Hi,
I'd like to discuss a feature request regarding a central mail-signature
distribution for SOGo web interface, Thunderbird (with SOGo Integrator)
and Outlook.
Some people may ask, why would you do that?
Short answer: The uniform appearance is a matter of "Corporate
Identity", which is very important for many companies. And it simplifies
admins job, too.
Some companies even use mail signatures for advertisement or
announcements (e.g. new products, exhibitions, ...).
In many countries companies are forced by law that their e-mails and
their business letters contain legal information about the company like
CEO, members of the board, address, tax-ID, Commercial Register Number,
legal entity number and so on.
Therefore a central management is necessary.
And for Inverse, it's an sales argument.
To explain how this could work, let me introduce the discontinued
freeware "Outlook Signature":
Outlook Signature is an Windows executable which is executed by the
user-logon-script.
It takes templates, fills in custom user data (name, phone nr., mail
address, job title, ...) and places the signature files in the
appropriate location where Outlook expects them. Even if the user is
allowed to change the signatures, they will get overwritten by the logon
script at next boot.
Feature list:
Generate any number of signatures based on custom templates (HTM, RTF
and TXT),
Use of data from any database source,
Using data from the Active Directory in a Windows Server environment (+
LDAP),
Automatic distribution of all signature files,
Automatic setting of Outlook signature options,
Set different signatures for new messages and for replies,
Support for Outlook 2000, XP, 2003, 2007,
Automatic detection of the version of Outlook,
Central configuration via INI file (s),
Debug mode
Old Website:
German (from Internet Archive):
https://web.archive.org/web/20130224064509/http://zerbit.de/projekte/outlooksignature.aspx
Google Translate English (from Internet Archive):
http://translate.google.de/translate?hl=de&sl=de&tl=en&u=https%3A%2F%2Fweb.archive.org%2Fweb%2F20130224064509%2Fhttp%3A%2F%2Fzerbit.de%2Fprojekte%2Foutlooksignature.aspx
The download is still available from the Internet Archive:
https://web.archive.org/web/20130224064509/http://zerbit.de/download/outlooksignature1902.zip
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For SOGo this could be designed as follows:
An SOGo administrator creates signature templates (HTM, RTF and TXT) and
saves them preferably to a database.
SOGo server provides a service where Thunderbird Integrator and an
possible executable like "Outlook Signature" gets the updated
signatures. This service should fill in the data from the databases into
the templates - server side! Therefore the user source database should
get extended.
Maybe there could be a additional possibility that an user can edit
specific data fields for his signature in the Web Interface and
Thunderbird Integrator - controlled by ACLs.
Or a mechanism where a user can make an direct request (not by e-mail)
to the admin to change specific fields like job title or phone number.
Currently we are using different signatures for people with and without
mobile phone numbers. The sales people also use different signatures.
But not every user should be able to use every available signature.
------------------------------------
What do other people here and at Inverse think about this?
Kind regards
T.B.
--
users@sogo.nu
https://inverse.ca/sogo/lists
