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Introducing the Office 365 Disclaimer Function

Brought to you by Exclaimer

Companies of all sizes are required by law to include a legal disclaimer in all outbound email. This is particularly true in Europe and North America.

Legal disclaimers have been necessary since the early days of email and are designed to reduce liability risks. They involve an organization adding a block of text to all outgoing emails. This text will include information such as the company name, registered business address, and company registration number. It will also be accompanied by a confidentiality notice to protect against legal actions.

An example block of text that represents a standard email disclaimer.

Learn more about email disclaimers in this article.

Using the Office 365 disclaimer function

If you’re looking to apply disclaimers using plain-text, the Office 365 (now Microsoft 365) disclaimer function works perfectly. First, you enter text into the disclaimer rule window. You then turn on the disclaimer in tandem with a Transport Rule (mail flow rule). This is then applied to all messages that leave your organization.

Using the Office 365 disclaimer feature to specify your email disclaimer text.

However, if you want to turn this Office 365 disclaimer into an HTML email signature in Outlook, your options are limited.

You can copy and paste HTML code straight into the Office 365 disclaimer editor and include web-hosted images. However:

You won’t be able to preview how your signature looks
It will end up being added to the end of each message your users send
The images will probably get blocked by many email clients and won't appear on mobile devices
It’s likely the HTML won’t behave as expected (what works in Outlook might not in Gmail or iOS)
Important contact information may not appear as expected

The Office 365 disclaimer function is fairly limited, but still allows you to paste HTML into it.

In essence, the Office 365 disclaimer function is not designed for high-quality HTML email signatures. Its main purpose is really to add legal text only. For many organizations, the native Office 365 disclaimer function is not enough when it comes to email signature management.

However, there is a much easier way to get great email signatures. One that doesn't involve have to add a disclaimer in Office 365 manually.

Choosing Exclaimer to centrally manage Office 365 disclaimers and signatures

With Exclaimer, you design signatures within a user interface that is controlled with a web browser. It is built to be intuitive, allowing you to build templates using a drag-and-drop editor. You customize your design, add your company information, add elements like social media icons, click Save, and you’re done.

You don’t need ANY experience with HTML to create an email signature. There is even a vast library of Office 365 signature templates you can choose from to make the process even easier.

Learn more about our Office 365 disclaimer solution today