Introduction
Microsoft’s Outlook feature, designed to streamline email signature management, has introduced a contentious mechanism known as “Roaming Signatures.” This functionality allows users to synchronize their email signatures across multiple devices.
However, administrators managing signatures through EWS reports that it is no longer possible after the introduction of the roaming feature. And that the new API that was promised for managing these signatures via Graph, was a non-delivery.
Further more, with the introduction of New Outlook, the roaming feature is now obsolete, and still obstructing signatures management through EWS.
A recent update (MC684213) now empowers admins to disable the feature themselves via PowerShell commands, eliminating the need for support tickets. This article explores the implications of disabling Roaming Signatures, focusing on the benefits, technical steps.
Get-OrganizationConfig | Select-Object PostponeRoamingSignaturesUntilLaterWhat Are Roaming Signatures?
Roaming Signatures were introduced as a solution to the historical issue of managing email signatures across multiple devices. Traditionally, users had to manually configure their signatures for each device they used. Microsoft’s update aimed to automate this process by allowing signatures to sync across all Outlook devices associated with a user’s account. This feature was particularly useful for businesses and individuals during the covid era when working from home.
Until this features was released, signatures were stored inside the user's mailbox configuration object. But with the introduction of roaming signatures the storage facility for signatures were moved to Graph. (aka "The Substrate"), and customers were promised a new API to replace EWS management. Therefore the EWS management interface stopped working.
The Update MC684213: Empowering Administrators to return to legacy storage
Microsoft’s latest update, MC684213, marks a significant shift in how administrators manage Roaming Signatures. Instead of submitting support tickets to disable the feature, admins can now use PowerShell cmdlets Set-OrganizationConfig. This change streamlines administrative tasks, reducing reliance on Microsoft’s support team. The update is expected to be fully implemented by early November 2023.
How to Actually Perform the Disabling
To disable Roaming Signatures in your tenant and return Owa and New Outlook to searching for signatures in the legacy storage area inside the mailboxes, administrators should do the following:
1. Start a powershell prompt and connect to Exchange Online.
2. Run the command: Set-OrganizationConfig -PostponeRoamingSignaturesUntilLater $true
3. Check that the command was registred by running: Get-OrganizationConfig | Select-Object PostponeRoamingSignaturesUntilLater
Note. It is possible to disable the roaming signatures feature in Classic Outlook, on a per-user-base, using a registry setting. But this does not mitigate the problem that stems from Microsoft storing signatures outside the reach of EWS. So does not make it possible to manage your signatures via EWS based tools.
Obsolete Feature in New Outlook
Despite its initial promise, Roaming Signatures have become an obsolete feature in New Outlook. Since New Outlook is in fact a webviewer it is not able to sync signatures residing on the local harddrive. And thus it has rendered Roaming Signatures obsolete. This limitation has led many administrators to prefer traditional methods of managing email signatures.
Conclusion
Using the options to disable roaming signatures using Microsoft’s update MC684213 provides a method for returning your tenant signature storage to legacy EWS accessible mailbox based storage, that supports both OWA and New Outook. Then you can use our EWS based add-on called DS-Batching Services to push signatures onto Owa and New Outlook, again.