Managing email signatures centrally: a closer look at SignatureHub

Every business email is a piece of company stationery. Yet in many organisations, each employee still maintains their own signature: one with the old logo, one without a direct dial number, one with the address from before the move. SignatureHub, one of our MicroApps, solves exactly this. You manage signatures in one place, and the system adds them to every outgoing email automatically.

Why signatures are more than cosmetics

At first glance, a signature looks like a detail. In day-to-day business, though, it does three jobs that should not be left to chance.

Brand presence: A customer who hears from five of your people in one day sees five business cards. Different fonts, logos and layouts quickly look untidy, especially to new business partners.

Mandatory company details: Under German law, business emails count as business letters. A GmbH must state, among other things, its legal form, registered office, registry court, commercial register number and the names of all managing directors (Section 35a of the German Limited Liability Companies Act, GmbH-Gesetz, GmbHG). Registered merchants are covered by Section 37a of the German Commercial Code (Handelsgesetzbuch, HGB), stock corporations by Section 80 of the German Stock Corporation Act (Aktiengesetz, AktG). If details are missing, the registry court can impose a coercive fine. Changes are where it gets tricky: when a new managing director joins, every signature has to be updated at once. Do it mailbox by mailbox, and someone will almost certainly be missed.

Marketing space: A note about your next trade fair or a new product reaches every recipient through the signature, with no extra campaign. That only works if the banner shows up for everyone on time and disappears again once the promotion is over.

How SignatureHub works

SignatureHub works on the server side. The signature is not stored in the email client but added on the way to the recipient. So it makes no difference whether a message is sent from Outlook, Apple Mail, a smartphone or a browser. Every email gets the same, current signature.

Three ways to connect

• Microsoft 365 and Exchange Online: The connection runs through Exchange connectors and a transport rule. Employees, groups, photos and alias addresses are synchronised from Entra ID, so you never maintain master data twice.
• Your own mail server: Postfix, Plesk, on-premises Exchange and other mail servers route outgoing mail through SignatureHub as a smart host.
• No mail server of your own: If your mailboxes are with a traditional hosting provider, each employee enters SignatureHub as the outgoing mail server in their email client. They receive dedicated credentials, optionally one set per device. Incoming mail stays with your current provider, and mailbox passwords remain unchanged.

Personal credentials are tied to the addresses of the respective mail user. Any attempt to send under someone else's sender address is rejected.

What you control centrally

• Designer: Build templates by drag and drop, with previews for different email clients.
• Rules: Define which signature applies when, for example by sender, recipient, internal or external mail, reply or forward, date or subject.
• Banner campaigns: Schedule promotional banners, with GDPR-compliant click tracking.
• Policy tester: Check rules before they apply to everyone.
• Self-service portal: Employees sign in via a link and keep their own details up to date, such as a new mobile number.

A typical setup: internal emails get a short signature with name and extension. Emails to external recipients get the full version with all mandatory details and the current trade fair banner. When the fair is over, the campaign ends on the date you set, without anyone having to remember.

Data protection and operations

Since your emails pass through SignatureHub, asking about data protection is only reasonable. The answers are clear:

• SignatureHub is operated by dream-soft in Germany.
• Emails are processed in memory only and never stored. The log contains metadata alone, such as message ID, applied rule and timestamp. Content, subject lines and recipient addresses are not recorded.
• We act as a processor under Art. 28 GDPR. A data processing agreement is available on request.
• When connected via Microsoft 365 or your own mail server, no email is lost during an outage. The sending server queues messages and delivers them afterwards.

One practical note: the signature does not appear in your own Sent folder. The email client saves that copy before the message reaches the server. Recipients still see the complete signature. This applies to every server-side signature solution.

Who SignatureHub is for

Small teams of up to three users can use it free of charge for as long as they like, with a short SignatureHub note in the signature. Larger organisations choose plans priced per mail user, with a 14-day trial and no credit card required. IT service providers can manage signatures for their clients through the partner programme and receive a single consolidated invoice.

Setup is straightforward. Registration takes a few minutes, followed by DNS records, the connector and your first template. In most cases, the whole thing is done in about an hour.

Conclusion

Consistent signatures are not an end in themselves. They give you a clean, professional appearance, keep mandatory details current and turn every email into a small advertising space. With a central solution, you make a change once instead of chasing it through every mailbox. Find more details and the free plan at signaturehub.de (opens in a new tab).

Note: This article provides general information about mandatory details in business emails. It does not constitute legal advice.

All posts