Case study · Professional services
From 165 email signatures to three core templates
Moving Exclaimer's signature logic into Active Directory for an Australian accounting and advisory firm.
Overview
Signatures that carry legal weight.
For an accounting and advisory firm, an email signature is not decoration. It names the legal entity a person is acting for, and in insolvency work it states the capacity they are acting in: liquidator, trustee, receiver or controller. A wrong signature carries legal and reputational risk.
The firm asked Great Minds, as its Exclaimer partner, to take a setup nobody internally could manage any more and turn it into one the IT team could run with confidence.
The challenge
165 signatures, and no one who understood them.
The firm had 165 signatures in Exclaimer across 14 folders, and 29 of them were not applied to anyone. They had been built one request at a time, and the one staff member who understood the setup had left.
- Mobile was a blind spot: no mobile signature was applied, yet partners needed role-specific signatures on their phones
- Executive assistants copied and pasted partners' signatures by hand
- Banners were built into every signature, so one campaign meant editing them all
- Nobody internally owned the setup or could explain it
The approach
Move the logic into the directory.
Exclaimer now reads who someone is, which entities they represent and which rules apply from Active Directory, instead of holding a separate signature for every variation.
-
Discovery and account audit
Reviewed the Exclaimer account, admin access and billing, and took over account management as the firm's Exclaimer partner.
-
Configuration audit and design
Catalogued all 165 signatures against the firm's service groups and ran workshops with executive assistants and partners. The design set out which signatures to retire, a naming scheme for Active Directory groups and a test matrix.
-
Group-by-group deployment
Moved signature assignment onto Active Directory groups one service line at a time. Each change was tested first, with the previous settings saved for rollback.
-
Rules-based redesign
One master template shows or hides fields based on directory attributes: up to three entity names and roles per person, pronouns, and rules such as hiding a mobile number. Attributes used by payroll and other systems were left untouched.
-
One source of truth
A master spreadsheet holds every user's signature fields. A PowerShell script writes it to on-premises Active Directory, which syncs to Microsoft 365 and Exclaimer.
-
Test and plan the change
Rolled out the Exclaimer Outlook add-in so users pick between their entity signatures, tested out of hours with a dedicated test group, and wrote a change plan with communications, training and a rollback.
Insolvency practitioners sign in a legal capacity, and one partner can need up to nine titles. Those stay as a dedicated set of role signatures, assigned through directory groups and selectable from a phone with subject-line keywords.
The outcome
Signature changes become data changes.
The new design replaces about 130 live signatures with three core templates plus the insolvency set. Who gets which signature is decided by directory groups and attributes, new starters get the right signature from their directory record, and legal disclaimers are applied automatically. Campaign banners now run as Exclaimer campaigns with start and end dates, separate from signatures.
165
Signatures audited across 14 folders
29
Signatures found that were never applied
3
Core templates, plus a set for the insolvency team
1
Master spreadsheet driving every signature
Why it matters
The firm now has a written standard for Exclaimer it can point to when partners ask for exceptions, and a setup its own IT team can run. Fixes that once meant editing dozens of signatures are now a change to one record.
Technologies used
The stack behind the results.
Email signature management
365 and Active DirectoryMicrosoft 365 and Active Directory- PowerShellWrites the master spreadsheet to Active Directory
Related case studies
More IT and infrastructure work.
Let's work together.
Signatures grown out of control, or moving to Exclaimer? Start with a conversation about the outcome you need.