Updates to user data in Active Directory are not visible when the signature is appended by Exclaimer Signature Manager Exchange Edition

Scenario:

After updating user’s Active Directory information, e.g. to reflect a name change or new job title, the changes are not instantly visible the next time a signature is appended to a message sent from the user.

Cause:

There could be more than one explanation of this behaviour, as explained below:

1. The updated user data in Active Directory has not yet replicated to the Global Catalog.

Signature Manager Exchange Edition will query the Global Catalog for the user data specified in Active Directory. If the changes have not yet replicated this will explain why the old user data is still appended to the signature.

The Policy Tester in the Exclaimer console is a good indicator to identify if changes have replicated to the Global Catalog. This is because tests performed using the Policy Tester are queried directly against the Global Catalog, rather than cached data.

More information about the Global Catalog can be found here.

2. Signature Manager Exchange Edition is using cached Active Directory data

Signature Manager Exchange Edition will cache user data from Active Directory for up to 4 hours by default. After this time the cached data will be released and a rebuilt.

Making any small change to the Exclaimer configuration in the Exclaimer console and clicking the Save button will force the cache to be rebuilt instantly.

You can change how long the cache is retained for in the Exclaimer console by navigating to Exclaimer > Signature Manager Exchange Edition > Settings tab > Advanced button > AD Cache tab.

Lowering the time to cache results for will result in Signature Manager Exchange Edition querying Active Directory more frequently.

Note: Performing more queries to the Global Catalog in a shorter time frame could decrease performance. Increasing the frequency will result in greater performance. Additionally, the lowest value the time to cache results can be configured to is 60 minutes.