Email Address Policies in Office 365
Read time 4 minutes
Many businesses find it imperative to transition their data to the cloud due to its cost-efficiency. Exchange Online (Office 365) is often the initial choice for this migration process. There are various motivations for opting for Office 365, including the need to upgrade from a previous version of Exchange.
Well, whatever be the reason behind migration, it has been noticed that many users often face multiple issues or make mistakes while migrating to Office 365, which needs to be resolved. Amongst various issues, the most complicated issue is email address policy.
While many assume that email address policies are primarily essential for large organizations, this is not always the case. It can be a fundamental requirement for any business, regardless of its size or the scale of its IT team.
Today, we will discuss Exchange email address policies and why they are essential when conducting a migration to the cloud.
According to Microsoft, an email address policy establishes the guidelines for generating email addresses for recipients within your Exchange organization. Additionally, the email policies for Exchange Server 2010, 2013, 2016, and 2019 share similarities right from the outset. Now, you might be wondering why email address policies are employed during a migration to the cloud.
An organization can possess either a single domain or multiple domains, and users may receive their emails through various addresses. However, with the email address policy in place, you can efficiently manage this email flow. The SMTP domains eligible for use in email address policies are established as accepted domains, and they are automatically configured following migrations.
An email address policy generally consists of three essential components:
While in on-premises Exchange Server, you can utilize email address policies to automatically assign the preferred email addresses to users, this functionality is not available in Office 365 (Exchange Online). It’s worth noting that although this feature may be visible in the Exchange Admin Center (EAC), it is not functional in the Office 365 environment.
It is believed that this feature omission is aimed at enhancing security in the cloud environment. However, Office 365 users often encounter challenges when attempting to update the email addresses of Exchange Online users who have mailboxes exclusively in the cloud. Consequently, many users resort to employing PowerShell scripts to address this issue. Therefore, when migrating mailboxes to the cloud, it’s crucial to be cognizant of these limitations.
Note: When you are using the Hybrid configuration, the address policies are updated automatically for every on-premises user.
This is a labor-intensive process that demands meticulous attention and precision. Manual migration methods can prove challenging, especially when conducting selective migrations. Additionally, there is a risk of data loss during the migration process.
However, if you choose a third-party Migration tool like then Kernel Office 365 Migration, many of these difficulties can be avoided.
This utility serves as a valuable tool for migrating Exchange/Office 365 mailboxes with ease. It streamlines the migration process, offering rapid Office 365 tenant-to-tenant migration and incorporating various features such as selective migration and incremental migration. Moreover, the software boasts a straightforward and user-friendly workflow.
While the email address policy in Exchange Server proves highly beneficial during migrations, it’s worth noting that this feature is not operational in Exchange Online (Office 365). The lack of an email address policy is just one of the challenges encountered during the migration of Office 365 data. Many of the hurdles associated with manual migration can be circumvented by opting for a third-party tool designed for Office 365 migrations.
