Signature rules, folder organisation, and processing order

When a customer has more than five or six signatures, processing order and folder structure stop being cosmetic and start being correctness. Exclaimer applies the first matching signature in the All Signatures list. Get the ordering wrong and the marketing signature lands on every solicitor’s email.

The processing model

flowchart TD
    E[Email sent] --> P[Walk All Signatures<br/>top to bottom]
    P --> F{Is signature<br/>in a folder?}
    F -->|Yes| FR[Evaluate folder rules first<br/>Senders, Exceptions, Security]
    FR --> SR[Then signature rules<br/>Senders, Exceptions, Recipients,<br/>Date/Time, Advanced]
    F -->|No| SR
    SR --> M{All rules pass?}
    M -->|Yes| A[Apply this signature, stop walking]
    M -->|No| N[Skip, walk to next]

Two facts that bite people:

• Folder rules run before the rules on signatures inside the folder. A folder Senders rule that excludes a user means no signature in that folder applies to them, regardless of what each signature inside says.
• Only the first matching signature is applied. Exclaimer does not evaluate the rest. If you want a different signature for a different scenario, the more specific signature must come first in the order.

Folders: when to use them

Folders aren’t decoration; they’re a rule scope. Reach for them when:

• Region-specific signatures. A folder per region with the region’s senders rule on the folder, signatures inside don’t repeat the region rule.
• Customer-managed sub-team. A folder with security restricted to that sub-team’s editor role, so the customer’s marketing lead can update marketing signatures without seeing finance’s.
• Bulk on/off control. Disabling a folder disables every signature inside.

Plan-tier note: Starter cannot create folders; Standard and Pro can. The All Signatures tab holds at most 100 objects (signatures and folders combined), and a folder holds up to 100 signatures.

A folder has five tabs of its own: Senders (who the folder applies to), Exceptions (who it doesn’t), Security (which roles can edit signatures inside), Signatures (the contents), and Re-order (the per-folder ordering UI). The first three set the folder’s rule scope; the last two organise what’s inside.

Designing the order

For most customers, three buckets cover the field:

Bucket	Where to put it	Why first / last
Marketing campaigns or seasonal banners (when modelled as signatures, not Campaigns)	Top	Marketing is short-lived; if the rule matches, you want it to win for that window
Role-specific signatures (solicitor, paralegal)	Middle	More specific than the catch-all; less specific than marketing windows
Catch-all “Everyone in my organisation” signature	Bottom	Last fallback when nothing else matched

The Re-order tab on All Signatures (and inside each folder) is the drag-to-reorder UI. Only Owner and Admin can re-order top-level; Editors can re-order inside folders they have access to.

A worked design: Able Moose Accounting (mid-market)

Able Moose has grown to 120 staff across three offices. The MSP designs the signature stack like this:

flowchart TD
    SIG[All Signatures, processing order top to bottom]
    SIG --> M[Marketing-quarterly-Q2-2026]
    SIG --> NZ[Folder: Auckland NZ]
    SIG --> AU1[Folder: Sydney AU]
    SIG --> AU2[Folder: Brisbane AU]
    SIG --> CATCH[Catch-all-internal-AMA]
    NZ --> NZ1[Solicitor-equivalent role]
    NZ --> NZ2[Standard staff]
    AU1 --> AU11[Standard staff]
    AU2 --> AU21[Standard staff]

The folder Senders rule on each region-specific folder restricts to that region’s mail-enabled security group. Inside the folder, signatures vary by role with their own Senders rules. The catch-all sits at the bottom and only applies if nothing else matched, which protects against the mistake of someone joining a region group without a role group.

What this is NOT

• Not a way to apply more than one signature per email. Server-side picks the first match and stops. Client-side has an Outlook Add-in option to append multiple signatures, but that’s an Add-in feature, not signature rules. Treat “stack two signatures” requests as a Campaigns or Disclaimers job instead.
• Not the same as Disclaimers or Campaigns processing. Disclaimers and Campaigns are separate objects appended after whichever signature was selected; their own rules decide whether they appear. Don’t expect a folder rule on a signature to suppress a Campaign banner.