Signature updates are not being deployed to users

Scenario:

Using Signature Manager Outlook Edition, you have made some amendments to a signature template and/or signature policies, but those changes are not visible to users in Microsoft Outlook or Outlook Web Access.

Solution:

In this situation, we advise the following checks:

• The policy tester
• The Exclaimer event log
• ExSync.exe

The policy tester

The Exclaimer console has a built-in Policy Tester, which is helpful to determine which signature policies should or should not be applied to users specified in the signature policy conditions.

To access the Policy Tester, open the Exclaimer console and select the Policy Tester branch in the navigation tree. Then, specify the user you want to perform the test as, and click the Run Test button to see which policies are applied, and why:

If the Policy Tester shows no policies or the wrong policy is applied, review the conditions and exceptions specified for the policy and ensure that the user matches these in order to trigger signature deployment.

The Exclaimer event log

If the Policy Tester shows that a user should have a policy applied but no signature is deployed to Microsoft Outlook on that user’s computer, use the Exclaimer event log to confirm that the signature for the user has been deployed to the signature deployment share successfully.

To access the Exclaimer Event Log, open the Exclaimer console and click the Status link in the Actions pane:

The Windows Event Viewer is displayed, with the Exclaimer branch selected:

Here, an event is logged for each user specified in the signature policy conditions. The event will detail which signature policies apply for the user, whether the signature was deployed successfully, or if an error occurred processing the user’s signature.

ExSync.exe

In order for users to retrieve signatures from the signature deployment share for use (in Microsoft Outlook) on their computer, the user must run ExSync.exe.

The ExSync.exe file can be found in the signature deployment share. If you are not sure where this is, click the Signature Creation tab for the appropriate Signature Deployment Policy and check the Create the signature in this network share field at the bottom of the window:

Typically, ExSync.exe should be deployed via a logon script or GPO, so that it runs and checks for signatures updates when the user first logs on. ExSync.exe runs as a process for the logged on user. If it is running, it will be visible as a running process in the Windows Task Manager:

If it is not visible here, signatures will not be updated until it is run. You may need to investigate why the logon script or GPO is not deploying ExSync.exe to the users at logon. For information about deploying ExSync.exe automatically, see:

• Deploying via Group Policy Object (GPO)
• Deploying via a logon script

After running ExSync.exe (from the signature deployment share) an event will be logged in the Event Log on the user’s computer. The event will indicate that either the signature was updated successfully, or that it failed to update: