Actions for Transport Rules

Applies to: Office 365 for enterprises, Live@edu

Rules, also known as transport rules control the flow of e-mail messages in an organization. Actions specify what you want the rule to do to the messages.

By default, when you create a new rule, you select from an abbreviated list of the most commonly-used actions. If you want to apply more than one action, click More Options to see the complete list of actions.

Let's take a look at the actions you can apply to a new rule or an existing rule at Manage My Organization > Mail Control > Rules.

Moderate	Add recipients	Modify the message subject
Redirect	Add disclaimers	Apply rights protection
Block	Modify message properties

Moderate

Note   If you select one of the Moderate actions, you can't select any other actions for the rule.

Action	Description
Forward the message for approval... to these people	Select the users or groups from the shared address book who must approve the message before it's sent to the recipients. If multiple users or group members are specified for approval, only one of them must approve before the message is sent to the recipients.
Forward the message for approval... to the sender's manager	The manager that's defined on the sender's mailbox must approve the message before it's sent to the recipients. If there isn't a manager defined on the sender's mailbox, the action is skipped.

Top of page

Redirect

Action	Description
Redirect message to...	Select recipients from the shared address book who should receive the message instead of the message recipient. The original message recipient doesn't receive a copy of the message.

Top of page

Block

Note   If you select one of the Block actions, you can't select any other actions for the rule.

Action	Description
Block the message... Reject the message and include the explanation	The message isn't delivered to the recipient, and the sender receives a non-delivery report (NDR) with the text you specify.
Block the message... Delete the message without notifying anyone	The message isn't delivered to the recipient, and the sender doesn't receive an NDR.

Top of page

Add recipients

Action	Description
Add recipients... to the Bcc field	Select recipients from the shared address book to add to the blind carbon copy (Bcc) field of the message. The message is delivered to the original recipients and the new recipients.
Add recipients... to the To field	Select recipients from the shared address book to add to the To field of the message. The message is delivered to the original recipients and the new recipients.
Add recipients... to the Cc field	Select users or groups from the address book to add to the carbon copy (Cc) field of the message. The message is delivered to the original recipients and the new recipients.
Add recipients... add the sender's manager as a recipient type	The manager that's defined on the sender's mailbox is added as a recipient. If you add the sender's manager to the To, Cc, or Bcc fields, the original recipients and the sender's manager receive the message. If there isn't a manager defined on the sender's mailbox, the action is skipped.

Top of page

Add disclaimers

These actions add text you specify to the body of the message. You also select a fallback action that defines what you want to do if the disclaimer can't be applied to the message. Here are your options:

• Wrap   The original message is enclosed, or "wrapped", in a new message, and the disclaimer is inserted into the body of the new message.
  Note   Any subsequent transport rules are applied to the new message, not the original message. Therefore, you should make sure that a rule that adds a disclaimer with the Wrap fallback action always runs last.
• Ignore   The original message is delivered without the disclaimer.
• Reject   The message isn't delivered. The sender receives an NDR that explains why the message wasn't delivered.

To avoid repeatedly applying the same message disclaimer to message replies, you can add an exception that looks for the disclaimer text in the body of the message.

Action	Description
Apply a disclaimer to the message... Append a disclaimer	Add the specified text to the end of the message.
Apply a disclaimer to the message... Prepend a disclaimer	Add the specified text to the beginning of the message.

Top of page

Modify the message properties

Action	Description
Modify message properties... Remove a message header	Specify the fields in the message header you want to remove. The message header is a collection of required and optional header fields in the message. Examples of header fields are To, From, Cc, and Bcc. Official header fields are defined in RFC 2822. Unofficial header fields start with "X-" and are known as X-headers.
Modify message properties... Set a message header	Specify the fields in the message header you want to modify, and the text values.
Modify message properties... Apply a message classification	Select the message classification that you want applied to the message. For more information, see Understanding Message Classifications.
Modify message properties... Set the spam confidence level (SCL)	Select the SCL that you want applied to the message. The SCL rating is a number between 0 and 9. A higher SCL rating indicates that a message is more likely to be spam.

Top of page

Modify the message subject

Action	Description
Prepend the subject of the message with...	Specify the text that you want added to the beginning of the subject field.

Top of page

Apply rights protection

Note   This action is not available in all cloud-based organizations.

Action

Description

Apply rights protection to the message with...

Select the Active Directory Rights Management Services (AD RMS) policy templates that you want to apply to messages. AD RMS policy templates come from an on-premises server running Microsoft Active Directory Rights Management Services (AD RMS). For example, you may have an AD RMS policy template that doesn't allow users to forward or print messages. If AD RMS policy templates are available, you select them from the drop-down list. For more information, see Set Up and Manage Information Rights Management in Exchange Online.

Top of page