A supplier says the quotation was sent. Your sales team cannot find it. Resending may rescue the immediate conversation, but it does not explain whether the original message was rejected, quarantined, redirected or simply moved inside a mailbox.

Start with one identifiable message and trace its journey before changing email security settings. For a UAE business working across suppliers, branches and time zones, the most useful first step is a precise evidence record. ITZ’s Microsoft 365 support service can help review mail flow and mailbox behaviour together.

Collect the details that make a trace useful

Ask for the exact sender and recipient addresses, the approximate sending time with its time zone, and the subject. Note whether the destination is an individual mailbox, shared mailbox, alias or distribution list. If available, retain the original message headers and any non-delivery report. The Internet Message-ID is more useful than a screenshot of the subject alone.

Record the scope: one sender, one recipient or several people? Internal mail, external mail or both? Does the message appear in Outlook on the web but not the desktop app? These distinctions keep a local synchronisation problem from turning into an unnecessary tenant-wide configuration change.

Use message trace to establish what Exchange saw

An authorised administrator can use Exchange admin center → Mail flow → Message trace. Search around the recorded time, account for the selected time zone, and inspect the individual recipient and event details. Microsoft’s message-trace guide explains the available filters, statuses and reporting options. Recent results can lag; do not treat an immediate empty search as proof that nothing was sent.

  • No matching result: recheck addresses, time range and Message-ID. Ask the sender’s administrator for sending evidence and check any upstream mail gateway.
  • Failed: inspect the recorded reason and any non-delivery report. Correct the specific address, routing, policy or delivery problem identified.
  • Pending: examine retry and delay information before asking everyone to resend repeatedly.
  • Quarantined or filtered: move to a security review of that message and the policy that acted on it.
  • Delivered: check the destination and events, then investigate mailbox folders and client behaviour. Delivery status does not establish that a person saw or read the email.

Keep the trace reference and decision in the support record. A conclusion such as “Outlook problem” is too vague to test later.

Check quarantine without weakening protection

Have an authorised reviewer inspect the message in Microsoft Defender quarantine, using the sender, recipient and time to match the correct item. Review why it was held and whether its content is expected. Microsoft documents administrator quarantine review and release; permitted actions depend on roles and policies.

A recognisable supplier name is not sufficient evidence of safety. Confirm unusual requests through a known contact route. If a legitimate message was misclassified, handle that specific case and the false-positive investigation. Do not create a broad sender or domain exception merely to clear an urgent support ticket.

For recurring interruptions, request an email delivery review with the affected addresses, time window and business impact. Do not paste confidential message contents or administrator credentials into the enquiry.

If delivery succeeded, inspect the mailbox journey

Search the mailbox in the browser, including Junk, Deleted Items and Archive. Review authorised inbox rules, forwarding and shared-mailbox access. Compare the same message on the web and desktop. For a team inbox, the shared-mailbox workflow guide helps separate access and ownership issues from transport failures.

Unexpected forwarding or rules require a security investigation, not just deletion of the rule and closure of the ticket. Preserve relevant evidence and involve the account administrator. Problems with sender authentication belong in a controlled email authentication review, rather than speculative DNS edits during troubleshooting.

Close the incident with a controlled retest

After the identified correction, send an agreed, non-sensitive test message with a unique subject. Check its trace, destination and visibility in the affected client. If several routes were affected, test each relevant route rather than assuming one successful delivery proves all mail is healthy.

For example, a purchasing team might discover that a quotation reached its shared mailbox but an old rule moved it into an unattended folder. The acceptance test is then visible delivery to the intended workflow—not merely another successful transport event. This is an illustrative scenario, not an ITZ client result.

Request an Email Delivery Review. Share which teams are affected, when the problem began and whether webmail behaves differently. Discuss mail flow, quarantine and mailbox checks with ITZ through the enquiry form below.

Request an Email Delivery Review ↗

Technical references reviewed on 13 October 2026. Interface labels and available controls can vary with Microsoft updates and tenant permissions.