Email Signatures

Introduction to CloudM Email Signatures

The CloudM Email Signatures module gives you total control over your domain’s email signatures, allowing you to easily curate a library of bespoke signatures, quickly assign them to your Organizational Units and Smart Teams, and even schedule when the signature is displayed.

On Google domains, you can allow users to have different signatures for different domain aliases depending on which address they send the email as. Users may want to use different domain aliases to represent different brands within your company / organization.

Enabling CloudM Email Signatures for an Administrator

To give a user within CloudM Automate the ability to see the Signatures section, and create, edit, assign and delete email signatures, you will need to:

• Have the module enabled for your domain by CloudM.
• Add the following permissions to a role and assign to the required user:
  • Automate Email Signatures
  • View and Edit Email Signatures Library
  • Edit Emails
  • Edit Predefined Extra Information
  • Edit Predefined Tags

When the Administrator logs in (or refreshes their browser, if already logged in), they will see the Signatures feature in the Navigation Menu on the left side of the screen. Selecting the option will display the following sub menu options:

• Email Signature Library - You can view your current signatures and create new signatures.
• Email Signature Management - You can assign permanent and / or scheduled signatures (from your Email Signature Library) to specific Organizational Units or Smart Teams. You can also set whether an Organizational Unit will inherit the Email Signature from it's Parent OU.

Create a new Email Signature

To create a new Email Signature:

1. Select Signatures from the Navigation Menu,
2. Select Email Signature Library from the Sub Menu,
3. Select the Create New Signature option.
4. Add a bespoke name in the Signature Name field, between 2 and 50 characters long. 
   • If you enter a Signature Name that you have already used or outside of the character length guidelines, the border of the field will turn Red and an error message will be displayed.
   • If you enter a valid Signature Name, the border of the field will turn Green and you will also see a Green tick.
5. Next, create your Email Signature in the Content field,
   • If you do not know where to start, select the Templates option to see a range of premade templates and select one that looks closest to the signature you want to create.
   • Use the Add Variable list to add information that is gathered from CloudM Automate profiles. Using variables is a great way to make sure that information is kept up to date.
     • For example, you can use the Job Title variable ($orgJobTitle) to make sure an employee's new position in your company is displayed automatically, or the Company Telephone variable ($phoneCompany) to update the new number on all signatures, whilst only updating in one place.
     • You can use the Profile Photo variable ($personalPhoto) to add a profile image to your signature. Please note, this image is pulled from your Google Profile image. 
   • If you are using CloudM Automate for a Google domain, you can also add Conditional Formatting. 
6. Once you are happy with the Email Signature, select Create Signature to save the changes.
7. The new signature will now be listed on the Email Signature Library screen.
   • To add a tag to the signature, select the signature and click on Actions > Tags. You can apply any existing tags or add new tags.

Edit existing Email Signatures

To edit an existing Email Signature:

1. Select Signatures from the Navigation Menu,
2. Select Email Signature Library from the Sub Menu,
3. Find the Email Signature that you want to edit from the list and click on it to prompt the slide out screen to be displayed for the specific signature.
   • If you know the name of the Signature, enter it in the Search Email Signature field to filter the results within the list.
4. On the slide out screen, select Edit Signature.
5. Make your changes to the signature and select Update Signature. You will now be presented with a confirmation screen showing the Organizational Units and / or Smart Teams that the update will affect. Select Update Signature again to confirm.

Delete an existing Email Signature

If an email signature template in your library is currently not assigned, you can permanently delete it from the library.

To delete a signature:

1. Select an Email Signature from the Email Signature Library,
2. On the Profile slide out screen, select Actions > Delete,
3. On the pop up section, click Delete.
   • This option will be disabled if the signature is in use, and the pop up will show you where it is currently assigned.
4. The signature will now be removed from the library and the action can be viewed in your Logs.

Add a tag to an Email Signature

Tags can help you to organize and search for groups of signatures. This feature is ideal for situations where you need to apply a range of bespoke signatures to different Organizational Units and / or Smart Teams.

If you are on a Google domain, you may want to apply bespoke signatures for a user's domain aliases (e.g. if a user wants to send an email using their @brandB email address rather than their primary @brandA email address, they can specify a different email signature to be displayed).

To add a tag:

1. Select an Email Signature from the Email Signature Library,
2. On the Profile slide out screen, select Actions > Tags,
3. On the Edit tags pop up screen, enter text in to the blank field. As you add more text, the list of existing tags that you can choose from will also be filtered. If you add a unique tag name, you will see a green tick at the end of the field.
4. Select Add.
5. The tag will be added under the Tags section.
6. You can add multiple tags to a signature and you can also delete a tag by clicking on the appropriate Delete icon.
7. Select Save to confirm any changes.

Assign a default Signature to an Organizational Unit or Smart Team

To assign a signature:

1. Select Signatures from the Navigation Menu,
2. Select Email Signature Management from the Sub Menu,
3. Find and select the required Organizational Unit or Smart Team from the lists.
4. If you are assigning to an OU, decide whether to enable the Inherit signature from parent option to use the same signature as the parent OU, or disable the option to select a specific signature. Enable the Signature Sync Active option to allow the changes you make to be synced to users, or disable to save any changes as a draft without applying to users.
5. If you are assigning to a Smart Team, make sure the Enabled option is enabled.
6. If you want the signature to be associated to a domain alias rather than the Primary Email Address for the user, click on the drop down menu and select the domain that you want to add the signature to. 
   • As well as Primary email address, you will also see the main email address for your domain listed (as the second option in the list). This signature will be applied when the user has an email alias that uses the same domain name. For example, John.Smith@maincompany.io has the alias address of Technical.Content@maincompany.io. 
7. Under the Default Signature tab, you will see the current Signature that is assigned to the OU or Smart Team. If you want to change it, click on Select Signature.
8. Browse the list of your available Email Signatures (or use the Search field to filter the list) and select the signature you want to assign.
   • You can change which users information will be displayed in the previews in the Preview User field. This is useful as some profiles might have more information added to them which may not appear on other signatures.
   • You can use the Tags drop down menu to quickly search for all signatures that have a specific tag associated.
9. The selected signature will now appear under the Default Signature tab.
10. Select Save changes to confirm.

Schedule a Signature for an Organizational Unit or Smart Team

You can schedule multiple signatures to replace the default signature at different times of the year for a specific time period. For example, you might want to display a bespoke signature for employees attending an Exhibition or Conference, promote your latest product release, webinar or campaign, or simply display seasonal signatures to celebrate Christmas or Ramadan. 

Where Domain Aliases are present (on Google domains only), please note that you can only schedule signatures for the primary domain.

Signatures that are scheduled for the same OU or Smart Team cannot have dates that overlap. Please note that dates on the calendar all relate to GMT.

To schedule a signature:

1. Select Signatures from the Navigation Menu,
2. Select Email Signature Management from the Sub Menu,
3. Find and select the required Organizational Unit or Smart Team from the lists.
4. If you are assigning to an OU, decide whether to enable the Inherit signature from parent option to use the same signature as the parent OU, or disable the option to select a specific signature. Enable the Signature Sync Active option to allow the changes you make to be synced to users, or disable to save any changes as a draft without applying to users.
5. If you are assigning to a Smart Team, make sure the Enabled option is enabled.
6. Under the Scheduled Signatures tab, you will see a list of the signatures already scheduled for the OU or Smart Team, displayed in chronological order.
   • Under each preview, you will see the dates that the signature is scheduled to run between and the option to Remove the signature from the schedule or Edit the dates that it will be shown.
7. Select the Add Email Signature option and then click on Select Signature. 
8. Browse the list of your available Email Signatures (or use the Search field to filter the list) and select the signature you want to assign.
   • You can change which users information will be displayed in the previews in the Preview User field. This is useful as some profiles might have more information added to them which may not appear on other signatures.

You have the option to add Preferred Pronouns to the Email Signature template by adding the AddressMeAs variable. The Preferred Pronoun displayed will default to the pronouns used for the Gender of the user, as set in their Profile, for Male (he / him/ his) and Female (she / her / hers). If the Gender specified on the Profile is set to Other, the user will be presented with an Address Me As field in the profile (as well as a field where they can specify their gender), where they can choose which pronouns they would prefer to use, including "they / them / theirs".

9. Click in the Choose Email Signature Date field and use the calendar to select the start and end date for the signature.
10. Select Add.
    • If the dates contradict with the dates of another assigned campaign, you will see an error message.
11. The signature will now appear in the list of scheduled signatures, positioned in the chronological order that it will be displayed.
12. Select Save Changes to confirm.

You can add a Google Drive hosted image to a signature. Please see the Use an image in MyDrive in your signature article for more details.

Signature Profile screen - Details, Usage and Actions

Clicking on any of your signatures in the Email Signature Library list (Signatures > Email Signature Library) will prompt a profile screen to slide out from the right side of the screen.

You will see:

• The name of the signature and a preview
• An Edit Signature button 
• An Actions drop down menu that allows you to:
  • Preview - See what the signature will look like on desktop and mobile, and choose different user profiles to see what their signature would look like if the specific template was assigned.
  • Rename - You can rename the signature. Please note that it must be a unique signature name between 2 and 50 characters in length.
  • Duplicate - You can create a copy of the current signature. This is helpful if you only need to make subtle changes to a signature (like adding a campaign banner or personal phone number) but want to keep your branding and formatting consistent.
  • Edit Tags - You can add, edit and delete the tags that are associated to the signature. Tags can help you to organize your templates (e.g. "Seasonal" could be used to help you find all the signatures associated to annual holidays and events, whereas "Sales Campaign" can help you find signatures that are associated to campaigns that you are running).
    • If you are on a Google domain, Tags can also be used to split signatures up for domain aliases / brands. 
  • Delete - You can delete the Email Signature template from the library. This action will permanently remove the template and is only enabled if the template is not currently assigned to an Organizational Unit or Smart Team. 
• A Details tab
  • Created by
  • Created
  • Last updated by
  • Last updated
  • Associated Tags.
• A Usage tab
  • The OU and Smart Teams that the signature is assigned to
  • Whether the signature is the default for the specified OU or Smart Team
    • On Google domains, you can also see if the signature is the default signature for a domain alias, when used by a user in the OU or Smart Team. 
  • If it is a scheduled signature, you will see the date period that the signature will be displayed.

Sync Email Signatures

Email signatures are automatically synced every 24 hours.  Syncs take place via a queue mechanism so we are unable to give an exact time for the sync to take place for each domain.

1. Using the left hand menu, click on the Directory option,
2. Click on Org Units, as required,
3. Select the required Organizational Unit,
4. On the information panel, select Actions to display the drop down menu and click on Sync Email Signature.

If you make changes to the email signature of a Smart Team and want to manually sync it to users within the group, you will need to choose either the root Organizational Unit or an OU that includes all the required users and run the process above. This will sync the email signatures for all users within the OU, applying the email signature applied to the Smart Team, as priority, to any users it is relevant to.

Check a User's Email Signature

1. Using the left hand menu, click on the Directory option,
2. Click on Users,
3. Select the required user,
4. On the information panel, select Actions to display the drop down menu and click on View Email Signature.