Quickstart

This is the whole path, from an organisation that has never heard of Sigil to a signature appearing in Outlook. Each step links to the detail.

You need a Microsoft 365 tenant with Exchange Online, and an account that can grant admin consent in Entra and upload an add-in in the Microsoft 365 admin centre. Global Administrator covers both.

1. Connect your organisation

If you came from the free trial button on Sigil’s website, you start on a trial screen that says what you will need and offers a setup link to send to your IT administrator. See starting from the free trial.

Visit https://portal.usesigil.app/admin/consent. You are redirected to Microsoft’s admin consent screen, which lists the read-only Graph permissions Sigil needs. Granting consent installs Sigil’s service principal in your tenant.

The callback provisions your tenant automatically: it creates a trial subscription, pre-fills the billing profile from your organisation’s registered address, and seeds a ready-made starter signature so you do not open the portal to a blank page.

The first person to sign in afterwards becomes the tenant administrator.

You need a Global Administrator or Privileged Role Administrator account for this, because Microsoft refuses tenant-wide consent from anyone else.

1. Go to https://portal.usesigil.app/admin/consent.
2. Sign in on Microsoft’s screen with the administrator account.
3. Approve the permissions Microsoft lists.
4. Wait to be returned to the portal.

The portal shows “Your organisation is connected” and takes you straight into Microsoft sign-in, then on to the Getting started checklist.

If you signed in to the portal before consent was granted, the portal stops at “One more step to set up” instead of opening. Choose Approve as an administrator to start the same flow. If you cannot grant consent yourself, choose “Not an administrator? Copy the link” and send the link to somebody who can.

Full detail: connect your organisation.

2. Sign in to the portal

Go to https://portal.usesigil.app/admin and sign in with your Microsoft account. There is no separate password.

1. Go to https://portal.usesigil.app/admin.
2. Choose Sign in with Microsoft and sign in with your work account.
3. Open Getting started in the portal sidebar if the checklist is not already showing.

The checklist puts getting a signature working first: connecting Microsoft 365, your signature, the add-in, and checking the signature in Outlook. Billing details and a payment method come next, as what keeps signatures running after the trial. The Data Processing Agreement, your team and a test email come last. Only an Admin sees it. Choosing Dismiss hides it, and it stays reachable from the sidebar.

The Getting started checklist is the first entry in the sidebar, so an empty portal is never where you start. Each step’s completion is worked out from real state rather than being ticked off by hand, so the list stays honest.

3. Design your signature

Open Templates. You already have a starter template. From here you can either build a new one in the drag-and-drop designer or edit markup directly in the HTML editor.

To skip most of the branding work, create a new template from your website instead. Sigil reads your logo, brand colour, address and social profile links from your public site, shows you what it found, and builds the starter signature with them. See starting from your website.

If you are moving from another product, the usual approach is to recreate your existing signature so the switch is invisible to recipients. Both editors can do that; the HTML editor gives you exact control.

Drop in placeholders such as {{displayName}} and {{jobTitle}} wherever directory data belongs, and wrap optional parts in conditional sections so a missing phone number does not leave a stray separator behind.

Preview with sample data, then publish. In the HTML editor there is a line diff against the live version to read before you commit.

Create a template

You need the Admin or Editor role and a desktop browser, because the editors do not open on a phone.

1. Open Templates in the portal sidebar.
2. Choose New template.
3. Enter a template name.
4. Under Start from, pick Starter signature, Blank canvas, From your website or HTML editor.
5. If you picked From your website, choose Next, enter your website address and choose Look up. Use Leave out on anything found that you do not want.
6. Choose Create in designer, or Create in HTML editor for the HTML choice.

The new template opens in the editor you chose. To work on the starter template instead, choose Design or Edit next to it in the library.

Publish it

1. In the editor, check the preview of the rendered signature.
2. In the HTML editor, choose Diff to read the changes against the live version.
3. Choose Publish.
4. In the HTML editor, choose Publish again in the confirmation.

The portal confirms with a “Published” message. If your organisation requires publish approval and you are not an admin, the button reads Submit for review instead, and an admin publishes it or sends it back.

A template you created new is not in use until you make it so: in Templates, open the template’s menu and choose Set active for new mail.

4. Deploy the Outlook add-in

This is the step that makes signatures appear, and the one that needs care.

Deploy Sigil from the Microsoft Marketplace. The Getting started checklist links straight to the listing.

Target a pilot group first. Allow 6 to 72 hours for propagation before treating a missing add-in as a fault.

Event-based add-ins only auto-launch when an administrator deploys them. A person installing it themselves will not get automatic signatures.

You need an account that can deploy add-ins in the Microsoft 365 admin centre.

1. Open Getting started in the portal sidebar and, under Deploy the Outlook add-in, choose Open in Microsoft Marketplace. The listing is Sigil by Tophhie Cloud.
2. Signed in as a Microsoft 365 administrator, choose Get it now.
3. Assign it to your pilot group.
4. Accept the permissions request and finish the deployment.

The checklist marks this step done once Sigil has heard from the add-in in your tenant, not when you finish the deployment. The next step, Check your signature in Outlook, ticks once the add-in reports that it actually applied a signature.

Full detail: deploy the add-in.

5. Check it is working

Open Activity in the portal. It shows every signature request and every apply outcome, per mailbox, plus a list of mailboxes that have never successfully applied one.

1. Open Activity in the portal sidebar.
2. Under Signature adoption, read how many mailboxes have applied their signature at least once and how many never have.
3. Under By mailbox, find each pilot mailbox and check its Outcome.
4. Choose Export mailboxes (CSV) to download every mailbox with a Signature applied column of Yes or No. Filter it for No to list the ones that never have.

Send yourself a test email to see the rendered signature in a real client.

1. Open Templates in the portal sidebar.
2. Choose Send a test.
3. Under Render as, enter the mailbox whose details should fill the template.
4. Under Signature, pick New-message signature or Reply signature.
5. Under Send to, enter an address, or leave it blank to send to yourself.
6. Choose Send test.

If something is missing, troubleshooting works from tenant state down to a single mailbox.

6. Invite colleagues and add a card

Under Users and roles, invite the people who need portal access and give each a role. There are six built-in roles, and an Admin can also define custom ones, but most people need a narrow one: Marketing reaches banners and link analytics, Compliance reaches the legal footer, Viewer reads without changing anything. See users and roles.

You need the Admin or Billing role to invite, and only an Admin can give somebody the Admin role.

1. Open Users & roles in the portal sidebar.
2. Choose Invite user.
3. Under Email address, start typing their name or address and pick them from your directory.
4. Under Role, pick a role.
5. Choose Add user.

They get access the next time they sign in with their Microsoft 365 account.

Under Billing, add a card in the form on the page. At the end of the trial Stripe either charges the card or, if there is no card on file, cancels the subscription. An organisation that never adds a card simply stops rather than being billed by surprise, and once the trial ends without an active subscription signatures stop being served.

You need the Admin or Billing role, and your billing details have to be saved before a card can be added.

1. Open Billing in the portal sidebar.
2. Open the Billing details tab and enter your legal company name, address, country and billing email.
3. Choose Save billing details.
4. Open the Your subscription tab.
5. Choose Add payment method.
6. Enter the card in the form that opens and choose Save card. If your bank asks you to confirm the card, follow its prompt.

A “Payment method saved.” message confirms it. The card details go straight to Stripe, Sigil’s payment processor, and never pass through Sigil.

What comes next

Once the basics work, the pieces that usually follow are assignment rules to give different departments different signatures, a compliance footer for legal, and banners when marketing wants a campaign.

For a phased rollout across a larger organisation, see planning a rollout.