Recipient Policies: Can separate policies for Email Addresses and Mailbox Manager Settings be applied?

Exchange Server 2003/2000's Recipient Policies can have settings to generate email addresses for recipients, and Mailbox Manager settings to manage mailbox content. (The Exchange Server 2007 equivalents are 1. Accepted Domains + Email Address Policies to generate email addresses, and 2. Managed Folder Mailbox Policies (with default or custom Managed Folders + Managed Content Settings) to manage mailbox content).

When creating these policies, one can either use a single policy with both types of settings, or use separate Recipient Policies for both purposes - one to generate email addresses for recipients, and other(s) with Mailbox Manager settings to manage mailbox content. The latter approach (separate policies) is more common.

Modifying an existing Recipient Policy to add Mailbox Manager settings

 An existing Recipient Policy can be modified to add/remove Mailbox Manager or Email Address settings by right-clicking the policy and selecting Change property pages.



 From the Property Pages dialog box, select the appropriate settings to be included in the Recipient Policy.

Can multiple Recipient Policies be applied to a recipient?
Yes, you can use separate policies to generate email addresses and manage mailbox content.

Scenario1: Single policy with Email Addresses and Mailbox Manager settings applied. Recipient Joe Adams is not managed by policies (in ADUC -> Joe's account properties | E-mail Addresses tab, Automatically update e-mail addresses based on recipient policy is unchecked). None of the settings - Email Addresses or Mailbox Manager, get applied to that user.

Scenario 2: Two separate Recipient Policies are applied - one with Email Addresses and the other with Mailbox Manager settings. Recipient Joe Adams is not managed by Recipient Policies. The policy with Email Address settings does not get applied to Joe. The second policy with Mailbox Manager settings does get applied.

Given the above scenarios, if you want Mailbox Manager settings to be applied to all mailbox-enabled users, including those that are not managed by Recipient Policies, it makes sense to use two separate policies for Email Addresses and Mailbox Manager settings respectively.

Exchange Server 2007 avoids these scenarios completely. The functionality of generating email addresses - Accepted Domains + Email Address Policies, is separate from the functionality of managing mailbox content, which is available through Managed Folder Mailbox Policies.

Related Posts:
1. Applying Mailbox Manager policies to a sub-folder
2. Exchange Server 2007: Why aren't Managed Content Settngs applied?
3. Applying Managed Folder Policy to more than one user
4. Managed Folders: How to apply different Managed Content Settings to Default Folders
5. Restricting Messaging Records Management to a particular message type