Your employees send hundreds of emails every week, and every single one of those messages is an opportunity to reinforce your brand and build trust. Yet in most organisations, email signatures are inconsistent, outdated, or simply missing the personal details that make a real difference. If your company uses Microsoft 365, you already have a goldmine of employee data sitting inside Microsoft Entra ID — including profile photos, job titles, departments, and phone numbers. The question is: how do you get that data into every outgoing email signature, automatically and at scale?
This guide walks you through exactly how Badex Signature pulls user attributes directly from Entra ID to create dynamic, consistent, and professional email signatures across your entire organisation — with zero manual work for your employees.
What Is Microsoft Entra ID and Why Does It Matter for Email Signatures?
Microsoft Entra ID (formerly Azure Active Directory) is the identity and access management platform at the heart of Microsoft 365. It stores a rich set of attributes for every user in your organisation: full name, job title, department, office location, mobile number, manager, and — crucially — the profile photo.
For IT administrators, this is significant. Rather than asking every employee to manually update their email signature whenever they get a promotion or change departments, you can build a centralised, automated workflow where the signature reflects exactly what is stored in Entra ID at any given moment.
Key User Attributes Available in Entra ID
- Display name and email address
- Job title and department
- Office location and country
- Business phone and mobile number
- Profile photo (stored as a JPEG thumbnail)
- Manager name and custom extension attributes
All of these can be mapped directly to your signature template inside Badex Signature using simple merge tags, giving you complete flexibility over how the final signature looks.
How Badex Signature Connects to Entra ID
Badex Signature integrates with Microsoft 365 using the Microsoft Graph API, the same secure, standards-based API that powers modern Microsoft integrations. After granting the necessary admin consent in your Microsoft 365 tenant, Badex Signature can read user profile data and photos in real time — no password sharing, no legacy protocols, and no complex configuration scripts.
The Setup Process Step by Step
- Connect your Microsoft 365 tenant: From the Badex Signature dashboard, initiate the Microsoft 365 connection. You will be prompted to sign in with a Global Administrator or Privileged Role Administrator account and grant the required Graph API permissions (read-only access to user profiles and photos).
- Sync your users: Once connected, Badex Signature imports the list of users from Entra ID. You can apply filters based on department, group membership, or licence type, so you only manage signatures for the users who need them.
- Build your signature template: Use the visual template editor to design your signature. Insert merge tags such as {{jobTitle}}, {{department}}, or {{photo}} anywhere in the template. Badex Signature resolves these tags automatically when the signature is applied.
- Assign and deploy: Assign the template to individual users, groups, or your entire organisation. Signatures are applied server-side, meaning they appear on every email regardless of the device or email client used.
Pulling Profile Photos from Entra ID: The Details
Profile photos deserve special attention because they are one of the most impactful elements of a professional email signature. A clear headshot next to a person's name and title immediately humanises the communication and increases recipient trust — particularly in B2B sales and client-facing roles.
Where Are Photos Stored in Entra ID?
Entra ID stores profile photos at multiple resolutions, from 48×48 pixels up to 648×648 pixels. Badex Signature retrieves the highest available resolution and automatically resizes and optimises the image for email rendering, ensuring it displays correctly across all major email clients including Outlook, Apple Mail, Gmail, and Thunderbird.
What If a User Has No Photo?
Not every employee will have a profile photo uploaded in Entra ID. Badex Signature handles this gracefully with a configurable fallback: you can display a generic avatar, a company logo, or simply hide the photo block entirely for users without an image. This prevents broken layouts or empty spaces in your signature template.
Keeping Photos Up to Date
Because Badex Signature syncs with Entra ID on a regular schedule, any photo update made in the Microsoft 365 admin centre or by the user themselves in their Microsoft account will automatically flow through to their email signature within the next sync cycle. There is no manual intervention required from your IT team.
Keeping Job Titles Accurate Across the Organisation
Job title drift is a genuine problem in growing organisations. Employees get promoted, change teams, or move into new roles — but their email signature often stays unchanged for months because updating it requires action from the individual. With Badex Signature pulling job titles directly from Entra ID, the process is fully automated.
When an HR administrator or IT manager updates a user's job title in Entra ID — whether through the Microsoft 365 admin portal, Azure AD, or an HR system synced via Azure AD Connect — that change propagates to the email signature automatically. This means your external contacts always see the correct, current title for the person they are communicating with.
Practical Tips for Accurate Entra ID Data
- Establish a process for HR or line managers to update Entra ID attributes whenever an employee changes role, not just when setting up new accounts.
- Use Azure AD Connect or Entra ID governance tools to sync HR system data directly into Entra ID, reducing manual update tasks.
- Audit your Entra ID user profiles at least quarterly to identify accounts with missing or outdated job titles and departments.
- Set custom extension attributes in Entra ID for data points not covered by default fields, such as professional certifications or regional office branding, and map these into your Badex Signature templates.
Why This Matters for European B2B Companies and MSPs
For European organisations, consistency in external communications is not just a branding preference — it also touches on trust and professionalism expectations in regulated industries such as finance, legal, and healthcare. A signature that accurately reflects a person's verified role and includes their photo signals legitimacy and accountability to clients and partners.
For Managed Service Providers and hosting companies managing multiple client tenants, Badex Signature's multi-tenant architecture makes it straightforward to manage Entra ID signature deployments across several Microsoft 365 organisations from a single dashboard. And unlike competitors such as CodeTwo or Exclaimer, which charge on a per-user basis, Badex Signature operates on a flat-fee pricing model. Whether you manage 50 users or 500, your cost stays predictable — a significant advantage when rolling out signature management across a customer base of different sizes.
Not Just for Microsoft 365: SMTP Compatibility
While Entra ID integration is a powerful feature for Microsoft 365 customers, Badex Signature is not limited to the Microsoft ecosystem. It also works with any SMTP-based email environment, including cPanel, Plesk, Roundcube, and DirectAdmin. This makes it an ideal choice for hosting providers and businesses that operate a mixed email infrastructure or are not yet on Microsoft 365. Organisations using SMTP servers can still benefit from centralised signature management, consistent templates, and easy deployment — making Badex Signature a truly versatile solution for any team.
Getting Started Today
Syncing user photos and job titles from Microsoft Entra ID into your email signatures is one of the most effective ways to ensure consistent, professional, and up-to-date branding across your entire organisation without placing the burden on individual employees. With a straightforward setup process, real-time data sync, and intelligent fallback handling, Badex Signature makes it easy for IT administrators and MSPs to take full control of email signature management at scale.
Ready to see it in action? Start your 14-day free trial at Badex Signature and connect your Microsoft 365 tenant in minutes — no credit card required, no per-user fees, and full access to all features from day one.