In the following article, we review additional method for preventing to option to reply to…
Set the default Reply option for OWA and set Mail tips for distribution group – Part 5#5
In the current article, I would like to review two different settings that relate to the
subject of Reply All.
1. The default Office 365 OWA reply settings
The first issue is – the default Reply settings of Office 365 OWA mail client.
By default, Office 365 OWA mail client Reply settings configured to use the Reply All option.
Generally speaking, it is recommended to change these default settings to Reply, instead of Reply All.
Changing this default, help our users to avoid from accidentally “hit” the Reply All icon.
2. Using Exchange Online mail tips
The second subject is using the option of – Mail tip.
The Exchange mail tip, is a very nice and useful feature, that we can use for providing Exchange users additional information about a particular event.
In our scenario, we will create a “Mail tip” that will be attached to a particular Exchange distribution group, and will suggest the Exchange user consider twice the option of using Reply All option.
Prevent to option of Reply All | Article Series
The Prevent to option of Reply All article series, including the following three articles:
- Prevent the option of Reply All – Using BCC – Part 1#5
- Prevent the option of Reply All using Distribution Group + Delivery management restrictions – Part 2#5
- Prevent the option of Reply All using Outlook Form – Part 3#5
- Prevent the option of Reply All by using NoReplyAll Outlook Add-In – Part 4#5
- Set the default Reply option for OWA and set Mail tips for distribution group – Part 5#5
Set the default reply option for Office 365 OWA client
The management of the default reply option for Office 365 OWA users, can be implemented on two levels:
- User level – in this option, the users set the default reply option by himself by using the OWA setting’s options menu.
- Administrator level – in this scenario, the Exchange administrator can use the PowerShell command that will be utilized for a particular Office 365 user or for all Office 365 users.
Set the default Reply option for Office 365 OWA client using the OWA Web interface
In this section, we will demonstrate how Office 365 users can set the default reply option of the OWA client.
- In the following screenshot, we can see that the default reply option of Office 365 OWA is
set to – Reply All
- Login to your OWA Office 365 mail account
- Select the setting menu (Gear icon)
- In the section, My app settings, select – mail
- On the left menu bar, choose the menu – Reply settings
We can see that the default setting is – Reply All
- Select – Reply and click Save
In the following screenshot, we can see that now the default reply option of the OWA client was updated to – Reply.
Set the default Reply option for Office 365 OWA client using PowerShell
In this section, we review how to manage the default reply option for OWA Office 365 users using PowerShell.
The main advantages of using PowerShell are
- We can set the required configuration setting with the need no instructs users how to set the necessary reply option.
- When using PowerShell, we can have implemented “Bulk operations.” For example, we can set the default OWA reply settings to “reply” instead of “Reply All” for all the existing Office 365 users.
The PowerShell commands that we use Get-MailboxMessageConfiguration.
For your convenience, I have “Wrapped” all the PowerShell commands that were reviewed in a PowerShell Script named:
Set the default Reply option
You are welcome to download the script and use it.
Using this command, we can view information on the default OWA reply setting and also, update the existing OWA reply setting.
Here are some examples of the PowerShell command that we can use
View information about OWA replies setting of a specific recipient
Get-MailboxMessageConfiguration <User> | select identity, IsReplyAllTheDefaultResponse
Set the OWA reply setting of a specific recipient to reply (instead of the default of – Reply All)
Set-MailboxMessageConfiguration <User> -IsReplyAllTheDefaultResponse $False
View information about OWA replies setting of all Office 365 recipients
Get-Mailbox -RecipientTypeDetails UserMailbox -ResultSize Unlimited | Get-MailboxMessageConfiguration | select identity, IsReplyAllTheDefaultResponse
Set the OWA reply setting of all Office 365 recipients to reply (instead of the default of – Reply All)
Get-Mailbox -RecipientTypeDetails UserMailbox -ResultSize Unlimited | Set-MailboxMessageConfiguration -IsReplyAllTheDefaultResponse $false
Using the OWA reply setting PowerShell script
To be able to simplify the utilization of the PowerShell commands that we use for setting and viewing OWA replay settings, I have created a simple PowerShell script.
In the following screenshot, we can see the look at the PowerShell menu interface.
- Menu 0 – use for starting the remote PowerShell session with Office 365 and Exchange on-Premises. In this step, you will need to provide your Office 365 Global administrator credentials.
- Menu 1,2 – use for setting the reply setting of Office 365 OWA recipient
- Menu 3,4 – for setting the reply setting of Office 365 OWA recipients of all Office 365 recipients (Bulk mode). Please think twice before you use the option of “bulk mode” because the setting is affecting all of your Office 365 users.
- Menu 5 – Export information to three different file types about the reply setting of Office 365 OWA recipients.
In the following screenshot, we can see an example of the file (TXT, CSV, and HTML) that exported to C:\INFO
In the following screenshot, we can see an example of the HTML report
Add a mail tip to Distribution Group that relates to the Reply All option
In this section, we will review a nice option that we can use to raise the awareness of our users to the “Reply All” option.
In reality, the option of “Reply All” as the name Implying, was created for enabling users to Replay to all the recipients who appear in the E-mail message.
As we know, many times the users “hit” the Reply All button without thinking too much or without understanding the consequence.
Using the option of Exchange mail tip, we can cause our users to think twice before they use the Reply All button.
Many times the user uses to hit the Reply All button without noticing that some of the recipients are a distribution group, which can contain tens or hundreds of recipients!
In the following demonstration, we will show how to add a mail tip to a distribution group named – “Human resources.”
- Log in to the Exchange Online admin
- On the left menu bar select – recipients
- On the top menu bar select – groups
- Select the specific Distribution group that you want to edit (in our example the Human resources group)
- In the Distribution group window, select multiple
- In the text, window adds the text that will be used for the mail tip
In our example, we add the following notification.
Before you click on the “Reply All” icon, think again!
Do you really want to Reply All”?
- Click Save
In the following screenshot, we can see an example to E-mail that was sent to the distribution group – Human resources.
When the destination recipient gets the E-mail, the mail tip appears at the top of the E-mail.
The recipient can decide to ignore the “Tip”, but we have we brought to the attention of the recipient whom he should consider if they want to use the Reply All option.
This Post Has 0 Comments