How a University Standardized 2,000 Faculty Signatures with Directory Sync
Lakeshore State University had 2,000 faculty and staff each creating their own email signatures, with no consistency in branding. By integrating Siggly with their campus directory, they achieved 99.8% adoption and gave the university a unified digital identity for the first time.
Key Capabilities Used
Campus Directory Sync
Faculty profiles are pulled from the university's LDAP directory, including department, title, office location, and campus phone extension.
Department Templates
Each college and department has a tailored template with the appropriate sub-brand logo and color accent.
Automatic Updates
When faculty change departments, receive promotions, or update their office location, signatures update automatically.
Accessibility Compliant
All signature templates meet WCAG 2.1 AA standards, ensuring accessibility for recipients with disabilities.
The Challenge
Lakeshore State University is a public research university with 2,000 faculty and staff across 8 colleges, 45 departments, and 3 campuses. The university had never implemented a standardized email signature policy, resulting in a chaotic mix of signatures that ranged from professionally designed to plain text to completely absent.
The university's brand audit revealed that fewer than 12% of employee emails included the official university logo, and faculty in the same department often used completely different formats. The provost and the VP of University Relations jointly commissioned a branding initiative that included standardizing email signatures as a priority.
The IT department faced a daunting challenge: deploying signatures to 2,000 users across a decentralized Google Workspace environment where each college had its own organizational unit. Previous attempts to distribute signature templates via email had resulted in only 8% adoption after 60 days.
The Solution
LDAP Directory Integration
Siggly connected to the university's LDAP directory to import all 2,000 faculty and staff profiles, including college, department, title, office building, room number, and campus phone extension.
College-Specific Templates
Eight templates were designed — one for each college — featuring the university masterbrand logo alongside each college's sub-brand mark and accent color. Administrative staff received a separate general template.
Phased Deployment
Signatures were deployed college by college over 3 weeks, with the College of Engineering serving as the pilot. Each phase included a verification step where department admins confirmed accuracy.
Faculty Self-Service Portal
Faculty were given a portal to upload headshots and add optional elements like office hours, lab website URLs, and research group affiliations.
The Results
Lakeshore State achieved 99.8% adoption — only 4 out of 2,000 users required manual intervention (due to legacy email configurations). The IT help desk, which had been fielding approximately 20 signature-related tickets per week, saw that number drop to fewer than 2 per week.
The university's brand audit score for email communications improved from 12% to 99.8% compliance. Faculty feedback was overwhelmingly positive, with 82% rating the new signatures as "professional and easy to use" in a post-deployment survey. The self-service portal for headshot uploads saw 67% participation within the first month.
VP of University Relations Terrence Blackwell noted that the standardized signatures had an unexpected benefit: alumni donors commented positively on the university's "polished, unified appearance," and the annual fund team reported a 15% increase in email response rates during the fall fundraising campaign.
"We tried to standardize signatures twice before and failed both times because we relied on faculty to do it themselves. Siggly made it invisible — signatures just appeared, correctly, for everyone. Our brand has never looked this consistent."
Terrence Blackwell
VP of University Relations, Lakeshore State University