Using Email Capture With Microsoft 365

This article Describes how to move to Microsoft 365 (formally Office 365) for use with the Virtual Cabinet (VC) email capture processes (CcMail or the Capture Service).

Important Notes:

• There is no cost from our side when you move to Microsoft 365, the process of updating the configuration to Microsoft 365 is covered by your support contract.
• You will need an extra Microsoft user licence to be used as the journal email account; e.g VCjournal@company.co.uk.
• VC will not setup the email Transport/BCC rules, this is the supporting I.T. company's responsibility to make sure that all the emails that are sent/received by any member of staff are copied into the VC Journal account.
• We cannot monitor the Bcc email address(s) for use with the automatic email capture rules.
• Please make sure that clutter is disabled on this mailbox, as it will prevent some of our services from working correctly.
• Please make sure that mail read receipts are turned off.
• Please make sure that there is a maintenance plan or retention policy set in place, the optimal number of emails in the mailbox is within the 20k-30k range, usually equating to a 30-90 day retention policy.
• A licensed Microsoft 365 user with a mailbox is required for our use only.
• The server that runs CcMail must have an internet connection.

 Process:

1. The way we recommend this transition is to set the end of the current exchange box on Friday for example, so from Friday onwards every email will no longer be captured to the existing email account; it will be instead captured to the new email account (on Microsoft 365).
    
2. We will then wait until Monday, before you log a support call, and on Monday we will switch your email capture service to the new O365 account by configuring it in the 

Doing so in this structured method will prevent loss of any emails in the switch over, and allow for a 'clean-break' from the previous email account.

Applicable Subscription Plans

The plans that we aren't able to work with are the ones that only offer Office online, and don't offer any form of Exchange solution.

Old Subscription Plans

Old naming convention for plans:

There shouldn't be many (if anyone) on these old Subscription Plans that Microsoft were offering in 2014, but in case they were here they are:

Configuring the Microsoft 365 Mailbox

New User

You will first need to create a new Microsoft 365 User, if one does not already exist, that will store a copy of all incoming and outgoing email messages.

1. Login to the Microsoft 365 website (https://portal.office.com) using an account with Administrator access over Microsoft 365.
2. Go to Admin on the toolbar in the top right and go in to Microsoft 365.
3. Users -> Active Users -> Add new user, and then follow the simple set up procedure for a new user with a mailbox license.

Transport Rules

Exchange Transport Rules allow emails to be automatically moved between mailboxes based on specific rules. The rule we will set up will automatically BCC all incoming and outgoing emails to the mailbox we just set up.

1. Create the Transport Rule by going to Admin -> Exchange -> mail flow -> rules and new rule.
2. Apply this rule if...set this to: [Apply to all messages]
3. Do the following...set this to: Bcc the message to... mailbox we just set up.
4. All other settings can be left as they are.
   
    

This will set up the basic rule that you’ll need to send a copy of all messages to your new VCJournal mailbox. If you need to, you can add additional rules for sending only certain peoples emails to your VCJournal mailbox you can by playing around with the Apply this rule if... setting and creating multiple rules.