An email is sent, the end user is expecting some form of help, usually fairly quickly.
Meanwhile in the spam filtering matrix, the data decides to have this email arrive in the Junk Folder. It sits, patiently waiting, like a puppy at it’s owners door, waiting.
Of course no one knows this has happened, though the end user knows that every time they have sent an email to your company for help, they have always received an email stating a ticket was created, but they figure all is still ok… that no email was returned back to them.
We all know how this story ends. Should the end user be part at blame for knowing there was an issue and not reporting it? Should the solution provider be at fault for not having monitoring in place alerting when an issue like this arises? The best answer is telling stories at the Rocks bar during IT Nation Connect, but let’s look at a possible solution to keep both sides happy until then.
Disable the Junk Folder on the email account of the email connector!!
In the past, this was super simple. Just login to the account, select the Block or Allow menu, then click “Don’t move email to my Junk Email folder.
But since that was too easy for admins, Microsoft decided it should be much more difficult than that, so they removed this option.
We decided there still must be a way to accomplish this. We found three methods.
- Editing the system global settings where the default junk folder rules are created.
- Creating a spam bypass rule.
- Modifying junk folder settings via PowerShell.
One method we came across was to create a global message rule within exchange. The rule basically sets the spam level (SCL) to bypass.
While extremely easy, our research shows this will work, but with mixed results. We opted to continue to research.
Modifying the Junk Folder settings via PowerShell we feel is the winner. There are two methods.
- Set a global system wide setting.
- Set an individual setting.
Set Globally:
- Login to Exchange via Powershell
- Connect PowerShell to O365
- Run: Get-Mailbox | Set-MailboxJunkEmailConfiguration –Enabled $False
- Verify status on an individual mailbox: Get-MailboxJunkEmailConfiguration user.name
Set Individual Mailbox:
- Login to Exchange via Powershell
- Connect PowerShell to O365
- Run: Set-MailboxJunkEmailConfiguration user.name -Enabled $false
- Verify status on an individual mailbox: Get-MailboxJunkEmailConfiguration user.name
At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter what “technical issues” causing a customer support issue from promptly happening, the customer has an issue and well you are supposed to be the genius. If your system isn’t working, how can you be expected to fix their issues?
Reality sinks in and tells us no matter what the SOP’s in place, something will happen causing an issue, kind of like the cat and mouse game we play with viruses and ransom where. It’s not if it will happen, but when. All one can do is continue to make our processes, procedures and systems better. We hope this tip helps do such that.