Active Moderated Distribution Lists: Current Usage & Feedback

Moderated Distribution Lists and Recipient Moderation

Moderated Distribution Lists is a feature that is surprisingly still utilised quite frequently today despite being a mainstay of Microsoft Exchange 2010. Essentially, it allows control of who receives particular emails and is applicable to both cloud and on-premises recipients. It even functions in hybrid deployments. Exchange Online even offers troubleshooting for this feature.

It's quite flexible, working across different mail-enabled objects such as mailboxes, distribution lists, contacts, public folders, and Microsoft 365 groups. This feature is a fantastic way to manage and protect sensitive recipients from unneeded communications.

A typical scenario of its application would be moderating messages directed to high-level executives. It ensures a review by an executive assistant before delivering the messages to the targeted mailboxes using Exchange Online. The feature even supports bypassing, where designated users or distribution lists are not subject to checks, and their messages are delivered directly.

Understanding Moderation in Action

Once moderation is initiated, an arbitration mailbox sends an email's details to selected reviewers (moderators), who can either approve or reject delivery. If approved, the email continues to its final destination; if rejected, the sender is informed of the rejection by the arbitration mailbox. Messages unprocessed within two days are returned to the original sender.

The moderators can fully access the emails waiting for approval, even those encrypted with sensitivity labels. Such potential is because the Exchange transport service, during its checks mid-pipeline, can access all sorts of encrypted content and decrypt it when dispatching the copy for approval.

An interesting sight is when a moderator reviews and approves an email encrypted with sensitivity labels but, due to the restrictions of that label, the final recipient can't access it. This underscores the importance of senders understanding the permissions endowed by sensitivity labels.

The Outlook Issue

Issues arise when examining why OWA can expand the membership of a moderated distribution list while Outlook for Windows fails to do so. This should be possible as the membership of a moderated distribution list is known and fixed. The Outlook address book even agrees with this. However, when asked to execute said operation, Outlook explicitly refuses.

Interestingly, Outlook mobile does not offer the option to expand any distribution list's membership. Such inconsistencies within client families cause user frustration, but likely affected users are small and a workaround exists, so it is not considered major. Therefore, it is doubtful that Microsoft will address the inconsistency.

The upcoming Project Monarch (aka "One Outlook") app may be a potential solution, but it is best not to anticipate. To learn more about safeguarding Exchange Online and the rest of Office 365, Tony Redmond [MVP] recommends the Office 365 for IT Pros eBook to comprehend the importance and method of safeguarding your digital estate.

Further Thought on Threading Communications

Global communication networks and specifically Microsoft's suite of tools is an evolving center of connection and collaboration. From Recipient Moderation's first appearance in Exchange 2010 through its moderation capabilities today, the journey speaks of meticulous cultivation and evolution. Dynamic mail-enabled users, normal distribution lists, Microsoft 365 groups, share the commonality of moderation while still individually hosting a diversity of features.

Read the full article Moderated Distribution Lists - Yes they are still alive and there are comments.

Learn about Moderated Distribution Lists - Yes they are still alive and there are comments.

The venerated system of Moderated Distribution Lists is certainly enduring, despite being a somewhat old-fashioned aspect of Microsoft's Exchange Online platform. These lists are a testament to the past, which in their adaptation and evolution on the platform have remained relevant till date.

You might see this system as a feature unique to the times when Exchange Online was first introduced. Regardless of its origins though, the moderation mechanism continues to function across on-premises and cloud recipients alike, and is just as effective in hybrid deployments. Such a working solution is quite rarely encountered today. For a more in-depth understanding, you can refer to the troubleshooting moderation article on the EHLO blog.

The moderated distribution mechanism applies to a spectrum of mail-enabled entities, such as public folders, dynamic and fixed lists, office 365 groups, and standard mail users and contacts. It thus becomes an invaluable tool in preventing non-appropriate messages from reaching sensitive recipients.

Determining scenarios for deploying this delivery safeguard system can be an enlightening exercise. For instance, a use-case could involve messages sent to top executives undergoing a review by an executive assistant before the system can distribute them to relevant mailboxes. A bypass feature included in moderation allows exclusion of certain user groups or lists from moderation checks, thereby ensuring direct delivery for emails originating from these sources.

Diving a little deeper into the process, as moderation is initiated, the arbitration mailbox delivers the particulars of the email under consideration to designated review personnel - the moderators. These individuals have the power to either approve or reject the message. This process is illustrated in Figure 1, which highlights an approval instance on a moderated list.

Post the moderator's decision, the response is relayed to the arbitration mailbox which then either releases the email for delivery in case of an approval, or returns the rejected email to the original sender. If a message isn’t processed within two days, it’s returned to the original sender.

It’s important to note that moderators have full access to the messages that need approval, even if these messages are encrypted with sensitivity labels. The platform has been designed this way, to enable the reviewer to make informed decisions. An intriguing scenario to think about would be where a moderator has the ability to read and approve a message which the final recipient, however, cannot access due to the sensitivity label assigned to it.

The only hiccup in the task was the inability of the desktop version of Outlook to expand the membership of a moderated list, which Outlook on the web could readily do. In light of this, there’s no valid reason why this should occur. Normally for an Outlook user, if one clicks on the display sign, it triggers a pop-up warning message stating that once expanded, the list cannot be collapsed back into a single entity. Why the desktop version doesn’t follow suit is puzzling.

Now, there are exceptions as Outlook Mobile avoids having to grapple with this issue by not providing membership expansion options for any list. This anomaly points to discrepancies across the client family, which can lead to considerable user vexation.

However, it is important to realize that the negative impact of this issue could be minimal owing to the existence of a viable workaround, along with limited user affectation, which significantly reduces the need for rectification from Microsoft.

In conclusion, it is evident how essential moderation is, especially in the context of Exchange Online. Furthermore, the Office 365 for IT Pros eBook is an excellent resource to delve into to understand how best to protect your systems.

With heightened secure communication needs, the importance and relevance of moderated distribution lists will only rise and it’s imperative that IT professionals understand all aspects and mechanics of it. In this digital age, it is paramount to be thoroughly acquainted with the subtleties of these powerful tools that pave the way for secure and monitored communications in an increasingly complex digital workspace environment.

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