Hi,
We are using DS-Manager both on-prem and O365 to deploy signatures. We noticed the latest version of Outlook desktop client, aka New Outlook, is online based and does not look to the local machine for settings, files etc and as such the email signature will not apply for users.
Please advice what to do.
February 21th - 2024.
Yes that is correct the new Outlook is in fact not an Outlook application as such but rather a webviewer that just fetch Outlook Web Access. And for that reason it does not use any local resources.
The short answer is that for the moment we do not support this version of Outlook, because Microsoft has not provided a channel (API) for sending signatures to owa.
There is however a work-around for this described below.
The long answers is that Microsoft has created a catch-22 scenario leaving big chunks of their user base with no means to have signatures.
It is the combination of the previously released Roaming Signatures feature ID: 60371 and this new version of Outlook that constitutes the problem.
Up until now our customers could use the DS-Batching-Services (DSBS) add-on to push signatures to OWA, both on-prem and O365.
But when Roaming Signatures was release earlier this year, and Outlook was now going to send local signatures (plural) to OWA and maybe across to other Outlook installations, they needed a new place to store these signatures. Previously signatures was stored in a special property of each mailbox, but could only contain 1 signature. And rather than make a revision to Exchange Database structure they decided to move them to a new area called the "substrate".
Below is a scanning result of when Outlook is syncing signatures to the cloud. Highlighted it is clear that this is still in beta.
For a while we thought that Roaming signatures would be a good thing, and that it would make the function of DSBS a built-in feature. But it was not to be so. Since the New Outlook does not interact with files on disk, the roaming feature is now obsolete.
And to make things worse Microsoft released this Roaming Signatures feature without releasing an API for managing the signatures in the new storage facility called the substrate.
For some time we have advised our customers to start a ticket with Microsoft and ask them to disable Roaming Signatures, so that OWA and the New Outlook can go back to fetching signatures from the legacy location inside the mailbox. DSBS can still reach this place via EWS, and EWS is guarantied to be supported until at least 2026.
However just last week we were informed that Microsoft has acknowledged that this is a major issue, and now made available a method for admins to disable roaming them selves.
And they have also promised to provide a new API for signatures in the foreseeable future. At which point we shall make short work of producing an update to DSBS.
Here is described the method for disabling roaming.
https://o365reports.com/2023/11/02/admins-can-turn-off-microsoft-outlook-roaming-signatures/
Below the method desciption on learn.microsoft.com we see:
So, in short you have the option to keep using the real Outlook in the supported method, or to disable roaming, and switch to DSBS awaiting the new API before switching back roaming.
We recommend staying on the real Outlook application until an API is released. The new Outlook without roaming feature only allows for 1 managed signature, whereas the real Outlook allows for any number of signatures.