Introduction
Journaling your emails is like keeping a copy of every letter you send and receive, just in case you need to prove what was said later. But what happens when those letters are written in a secret code? Let's dive into how you can manage encrypted emails to make sure your journaling still works perfectly.
Table of contents
1.Why Email Journaling Needs Special Attention
Email journaling is an older feature in Exchange that saves copies of emails outside of Microsoft 365. This means you need to be extra careful to keep this data safe and avoid duplicates. It's up to you to keep an eye on any issues, like emails that bounce back and don't make it to the journaling mailbox because of problems with external services.
With Microsoft 365 retention and Purview compliance tools, you avoid these headaches. They keep your data within Microsoft 365 and manage not just emails but also chat messages from tools like Microsoft Teams.
2. Setting Up Journal Rules
The Basics of Journal Rules
Scope: Decides which emails get journaled.
Recipient: The address of the person or group whose emails you want to journal.
Mailbox: Where the journal reports (copies of the emails) are stored.
Exchange Online has limits on the number of journal rules you can create. For more info, check out the official documentation.
3. Different Scopes for Journal Rules
Internal Emails Only: Journals emails sent between people within your company.
External Emails Only: Journals emails sent to or received from outside your company.
All Emails: Journals every email, no matter where it's from or where it's going.
4. Picking the Right Journal Recipient
You can be specific about which emails to journal by setting the recipient's address. This could be a single mailbox, a group of people, or even external contacts. By being precise, you save on storage and only keep the emails that matter.
5. The Journaling Mailbox
This is where all the journal reports go. You can use one mailbox for everything or different mailboxes for different rules.
Important tip: you can't use an Exchange Online mailbox for journaling. Instead, use an on-premises mailbox or a third-party service.
6. Keeping Your Journaling Mailbox Secure
Lock down access to the journaling mailbox to prevent tampering.
Create strict policies about who can access this mailbox.
Make sure your setup complies with all legal requirements by consulting with your legal team.
7. Enabling Journal Report Decryption
When setting up journaling, it's important to account for journaling reports and messages protected by Information Rights Management (IRM). IRM-protected messages can limit the search and discovery functions of third-party archiving systems without built-in RMS support. In Microsoft 365 and Office 365, you can enable journal report decryption to store a clear-text version of the message within a journal report. If the encryption is from within your organisation, both the messages and attachments are decrypted. However, journaling doesn't decrypt content encrypted by external organisations.
Therefore, encrypted emails can be a bit of a puzzle. To make sure your journaling mailbox can read these encrypted messages, you need to enable journal report decryption.
8. How to Turn On Journal Report Decryption
1.Connect to Exchange Online PowerShell: Use an account with admin permissions.
2. Run this Command:
This magic spell makes sure encrypted emails are saved in a readable format.
9. Troubleshooting Tips and Best Practices
Avoid Duplicate Journal Reports: In a hybrid setup (mix of on-premises and cloud), you might get duplicates. To fix this, ask Microsoft support to enable the PreventDupJournaling feature.
Monitor Your Mailboxes: Regularly check journaling mailboxes to prevent issues with non-delivery.
Stay Legal: Always check with your legal team to ensure compliance with regulations.
10. Conclusion
Email journaling is like having a secretarial assistant who keeps copies of all your important communications. By following these guidelines, especially with encrypted emails, you ensure your journaling process is smooth and secure. Implement these steps to make your email management both compliant and hassle-free.
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