Creation and management of e-mail address policies in Exchange Server

Managing email addresses in an Exchange Server environment is an essential task for administrators. Email address policies play a central role in this, as they facilitate the automatic assignment of email addresses for users, contacts and groups. In this article, we will explore the creation and management of such policies using PowerShell.

What are e-mail address guidelines?

Email address policies in Exchange Server define the rules by which email addresses are generated for recipients in the organization. These policies are particularly useful in larger organizations where consistency and automation of email assignment are critical. For example, a policy can specify that all users must have an email address in the format vorname.nachname@beispiel.com received.

Create a new e-mail address policy

To create a new e-mail address policy, we use the PowerShell cmdlet New-EmailAddressPolicy. Here is a simple example:

New-EmailAddressPolicy -Name "StandardPolicy" -IncludedRecipients "AllRecipients" -Priority "1" -EnabledEmailAddressTemplates "SMTP:%g.%s@beispiel.com"

In this example:

• -Name specifies the name of the directive.
• -IncludedRecipients definiert, welche Empfänger die Richtlinie betrifft. „AllRecipients“ bedeutet, dass alle Empfänger einbezogen werden.
• -Priority determines the priority of the directive. A lower number means a higher priority.
• -EnabledEmailAddressTemplates specifies the format of the e-mail address. %g stands for the first name and %s for the surname.

Changing an existing e-mail address policy

To change an existing e-mail address policy, we use the cmdlet Set-EmailAddressPolicy. Here is an example of how to change the email format of an existing policy:

Set-EmailAddressPolicy -Identity "StandardPolicy" -EnabledEmailAddressTemplates "SMTP:%s.%g@beispiel.com"

In this example, the format of the e-mail address of vorname.nachname@beispiel.com to nachname.vorname@beispiel.com changed.

Applying an e-mail address policy

After a policy has been created or changed, it must be applied to the recipients. This is done with the cmdlet Update-EmailAddressPolicy:

Update-EmailAddressPolicy -Identity "StandardPolicy"

This cmdlet ensures that the changes to the policy are applied to all affected recipients.

Check the e-mail address guidelines

To display all existing e-mail address policies in your organization, use the cmdlet Get-EmailAddressPolicy:

Get-EmailAddressPolicy | Format-Table Name,Priority,EnabledEmailAddressTemplates

This cmdlet lists all policies together with their names, priorities and e-mail address templates.

Example of a more complex directive

In einigen Fällen möchten Sie möglicherweise eine Richtlinie erstellen, die nur auf bestimmte Empfänger angewendet wird. Hier ein Beispiel, das nur auf Benutzer in der Abteilung „Vertrieb“ angewendet wird:

New-EmailAddressPolicy -Name "SalesPolicy" -IncludedRecipients "MailboxUsers" -ConditionalDepartment "Sales" -Priority "2" -EnabledEmailAddressTemplates "SMTP:%g.%s@vertrieb.beispiel.com"

In this example:

• -IncludedRecipients ist auf „MailboxUsers“ beschränkt, was bedeutet, dass nur Postfachbenutzer betroffen sind.
• -ConditionalDepartment filtert die Empfänger weiter nach der Abteilung „Vertrieb“.

Best Practices

• Make sure that the priorities of your policies are clearly defined to avoid conflicts.
• Test new policies in a controlled environment before applying them across the organization.
• Use descriptive names for your policies to clearly communicate their purpose.

Managing email address policies in Exchange Server is an important task for consistency and automation in your organization. With the PowerShell cmdlets mentioned above, you can efficiently create, modify and manage policies.

Note: This article was written by FranKian artificial intelligence (AI).

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