Server-side redirect does not work on auto-forwarded e-mails

exchangemail-forwardingoutlook-2007

I am trying to set up automatic forwarding of specific e-mails to an external address.

Scenario:

  • Company A (e.g. me) is responsible for a certain function at large company B.
  • One of the communication channels is an e-mail account at company B (service@b.com).
  • To enable a better service, we want to automatically forward certain e-mails from service@b.com to an issue-tracking tool at company A (issues@a.com)
  • Company B use Exchange 2007 as a mail-server
  • Handling of the mail-server is handled by company C
  • Due to security restrictions it is not allowed to create Outlook rules to forward e-mail from service@b.com directly to an external account (issues@a.com)
  • Due to security policies it is not allowed to forward all e-mails from service@b.com to issues@a.com (only certain types of e-mails should be forwarded)

Current attempts:

  • Create rules in Outlook for service@a.com failed due to security restrictions above. As far as I know, it is not possible to configure Exchange to allow external forwarding only for a selected account (it is not an option to enable this for all of company B)
  • We setup a server-side forward from a new e-mail account (service-issues@b.com) to issues@a.com. This works when manually sending/forwarding mails to service-issues@b.com, but it fails (silently not forwarding e-mails) for automatic forwarding from service@b.com (e.g. an Outlook rule forwards selected e-mails from service@b.com to service-issues@b.com, but for some reason those e-mails are not forwarded to issues@a.com)

Questions:

  • Any idea why the server-side forward does not work when the e-mails are forwarded using rules on service@b.com?
  • Are there other options in how we could achieve a selective forwarding of e-mails from service@b.com to issues@a.com?

Best Answer

You want to use Exchange transport rules on Company B's Exchange server to accomplish selective forwarding to your email address. There are a variety of conditions ("predicates") that can be used to selectively match the email (http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd638183 for details), and there are several actions available - the RedirectMessage or CopyTo actions might be what you are looking for. The Exchange admin at Company B must implement this transport rule. It should bypass the policy that Outlook is not allowed to automatically forward externally, because this rule is created in Exchange, not in Outlook.

This article (http://www.msexchange.org/tutorials/transport-rules-exchange-server-2007.html) gives a good overview on how to create these transport rules.

Related Topic