This is what I have surmised from my background reading:
- Outlook "inbox rules" may or may not be "client-only".
- "Client-only" basically means that the rule can only be processed by the Outlook client.
- However, all inbox rules, whether "client-only" or not, get stored on the Exchange Server.
- There are some powerful cmdlets (i.e. Get-Inboxrule and Set-Inboxrule) for manipulating Inbox Rules from the server-side.
- But despite being stored on the server, client-only rules are invisible to these cmdlets.
- Neither is it possible to manipulate client-only rules using, say, EWS.
- Or any other server-side method whatsoever.
As far as I can tell, nobody on the internet has actually pointed all of these things in one place, and made the obvious remark: "this a flipping joke" (possibly with a different word in place of "flipping").
Is there truly no way for a system administrator to centrally manage (even just 'get a list of the') client-only inbox rules?
Obviously anything is possible - with enough time and effort one could develop an Outlook add-in using VSTO, and a standalone server application with a database attached, and have the former connect to the latter and send over details of the client-only rules, and receive instructions to set them centrally. Does anyone know of an existing solution that does something like this? But it's 'flipping ridiculous' that this would even be necessary.
Background: what I'm trying to do is have it so that when user A sends an email (to an address outside the firm) user B gets automatically cc'ed into the message. It's not clear why this should need an inbox-rule at all, except that none of the transport rules do exactly what I just said (which is itself a 'flipping' joke). And if this does need an inbox rule, there's no good reason why it has to be a "client-only" rule. And if it does have to be a "client-only" rule stored on the server, there's no good reason for it to be inaccessible via the server.
