Signatures appended to Out of Office emails are not populated with Active Directory user data

Relevant Product: Signature Manager Exchange Edition

Scenario

You have enabled the Out of Office (OOF) feature in Outlook. When your OOF reply is sent, Exclaimer Signature Manager Exchange Edition appends a signature, but that signature only includes static content (for example images, prefixes, disclaimer text and so on). Any user-specific content (that is, content that is pulled from the Active Directory field) is not populated.

Reason

This issue occurs if the signature is applied via a policy that has the Populate template {fields} using SENDER data instead of FROM option enabled.

You can locate this option in the Signature Options tab when the signature policy is selected.
Example:

The most likely reason for enabling this option is to ensure that signatures are applied correctly in situations where a shared mailbox is used. For more information, see How to append the sender’s signature to a message that is sent from a shared mailbox.

OOF replies are sent from a Microsoft Exchange system account on behalf of the actual user. So, when Exclaimer Signature Manager Exchange Edition appends a signature, it has no way of knowing who the actual user is, therefore any Active Directory data fields remain blank.

Resolution 

To ensure that signatures are correctly applied for OOF emails, you need to disable the Populate template {fields} using SENDER data instead of FROM option for the associated signature policy.

If you do not use shared mailboxes, this is a straightforward approach. However, if you have been using this option to handle signatures for emails sent from shared mailboxes, then this solution needs a little more work.

We recommend you create a new signature policy, specifically for OOF type emails - in doing so, you do not need to change your existing policies, so your solution for shared mailboxes is not compromised.

You can define the new signature policy using the The Subject contains specific words or phrases condition then specifying a text to be matched as Automatic Reply (OOF emails are typically prefixed with ‘Automatic Reply’).
Example: