Put the firm's signature on everyone's email
Design one signature for the firm, choose which details each person fills in themselves, and send it to Gmail and Outlook.
One design is held for the whole firm, and each person's own name, role and phone number are merged into it. Change the design once and everybody's signature changes.
Gmail and Outlook are reached in completely different ways, and the difference decides what you have to do. Gmail signatures are written straight into each mailbox from here, so a person who has connected Gmail is finished. Outlook cannot be written to at all: Microsoft gives no app a way to set a mailbox's signature, so the signature is inserted by an add-in that a Microsoft 365 administrator installs for the firm. Until that add-in reaches somebody's Outlook, their email goes out unsigned and nothing in Outlook says why.
On this page
Design the signature
Open Settings, then Email signature. Only an admin can change the Firm branding part.
Choose Structured to build the signature from the fields below, or Custom HTML to design the whole thing yourself. Structured is the one to start with.
Pick a Layout, set the Brand colour, Font and size, and click Upload logo. Leave the logo empty to use the firm's main logo instead.
Fill in Firm name, Website, Main phone and Address, add any Links (LinkedIn, book a meeting, etc.), then click Save branding.
Live preview on the right updates as you type, and renders the same way Gmail and Outlook will.
Choose which details each person fills in
Still under Firm branding, each field has a control reading Who gets this field in their signature.
Set a field to a Fixed value for every staff member when it must never differ, or leave it for each person to fill in.
Use Pull this from an existing Entities field instead where the value already lives on somebody's staff record, so it is maintained in one place rather than two.
Current records shows what each person currently has in that field, so you can see who has left one blank before you send anything.
Fill in your own details
Under Your details, add your Display name, Job title, Direct phone and Mobile, and click Upload photo if the layout uses one.
A field reading Set by your admin is fixed for the firm and cannot be changed here.
Send it to Gmail
In the Gmail section, click Push to all connected users to write the signature into the mailbox of everybody who has connected Gmail. Each row reports Pushed, Skipped or Failed.
Where Push to everyone, no reconnect needed says domain-wide delegation is set up, click Push to everyone instead. That reaches every staff member without anybody connecting Gmail first.
Install the Outlook add-in
This is done once, by a Microsoft 365 administrator, and it is what makes Outlook work at all.
Go to admin.microsoft.com, then Settings, Integrated apps, Upload custom apps.
Choose Upload manifest file (.xml) from device and give it the manifest file linked in the Outlook section of the settings tab. The admin centre's upload box takes XML and refuses the JSON manifest, answering "Upload failed. Please check the manifest file and try again."
Assign it to everyone, or to a group, rather than to named people. Assigning named people is the most common reason one person has a signature and the rest of the firm does not, and nobody is told they were left out.
Deploying can take 24 to 72 hours to reach everyone's Outlook.
Check who is actually getting it
Scroll to Who is getting a signature, which an admin sees at the bottom of the tab. The counts across the top are how many people the firm has, how many have connected Gmail or Outlook, and how many have an Outlook add-in that has actually asked us for a signature.
A row reading Outlook add-in never seen means that person's Outlook has never contacted us. Assign them the add-in in the Microsoft 365 admin centre, then have them close Outlook, reopen it and start a message.
A row reading Outlook reports a different address means their mailbox announces an alias that is not the address held here. Their lookup can miss because of it, so add that address to their record.
Click Refresh after somebody tries again, rather than reloading the page.
Keep one company's signature on somebody in several companies
A mailbox holds one signature but can be connected to several companies, so whichever company pushed last wins, and switching company appears to change a person's signature.
Under Applies to, leave Everyone to pin nobody, which is the default and what nearly every firm wants.
Choose Nominated and pick the staff, teams or roles whose signature should always come from this company, wherever they are working.
What each row on 'Who is getting a signature' means
| Term | What it means |
|---|---|
| Sent from here | This person has connected Gmail, and the signature is written into their mailbox from Diract. Nothing further is needed and no add-in is involved. |
| Last seen, with a date | This person's Outlook add-in asked for their signature on that date and was given one. The add-in is installed and working. |
| Asked on a date, no signature to send | Their Outlook add-in is working, but there was no signature to give it. Check that they have filled in Your details, and that the firm's signature is saved. |
| Outlook add-in never seen | Their Outlook has never contacted us, so nothing can insert a signature for them. The add-in has not reached them: assign it to them in the Microsoft 365 admin centre, then have them reopen Outlook. |
| Outlook reports a different address | Their mailbox announces an alias rather than the address held here. It is worth adding that address to their record, because a lookup on an unknown alias finds nobody and returns no signature. |