How Signed works
The five moving parts, what each one does, and which two you actually have to set up yourself.
- Last updated
- 5 minute read
- Basics
Signed keeps every signature in your organisation in one place. You design a signature once, Signed fills in each person's own details, and the Outlook add-in or the Signed API adds it to whatever they write.
The five moving parts
Almost everything in Signed belongs to one of five things. Once you can hold these in your head, the rest of the app is easy to find your way around.
| Part | What it is | Where it lives |
|---|---|---|
| People | Everyone who gets a signature, with the details that fill your design in | Users |
| Signatures | The designs. One of them is the default, and everything else is a variation | Signatures |
| Rules | Who gets a design other than the default, matched on department, email domain or person | Rules |
| Campaigns | A banner shown under signatures between two dates | Campaigns |
| The add-in | The bit of Outlook that adds the signature as someone writes | Outlook add-in |
Your organisation holds all five, and everything is scoped to it. Signed is multi-tenant, so one login can look after several organisations without their data ever mixing.
What happens when someone writes an email
The add-in runs in the background each time a message is opened. It asks Signed for a signature for the person writing, and Signed decides which one that should be:
- Signed looks up the person by their email address.
- It works out their details, filling any gaps from your company defaults.
- It picks a signature. Rules are checked in priority order, and the first match wins. If nothing matches, they get your default signature.
- Any campaign running right now is added under the signature, along with your legal disclaimer.
- The finished signature is handed back and placed in the message.
If the person changes the From address on the message, the add-in asks again and swaps the signature, so an Irish address gets the Irish signature.
Good morning, Sam
Here's how signatures are looking across Halden & Rowe today.
People
142
9 departments
Templates
4
1 default
Signatures served
8,412
Last 30 days
Live campaigns
1
Ends 16 Oct
Recent activity
- Sam Kerr updated the Company standard signature2 min ago
- Microsoft 365 sync updated 3 job titlesToday
- Amelia Hart scheduled Autumn open studio1 hour ago
- Sam Kerr added a rule for Department: SalesYesterday
Plan usage
People
142
Templates
4
Team seats
3
Pro plan, renews 1 Oct 2026.
What you actually have to set up
Two things take real effort, and both are one-off jobs:
- Design your signatures. Pick a layout, set the colours and fonts, and decide which fields to show.
- Deploy the add-in. Your Microsoft 365 admin uploads a manifest once, and Signed does the rest.
Everything else is optional. Rules, campaigns and the Microsoft 365 sync are all improvements on top, not requirements.
Tip: If you are not on Microsoft 365, you can still use Signed. Add people with a CSV import and hand out signatures with the free generator or the API.
Common questions
Does everyone need a licence or an account?
No. Only the people who manage Signed need a login. Everyone else just has a record in Users and gets a signature in Outlook.
Where are signatures stored?
Signed stores the design and the person's details. The finished HTML is generated when it is needed, which is why a change reaches everyone immediately.
Related articles
- Set up Signed in an afternoonThe order that avoids rework, from your first design through to the add-in reaching everyone's Outlook.
- Build your first signatureA guided tour of the designer, from picking a starting layout to saving something people will actually see.
- Install the Outlook add-inOne manifest, uploaded once by a Microsoft 365 admin, and then signatures appear on their own.
Something here out of date, or a step that did not work? Tell us and we will fix the article. Every page is checked against the running product, so corrections are welcome.