Guide – Advanced eMail Routing in Microsoft Office 365

For many organisations the use of additional email handling services for compliance (metadata cleansing or advanced archiving) or simply cosmetics (adding email stationary) is a requirement. This How-To provides a quick heads up and signpost to resources that will I hope answer many of your questions.

Also available as a PDF download at – ‘NRG Advanced eMail routing with Microsoft Office365 Guide‘

For many SME (Small Medium Enterprise) and even large enterprise customers the challenge of a new set of skills to integrate with Office3365 can be a barrier to adoption of real benefits from this platform. For many scenarios we are dealing with technology professionals who have deep expertise with, or attachment to, on-premise computing for whom this can be a blocker.

In fact Office 365 like the majority of Microsoft products is highly interoperable despite what some sectors of the technical community may believe. The following focuses on how to enable Advanced Email Flow Scenarios in Microsoft Office365.

Microsoft Office 365 uses Microsoft Forefront Online Protection for Exchange (FOPE) providing you with the ability to implement several advanced email flow scenarios. These scenarios can be extended with the use of Microsoft Windows Azure, but that is beyond the scope of this Guide. Some Microsoft resources that expand on these scenarios can be found at:

· Overview of Complex Mail Flow Scenarios in FOPE

· Outbound Smart Host Scenario for FOPE Connectors

· Configure Messaging with a Regulated Partner and Forced TLS in FOPE

· FOPE 11.1 New Features

To use FOPE fully the caveat is you have to be subscribed to the Microsoft Office 365 for enterprises, Live@edu, or former Business Productivity Online Suite (BPOS) dedicated cloud hosting service versions of Microsoft Office 365.

Remember we are now into Cloud Software as a Service (SaaS) and this is the world of subscription based consumption. As with the genre of Cloud product solution managed service models Microsoft Office 365 has a tiered structure that provides increasing functionality at variable price points.

The FOPE functionality likewise varies depending on the Office365 subscription. This is unlikely to be an issue with the class of customer looking for advanced services/product email integration as they are likely to be in at the Enterprise Plan levels but please start here to check if you are subscribed at the right level:

· ‘Feature Set Comparison for FOPE Deployments’

Assuming you are at the right level, or would like to check that you can do what you want before upgrading to the right Office365 subscription level I would suggest looking at FOPE user guide at:

· ‘Using FOPE Connectors to Configure Advanced Email Flow Scenarios’

And last but not least assuming all the above is in order and you now want to actually access FOPE for your Office365 subscription then you want to head over to the FOPE administration URL at:

· FOPE Administration Portal

If you have not yet set-up a user account on FOPE, don’t panic, there is a link from your Office 365 Outlook Web Access Account (assuming you have administrative rights for your Office 365 subscription). Or through the Office 365 Admin Portal by following these simple steps:

Step 1 – Login

Login to your Office 365 Admin Portal with an account which has administrative rights at https://login.microsoftonline.com/

Step 2. Exchange Management

Under the Admin Overview link on the left you will be presented with links in the main window with links to manage Office 365 server systems. Click on the ‘Manage’ link under the Exchange option.

Step 3. Manage Organisation

Make sure you are managing your organisation and not yourself individually. In Exchange Management at the top left of the screen mouse over the ‘Manage My Organisation’ menu item and you will get a pop-out that will give you menu options, select ‘My Organisation’:

Step 4. Mail Control

Once you have confirmed you are managing your organisation select ‘Mail Control’ from the left hand menu.

Step 5. FOPE Access

Once you are into the ‘Mail Control’ section you will see on the right ‘Additional Security Settings’ and a box with a text link in it ‘Configure IP safelisting, perimeter message tracing and email policies’. Something like the image below:

Step 6. FOPE Portal

Clicking on the link as directed above will take you into the FOPE administrative portal where you have all the glory of the FOPE reporting and administrative tools.

Please review the FOPE help is you are not familiar with this environment BEFORE you start making changes.

NB:

Remember you are on a subscription service now and new features and updates are coming online on a regular basis, please ensure you keep up to date so new features do not impact any external services you may be linking into.