away from a competitor or a regulator.
The boxes and the recipient type
The boxes work alongside the Recipient type. A rule with Any external recipient and *.de under Only when recipients include matches mail that has an external recipient and a recipient at a .de domain. Everyone on To and Cc counts.
In Outlook with the add-in
The Outlook add-in reads only the domains of the recipients while an email is being written, never their whole addresses. That is enough for it to decide domain and wildcard-domain entries while you write, and to change the signature as you add or remove recipients.
An entry with an @ in it, such as a single address or sales@*, cannot be decided from a domain, and neither can a recipient list that holds any whole address. When a rule that could apply has one in either box, the add-in leaves the email without a signature while you write, and the mail relay, which sees every address, chooses the rule and adds the signature as the email is sent. The recipients see the signature as usual; you only do not see it in the draft. See Can't see the signature while writing.
With the Outlook add-in only there is no mail relay, so an email such a rule could apply to goes without a signature, and the Coverage page gives the reason as Needs mail flow to choose. Use domain and wildcard-domain entries, or a list of domains only, where you can. See Using the Outlook add-in only.
Check the result
Test a rule takes the recipients' addresses, so you can see which rule an email to particular people would get, and which recipient matched which entry. See Test a rule.
Related
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