The main difference between the “Forward email (Address book)” and the Forward email (SMTP address)” management actions is that the first one is used for internal forwarding, while the second one is used to forward SMTP addresses to external users.
Forward email (Address book)
Here you must specify to which internal user you want to forward the mailbox. Checking the box to “Save local copy” will deliver mail to the original mailbox and forward it to the new destination.
This action will produce an error if you try to use it to forward to an external email address: “Couldn't find object [ExternalAddress@external.com]. Please make sure that it was spelled correctly or specify a different object.”
Forward email (SMTP address)
Here you must specify to which external forwarding email address you want to forward the mailbox. You can also choose to save an original copy of each email in the user’s mailbox or only retain emails in the forwarding mailbox. This action will also allow you to forward to an internal user mailbox without producing an error.
The results of these actions are visible in different columns under the “Users with forwarding” report on our portal.
- The result of the “Forward email (Address book)” action is available under the “Forwarding Address SMTP” column in the report. The “Has external forwarding” column is marked as FALSE.
- The result of the “Forward email (SMTP address)” action is available under the “Forwarding to” column. The “Has external forwarding” column will be marked TRUE or FALSE based on the domain name of the forwarding address.
Here is some additional information about columns available in the “Users with forwarding” report:
- Forwarding address: this is the internal user identity in Exchange for the user receiving the forwarded mail. This is not an email address.
- Forwarding to: this is the ForwardingSmtpAddress retrieved from Exchange.
- Forwarding to rules: these are all InBox rules found. This field will display the email addresses that are receiving the forwarded mail.