Exchange Server 2019 is the most recent release of the successful email messaging solution, introduced by Microsoft in 1996. Since the early days of the product supported a single primary email address only. The primary email address is the sender’s address when a user composes and sends a new email message. A mailbox can have multiple email addresses to receive messages for but only one so-called reply address.
But the limitation is not valid anymore.
A recent build of the Exchange Server 2019 Cumulative Update 1 released to VLSC contains a new feature called Multi-Reply Addresses.
This new feature is beneficial when a single user sends email messages to multiple companies. Think of a business owner who is responsible for two or more companies. In the past, it was required to configure a mailbox account per the primary email address used as a reply address. Such a configuration resulted not only on multiple inboxes but also in multiple calendars and contact folders.
The new Multi-Reply Addresses feature of Exchange Server 2019 provides a much better solution. Moreover, it is a CEO-safe solution.
How it works
After enabling the multi-reply feature in your Exchange Organization, the new functionality is available in Exchange Admin Center and Exchange Management Shell.
You can add additional reply addresses when you edit the email address properties using the Edit User Mailbox dialogue of an existing mailbox.
- Click Add reply address button to add an additional textbox to add a new reply address
- Select the checkbox to ensure that all addresses are used as available reply addresses
- Click OK to save the changes
The following screenshot illustrates the steps.
When you close the Edit User Mailbox dialogue the additonal reply addresses and the status are displayed in the recipient list view and the detail pane.
The following screenhot shows how the reply addresses are displayed in the list view and how the status is displyed in the detail pane.
You can verify the updated proxyAddresses Active Directory attibute using ADSIEdit or the Attribute Viewer of the ADUC MMC.
When you compose a new email message using Outlook on the Web, the From selector is displayed automatically. You can select one of the configured reply email addresses as the sender address.
You can configure separate email signatures for each available reply address.
A user can select Options – Mail – Email signature to open the Email signature form. The form provides a new option to set a different email siganture for each reply address.
This is a really exciting new feature.
How to enable the Multi-Reply feature
You can enable the new multi-reply function using the following new Exchange Cmdlet:
# Enable Multi-Reply functionality in Exchange Server 2019Enable-SmtpMultiReply # Disable Multi-Reply functionality in Exchange Server 2019Disable-SmtpMultiReply -CleanupPrimarySmtp -Force
When disabling the Multi-Reply feature a all but one primary SMTP address is converted to a legacy proxy smtp address.
You need to be assigned permissions before you can run this cmdlet. It is required to be assigned to the Elevated Exchange Organization Management role.
Things to come
- The multi-reply or multi-primary email address engine does not support email address policies. You must activate and manage additional address manually using the Exchange Admin Center or Exchange Management Shell.
- Another interesting feature on the roadmap is the feature to include the management of multi-reply address to the users‘ mailbox policy. This option will allow end users to edit configured reply-addresses on their own.
- Outlook 2019 support for this feature. It’s currently availabke in on-premises Outlook on the Web only.
I do not know if the new feature had been exposed accidentally, but the on-premises version of the Exchange Server 2019 benefits from this new feature. This is a true differentiator to the cloud-based service of Exchange Online.
Links
Enjoy Exchange Server 2019!