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Configure Exchange Online to forward E-mail to a FAX service |Part 2#2

The current article is the continuation of the previous article in which we review that subject of the required settings that need to be configured for implementing a scenario in which Exchange Online to forward E-mail to on-Premises FAX.

The demonstration will include two phases.

  1. Creating the required Exchange Online send (outbound) connector that will redirect E-mail message that needs to be sent as FAX to the external FAX service
  2. Checking and verging the Exchange Online send connector and verifies that the E-mail message reach to her destination.

Part 2#2 – Creating Exchange Online outbound connector that will redirect E-mail message to the external FAX service

Login to Exchange admin

  • On the left bar menu, choose – mail flow
  • On the top bar menu, choose – connectors
  • Click on the plus sign
  • Choose – Create a new rule…
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In the From: box choose – Office 365

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In the To: box choose – Your organization’s email server

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In the following screenshot, we can see the “result” and message that inform us that we will need to relate to the destination host using the option of the smart host.

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In this window, will we define a name for the outbound Exchange Online Connector.
There are not unique instructions regarding the name beside the recommendation to make the name informative as much as we can.

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In the next window, we need to choose the option – Only when email messages are sent to these domains

The meaning of this option is that in the next step, we will need to define the domain name which will “activate” the Exchange Online send connector.
Every time that Exchange Online recipient will send an E-mail message that includes the specified domain, the Exchange sends connector will be activated.

Click on the plus sign to add the required domain name

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In our specific scenario, the “destination domain name” is – fakedomain.com

Notice the interesting fact that, in reality, there are no such domain and Exchange Online will not locate the host who represents this “fake” domain by using the stranded MX record lookup.

Instead, each time that an E-mail message will include this domain name (fakedomain.com) the E-mail will be routed to a designated host described as – smart host, by specifying a particular IP Address.

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Click on the Next button

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In this step, we will need to add the public IP address of the host (the FAX service) that represent the domain name – fakedomain.com

Click on the plus icon

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In our specific scenario, the public IP address of the smart host (the FAX service) is 212.25.80.239

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Click Next to move to the Next wizard window

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We will need to uncheck the option – Always use Transport Layer Security (TLS) to secure the connection (recommended).

The reason for – unchecking this option is that most of the time the external FAX service will not support TLS.

Most of the time the recommendation to simplify things in the first phase, meaning – not to implement TLS. Later, if the Exchange Online sends connector will manage to deliver that required mail as we expect, we can go back to the send connector settings and add the requirement for TLS if needed.

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In the following screenshot, we can see the summary of all the configuration setting that was created until now.

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Click Next to move to the Next wizard window

In this step, the Exchange Online connector needs to validate the connection to the destination mail infrastructure.

The Exchange Online feature of “validation” is a nice feature, but could be considered as “problematic” sometimes because the need for using the validation process is mandatory.

Even in the case that the validation process fails, we can complete the task of creating the new Exchange send connector.

In simple words- we will need to complete the validation process to be able to complete the creation if the Exchange Online sends connector.

Click on the plus icon

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In our specific scenario, we will try to send test E-mail message to a destination recipient who uses the E-mail address – Suzan@facedomain.com

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Click on the Validate button

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In the following screenshot, we can see that the validation test completes successfully.
Notice that the term “successfully” only mean that the validating test complete, but it doesn’t mean that the E-mail message was successfully sent to the destination recipient.

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In the following screenshot, we can see that in our scenario, the E-mail test completes successfully.

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If we want to get more details on the mail flow, we can double-click on the log and see the “content” of the log.

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In the following screenshot, we can see “Suzan’s mailbox.” We can see that the Exchange Online sends connector manage to deliver a “test message” to Suzan using the E-mail address –Suzan@fakedomain.com

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o365info Team

o365info Team

This article was written by our team of experienced IT architects, consultants, and engineers.

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