An underscore?

How much of a problem can an underscore cause, I hear you ask?

Well, quite a bit it seems…

I worked with Support the other week on an issue where a customer we doing a simple search in seach.asp, adding the items to a basket, clicking restore and getting :

It didn’t matter what they did..  We couldn’t get it to work.

This customer had a bit of a complex domain environment, with multiple sites, ISA servers with point to point VPN and lots of other things that kept us going down dead-ends for quite some time.

Then we had a breakthrough.  The customer tried Firefox, rather than IE.  And guess what?  Firefox worked everytime.

So this is a configuration issue in Internet Explorer, you would think…  But that’s not quite true.

What we were seeing in the Fiddler trace was that we were not keeping hold of a cookie that we should have been given at the beginning of the session.  We can even see the cookie being sent to us.. but we the browser doesn’t use it in it’s next contact with the server.  The net result is that the restore request can’t succeed because it’s using objects from another page, which are now “out of session”.  Hence the error mesage.

So here is the line from Fiddler where the cookie is coming back to us :

HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Via: 1.1 XYZ, 1.1 ISASERVER
Connection: Keep-Alive
Proxy-Connection: Keep-Alive
Content-Length: 11588
Expires: Mon, 19 Oct 2009 16:43:37 GMT
Date: Mon, 02 Nov 2009 14:03:37 GMT
Content-Type: text/html; charset=utf-8
Server: Microsoft-IIS/6.0
X-Powered-By: ASP.NET
path=/EnterpriseVault
Set-Cookie: dvwsRestoreBasketExchangeServer=MAIL; expires=Tue, 02-Nov-2010 00:00:00 GMT; path=/EnterpriseVault
Set-Cookie: ASPSESSIONIDCACQBCDS=GECBLIEDOAGAMAOCOMIKDHCC; path=/
Cache-control: private

But then in the next request to the server, the cookie is not sent.

If we look at the host information, we spot our infamous underscore :

GET /EnterpriseVault/search.asp?server=MAIL&mbx=SMTP:wilcoxr@somthing.co.uk&version=0 HTTP/1.1
Accept: */*
Accept-Language: en-gb
User-Agent: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 7.0; Windows NT 5.1; Trident/4.0; InfoPath.2; .NET CLR 2.0.50727; .NET CLR 3.0.04506.30; .NET CLR 3.0.04506.648; .NET CLR 3.0.4506.2152; .NET CLR 3.5.30729; MS-RTC LM
Accept-Encoding: gzip, deflate
Connection: Keep-Alive
Authorization: Negotiate TlRMTVNTUAADAAAAGAAYAHwAAAAYABgAlAAAAAoACgBIAAAAGAAYAFIAAAASABIAagAAAAAAAACsAAAABYKIogUBKAoAAAAPUwBBAFIATgBUAGEAcwBpAGwAawBlAGIAYQBrAGsAZQBuAEEAUwAtAEwAQQBQAFQATwBQAP9InDQCuIS3AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHuzN64lpw23TNVOnh2upuX0xxLOQ/FhEw==
Host: vltsrv01-123.somedomain_me.local

It turns out that Internet Explorer will SILENTLY drop session cookies that come from hosts with an underscore in their name !  Firefox doesn’t do that.  An underscore is an invalid character in a machine FQDN.

http://blogs.msdn.com/ieinternals/archive/2009/08/20/WinINET-IE-Cookie-Internals-FAQ.aspx

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/975104/en-us

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/909264/en-us

http://support.microsoft.com/?id=319182

The customer is experimenting with workarounds, which will hopefully mean he doesn’t have to rebuild his entire domain structure, but, there will be trouble-ahead because Exchange 2010 doesn’t like underscores either.

Shortcut Processing … doesn’t

I worked on an issue a couple of weeks which was really interesting.  During a run of the archiving task it was observed that NO shortcut processing was taking place.

At first I thought that the movement tracking wasn’t enabled in the mailbox policy, but when checked it looked just like this :

So shortcut processing should work… but we couldn’t see any reference to it in the archiving task dtrace.

After a lot of searching it was discovered that it was because the IPM.Note.EnterpriseVault* message class was added to the directory, and not enabled on the mailbox policy itself.  So, on the properties of the Directory in the VAC you would see this :

And on the policy you would see this :

The net result of those two things is that nothing happens with shortcut processing, because the message class isn’t selected.  It turns out this particular customer had been testing some policies and left things like this, they fixed things by removing the entry on the Directory properties.

Buttons work, but opening items doesn’t

An issue I wandered past the other day, that I thought I’d share amongst everyone.

The issue is that the EV Outlook Web Access extensions were installed on a freshly installed Exchange 2007 CAS server.  The installation succeeded, but when opening Outlook Web Access with a test user archived items don’t retrieve the full item, they only show the shortcut.  So all the buttons work correctly, the icons are all in place ..  Just like this screenshot :

When you open an archived item you get :

As with most Outlook Web Access issues your first port of call should be the OWA Diagnostic Logs.  From there I saw this interesting bit :

Firstly we try to open the item from the Deleted Items folder (as it might have been previously retrieved :

16/11/2009 06:07:12 [2332,19] [WebDAVRequest::Send] Request url: https://localhost/exchange/ex2k7testuser1@EV.Local/Deleted Items/139895ECDF7FDAF43B0380DA85D0058CD1110000evsite!200911110000000.200910201304090000.Z.A0072597C636735800C763D5081098E1.EML
16/11/2009 06:07:12 [2332,19] [WebDAVRequest::Send] Request method: PROPFIND
16/11/2009 06:07:12 [2332,19] [WebDAVRequest::Send] Request timeout (milliseconds): 30000
16/11/2009 06:07:12 [2332,19] [WebDAVRequest::Send] Adding FBA cookies
16/11/2009 06:07:12 [2332,19] [WebDAVRequest::Send] Adding Depth header: 0
16/11/2009 06:07:12 [2332,19] [WebDAVRequest::Send] Request body: <?xml version=”1.0″?><d:propfind xmlns:d=”DAV:” ><d:prop><mapi:x0FFF0102 xmlns:mapi=”http://schemas.microsoft.com/mapi/proptag/” /><exch:outlookmessageclass xmlns:exch=”http://schemas.microsoft.com/exchange/” /></d:prop></d:propfind>
16/11/2009 06:07:12 [2332,19] [WebDAVRequest::Send] Exception sending WebDAV request: System.Net.WebException: The remote server returned an error: (404) Not Found.
at System.Net.HttpWebRequest.GetResponse()
at Symantec.EnterpriseVault.Owa.ExchangeStoreAccess.WebDAVRequest.Send()

The failure with a 404 is expected in this case.  404 = not found.

So the extensions then make a call to restoreo2k.asp, as we can see this fails :

16/11/2009 06:07:12 [2332,19] [EVServerRequest::CreateRequest] Sending request to: http://evserver/EVAnon/restoreo2k.asp?vaultid=139895ECDF7FDAF43B0380DA85D0058CD1110000evsite&savesetid=200911110000000~200910201304090000~Z~A0072597C636735800C763D5081098E1&mbx=ex2k7testuser1@EV.Local&server=SERVER1&restorelocation=3&foldername=Deleted Items
16/11/2009 06:07:12 [2332,19] [EVServerRequest::CreateRequest] Request timeout (milliseconds): 30000
16/11/2009 06:07:12 [2332,19] [EVServerRequest::AddHeader] Set header: EV-OWA-2007-Extensions-Version=7.5.6.2846
16/11/2009 06:07:12 [2332,19] [EVServerRequest::CreateRequest] Making request for user: EV\ex2k7testuser1
16/11/2009 06:07:12 [2332,19] [EVServerRequest::AddHeader] Set header: X-EVOWA-User-Encoded=450056005C006500780032006B003700740065007300740075007300650072003100
16/11/2009 06:07:12 [2332,19] [RestoreRequest::Send] Exception sending request to restore item: System.Net.WebException: The remote server returned an error: (403) Forbidden.
at System.Net.HttpWebRequest.GetResponse()
at Symantec.EnterpriseVault.Owa.EVServerRequests.RestoreRequest.Send()
16/11/2009 06:07:12 [2332,19] [RequestProcessor::RestoreAndActOnItem] Item not restored
16/11/2009 06:07:12 [2332,19] [Id::OwaId] Returning cached OwaId: RgAAAADQcEs8JgaATaDqMjcgySFIBwBOwfHRfFz6RqWSzrPMQVMfAK2ZF7KOAABOwfHRfFz6RqWSzrPMQVMfAxjqITf8AAAJ
16/11/2009 06:07:12 [2332,19] [RequestProcessor::RestoreAndActOnMailboxItem] Redirecting client to: /owa/?ae=Item&a=Open&t=ipm.note.enterprisevault.shortcut&id=RgAAAADQcEs8JgaATaDqMjcgySFIBwBOwfHRfFz6RqWSzrPMQVMfAK2ZF7KOAABOwfHRfFz6RqWSzrPMQVMfAxjqITf8AAAJ&EVItemUnavailable=1
16/11/2009 06:07:12 [2332,19] [RequestProcessor:StopImpersonation] Stopped impersonation
16/11/2009 06:07:12 [2332,19] Request processing finished

The key here is the status code that is returned… 403.

What we then need to do is look at the IIS log files on the Enterprise Vault Server.  From there we can see :

2009-11-16 12:07:14 192.168.1.2 GET /EVAnon/restoreo2k.asp vaultid=139895ECDF7FDAF43B0380DA85D0058CD1110000evsite&savesetid=200911110000000~200910201304090000~Z~A0072597C636735800C763D5081098E1&mbx=ex2k7testuser1@EV.Local&server=SERVER1&restorelocation=3&foldername=Deleted%20Items 80 – 192.168.1.35 – 403 6 0

403.6 = IP address refused.

This should set your mind in the right direction.  When we are going to the EVAnon virtual directory, there are IP address restrictions, and the IP we are coming from (192.168.1.35) isn’t in that list.  The settings on the virtual directory are obtained from the ExchangeServers.txt file, which is used by the OWAUser.wsf script.

So the solution in this case is either to manually edit the restriction list in IIS, or edit ExchangeServers.txt on the Enterprise Vault server, and re-run OWAUser.wsf.  After that the archived item will display properly.

Using DisplayItemsUsingOOM

As many people will know the Enterprise Vault Outlook Add-in uses the Exchange Client Extensions to display archived items when you double click on them in the Outlook interface.  In other words.. the dreaded forms.

Over the many releases of the Enterprise Vault Outlook Add-in more has been done to try to limit the problems that can be encountered with deploying the Outlook forms.  Most notable is the policy setting which can be used to Deploy Forms Locally.

This saves alot of the administrative overhead in trying to update Organisation Forms library in a large enterprise – in fact many large enterprises just don’t allow Organisational Forms changes, because of the problems that have been encountered with them in the past.

Another thing that has been changed, and is available by the usage of a client-side registry key (currently) is what method is used to display items.  There are many other Outlook add-ins that people may have deployed in a corporate environment such as Microsoft CRM client, antivirus plugins, and security/encryption plugins.  One of the problems caused by the Exchange Client Extensions (apart from it’s age!) is the fact that the events which fire get passed to our add-in, and we aren’t able to pass on those events which we are not interested in.  This means that those other plug-ins may fail to work.

To the rescue is DisplayItemsUsingOOM.  You add the client side registry key as follows :

HKEY_CURRENT_USER
Software
KVS
Enterprise Vault
Client

Type : DWORD
Name : DisplayItemsUsingOOM
Value: 1

With this key set the Enterprise Vault Outlook Add-in will use the Outlook Object Model in order to display items.  Using the Outlook Object Model means that events which fire which we aren’t interested in, can be passed on to other add-ins and/or Outlook.  No more problems with other Outlook add-ins… at least not in the testing we’ve done so far.

The registry key was added in Enterprise Vault 7 SP 2, however in Enterprise Vault 7 and 2007 there are some limitations, so it’s probably best not to make widespread use of it in that version unless you have an urgent need, and feel your organisation won’t be restricted by the limitations.  Here are the limitations :

1. The download format would have to be DVS (rather than MSG) and therefore PSTs could not be disabled on user’s desktops. This is because when the download format is MSG, the message is downloaded and opened from memory, rather than being saved to a PST. The OOM method to open and display an item requires the item to be located in a message store.

2. Our hooks to handle the following user actions on the opened item would not occur:

* Save: Any changes would be saved to the temporary item in the PST and would be lost (currently user is prompted that the item is archived and therefore the item has to be saved in the Drafts folder of the mailbox (the user has the option to choose another folder).

* Delete: The item in the temporary PST would be deleted (currently we action the ‘Delete means delete’ functionality).

* Previous/next: The previous and next buttons would not function when items are launched from Archive Explorer

In Enterprise Vault 8, all of these restrictions are no longer present, and in testing so far, seems to work a treat.  It works with both the full and the lite clients.

You can see the key in use in the Outlook client trace as follows :

5/08/2009 11:55:37.706[3844]: DesktopCommonConfig::GetConfigValue: 0×0
25/08/2009 11:55:37.707[3844]:  DISPLAYITEMSUSINGOOM = 1 [Registry]
25/08/2009 11:55:37.707[3844]: ~DesktopCommonConfig::GetConfigValue: 0×0
25/08/2009 11:55:37.707[3844]: CDesktop::CreateTempMsgEx: 0×0
25/08/2009 11:55:37.708[3844]: CDesktopPSTHelperBase::CDesktopPSTHelperBase
25/08/2009 11:55:37.708[3844]: ~CDesktopPSTHelperBase::CDesktopPSTHelperBase
25/08/2009 11:55:37.708[3844]: CDesktopPSTHelperBase::SetMAPISession: 0×0
25/08/2009 11:55:37.709[3844]: ~CDesktopPSTHelperBase::SetMAPISession: 0×0
25/08/2009 11:55:37.709[3844]: CPSTHelper::OpenTemporaryPST: 0×0
25/08/2009 11:55:37.709[3844]: DesktopCommon::GetEVTempPath: 0×0
25/08/2009 11:55:37.712[3844]: ~DesktopCommon::GetEVTempPath: 0×0
25/08/2009 11:55:37.714[3844]: CDesktopPSTHelperBase::OpenNamedPST: 0×0
25/08/2009 11:55:37.714[3844]: CDesktopPSTHelperBase::AddService: 0xo
25/08/2009 11:55:37.727[3844]: ~CDesktopPSTHelperBase::AddService: 0×0
25/08/2009 11:55:37.727[3844]: CDesktopPSTHelperBase::OpenPST: 0×0
25/08/2009 11:55:37.727[3844]: CDesktopPSTHelperBase::ClosePST: 0×0
25/08/2009 11:55:37.728[3844]: ~CDesktopPSTHelperBase::ClosePST: 0×1
25/08/2009 11:55:37.728[3844]: CDesktopPSTHelperBase::ConfigurePST: 0×0
25/08/2009 11:55:38.078[3844]: ~CDesktopPSTHelperBase::ConfigurePST: 0×0
25/08/2009 11:55:38.122[3844]: CDesktopPSTHelperBase::HandlePSTDisableGrow: 0×0
25/08/2009 11:55:38.122[3844]: ~CDesktopPSTHelperBase::HandlePSTDisableGrow: 0×0
25/08/2009 11:55:38.123[3844]: ~CDesktopPSTHelperBase::OpenPST: 0×0
25/08/2009 11:55:38.123[3844]: CDesktopPSTHelperBase::RemoveService: 0×0
25/08/2009 11:55:38.125[3844]: ~CDesktopPSTHelperBase::RemoveService: 0×0
25/08/2009 11:55:38.125[3844]: ~CDesktopPSTHelperBase::OpenNamedPST: 0×0
25/08/2009 11:55:38.125[3844]: ~CPSTHelper::OpenTemporaryPST: 0×0
25/08/2009 11:55:38.126[3844]: CDesktopPSTHelperBase::GetRootFolder: 0×0
25/08/2009 11:55:38.126[3844]: ~CDesktopPSTHelperBase::GetRootFolder: 0×0
25/08/2009 11:55:38.128[3844]: ~CDesktop::CreateTempMsgEx: 0×0
25/08/2009 11:55:38.149[3844]: CShortcutItem::Callback…Display downloaded item

This is followed by :

25/08/2009 11:55:38.150[3844]: DesktopCommon::ViewItem: 0×0
25/08/2009 11:55:38.150[3844]: DesktopCommonConfig::GetConfigValue: 0×0
25/08/2009 11:55:38.150[3844]:  DISPLAYITEMSUSINGOOM = 1 [Registry]
25/08/2009 11:55:38.151[3844]: ~DesktopCommonConfig::GetConfigValue: 0×0
25/08/2009 11:55:38.151[3844]: ::DisplayItem: 0×0
25/08/2009 11:55:38.628[3844]: ::AutoWrap: 0×0
25/08/2009 11:55:38.628[3844]: ~::AutoWrap: 0×0
25/08/2009 11:55:38.629[3844]: ::AutoWrap: 0×0
25/08/2009 11:55:38.641[3844]: ~::AutoWrap: 0×0
25/08/2009 11:55:38.641[3844]: ::AutoWrap: 0×0
25/08/2009 11:55:38.641[3844]: ~::AutoWrap: 0×0
25/08/2009 11:55:38.641[3844]: ::AutoWrap: 0×0
25/08/2009 11:55:38.880[3844]: ~::AutoWrap: 0×0
25/08/2009 11:55:38.881[3844]: ::AutoWrap: 0×0
25/08/2009 11:55:38.881[3844]: ~::AutoWrap: 0×0
25/08/2009 11:55:38.881[3844]: ::COutlookItemEvents
25/08/2009 11:55:38.882[3844]: COutlookItemEvents::SetupConnection: 0×0
25/08/2009 11:55:38.882[3844]: COutlookItemEvents::QueryInterface: 0×0
25/08/2009 11:55:38.882[3844]: COutlookItemEvents::AddRef
25/08/2009 11:55:38.882[3844]: ~COutlookItemEvents::AddRef
25/08/2009 11:55:38.883[3844]: ~COutlookItemEvents::QueryInterface: 0×0
25/08/2009 11:55:38.883[3844]: COutlookItemEvents::AddRef
25/08/2009 11:55:38.884[3844]: ~COutlookItemEvents::AddRef
25/08/2009 11:55:38.891[3844]: COutlookItemEvents::Release
25/08/2009 11:55:38.891[3844]: ~COutlookItemEvents::Release
25/08/2009 11:55:38.892[3844]: ~COutlookItemEvents::SetupConnection: 0×0
25/08/2009 11:55:38.892[3844]: ::AutoWrap: 0×0
25/08/2009 11:55:38.892[3844]: ~::AutoWrap: 0×0
25/08/2009 11:55:38.892[3844]: ~::COutlookItemEvents
25/08/2009 11:55:38.893[3844]: ::COutlookItemInspectorEvents
25/08/2009 11:55:38.893[3844]: COutlookItemInspectorEvents::SetupConnection: 0×0
25/08/2009 11:55:38.893[3844]: COutlookItemInspectorEvents::QueryInterface: 0×0
25/08/2009 11:55:38.894[3844]: COutlookItemInspectorEvents::AddRef
25/08/2009 11:55:38.894[3844]: ~COutlookItemInspectorEvents::AddRef
25/08/2009 11:55:38.894[3844]: ~COutlookItemInspectorEvents::QueryInterface: 0×0
25/08/2009 11:55:38.894[3844]: COutlookItemInspectorEvents::AddRef
25/08/2009 11:55:38.921[3844]: ~COutlookItemInspectorEvents::AddRef
25/08/2009 11:55:38.921[3844]: COutlookItemInspectorEvents::Release
25/08/2009 11:55:38.921[3844]: ~COutlookItemInspectorEvents::Release
25/08/2009 11:55:38.922[3844]: ~COutlookItemInspectorEvents::SetupConnection: 0×0
25/08/2009 11:55:38.922[3844]: ~::COutlookItemInspectorEvents
25/08/2009 11:55:38.923[3844]: ~::DisplayItem: 0×0
25/08/2009 11:55:38.923[3844]: ~DesktopCommon::ViewItem: 0×0

References :

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/199343

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/286408

Getting test data – 2

A small script that I needed in order to test Calendar archiving.

To use the script open Outlook as a test user, and run the script.  It will create 500 test appointments lasting 1 hour over the last 20 days.

'on error resume next
set objOutlook=createobject("Outlook.Application")
set MyNameSpace=ObjOutlook.GetNamespace("MAPI")
set MyCalendar = MyNamespace.getdefaultfolder(9)

maxDays=20
minDays=1

maxHour = 23
MinHour = 1

maxMin = 59
MinMin = 0

wscript.echo "Count of items in calendar : " & mycalendar.items.count
for i = 1 to 500

	' Decide on number of days back to do the appointment
	NumDays = (Int((maxDays-minDays+1)*Rnd+minDays))
	vDay= (DatePart("d",Now()-NumDays))
	vMonth =  (DatePart("m",Now()-NumDays))
	vYear =  (DatePart("yyyy",Now()-NumDays))

	NumHour = (Int((maxHour-MinHour+1)*Rnd+MinHour))
	NumMin = (Int((maxMin-MinMin+1)*Rnd+MinMin))
	StartDate = cdate(vday & "/" & vmonth & "/" & vyear & " " & NumHour & ":" & NumMin)

	wscript.echo i & " is loop count, and Start Date : " & startdate

	With MyCalendar.Items.Add(1)
		.AllDayEvent = False
		.Subject = "test appointment " & i
		.Body = "Something goes here"
		.Start = StartDate
		.Duration = 60
		.ReminderSet = False
		.Save
	End With

next

wscript.echo "Count of items in calendar : " & mycalendar.items.count

Getting test data

I wrote the following simple script to send 1000 emails into Exchange, whereby the subject is sequentially numbered.

It’s quite handy for testing bulk operations, because you can see (if it fails) where it got to in processing the items.

You will only need some small (obvious) modification to run in your environment, and it uses CDO from VBScript (so needs to be run from a client with Outlook + CDO installed)

set objMessage = CreateObject("CDO.Message")
set objConfig = CreateObject("CDO.Configuration")

SET Flds = objConfig.Fields
    With Flds
        .Item("http://schemas.microsoft.com/cdo/configuration/sendusing") = 2
        .Item("http://schemas.microsoft.com/cdo/configuration/smtpserver") = "exch1.ev.local"
        .Update
    End With

set objMessage.COnfiguration = objConfig

' Do a big loop

for i = 1 to 1000
            wscript.echo "Processing : " & i
            objMessage.Subject = i
            objMessage.From = "ExternalPerson@External.com"
            objMessage.To = "YourTestUser@ev.local"
            objMessage.TextBody = "Hello"
            objMessage.Send
            wscript.sleep(1000)
next

ExchangeServers.txt

A lesser known thing cropped up the other day, and I thought it worth sharing.  The question is which IP addresses go in the ExchangeServers.txt file which is used with owauser.wsf on the EV server.  The answer is :-

* Each Exchange 2007 that has the CAS role.

* Each Exchange 2003 or Exchange 2000 back-end server.

There is no need to put in the Exchange 2003 / 2000 Front-End server in there.

Enabling all mailboxes on a mailbox store

One of the more interesting things that you can do with EVPM is to enable mailboxes for archiving.  Since EVPM can do quite complex LDAP queries it’s possible to be quite creative in enabling batches of users at intervals.

Here is a little script which gives an example of that ..  The EVPM script below will enable everyone on a specific mailbox store :

[Directory]
DirectoryComputerName=evault1
SiteName=site1
[Mailbox]
LDAPQuery=(homemdb=CN=2ndMbx,CN=2ndSG,CN=InformationStore,CN=EXCH1,CN=Servers,CN=First Administrative Group,CN=Administrative Groups,CN=EV Training,CN=Microsoft Exchange,CN=Services,CN=Configuration,DC=EV,DC=Local)

[Folder]
Name=Mailboxroot
Enabled=True

Note: If you get a 0xc0040d1b error for a mailbox (or well, most of them as I did) then you should make sure that provisioning has been run, and found these users, and that the vault store and indexing services are set at the provisioning group.

VAC and EV Outlook client installation

Whilst it might not be officially supported many people run the VAC and the EV Outlook client on the same machine (for example on an admin-type workstation).  There are a few glitches with doing, because there are some common DLL’s between the two, which can cause problems.

First issue is that if you install the server kit first, when you try to install the client, you’ll get a pop-up informing you :-

This client kit cannot be installed on top of a server installation.

So, the way to do it is to install the client kit first, then the server kit.

Second issue is that once you have it working, if you want to “upgrade” (say from EV 8 SP 2, to EV 8 SP 3) you have to install both components, and then reinstall them again in the same order.

Bit of a pain having to do these steps, but at the moment that’s the way it is.  Hopefully in the future this may get addressed.

Delegate Access

A question came up the other day relating to how an admin-assistant + manager combination can work from an EV point of view if the admin-assistant isn’t EV enabled, and the manager is.

When the Outlook client opens the EV Add-in reads a hidden mesage in the mailbox (which the archiving task mailbox synchronisation process puts there).  The hidden message contains the users policy settings.

If the hidden message isn’t present, then it is assumed that the user is not EV enabled, and buttons / UI gets hidden.

This means that when the end-user access the managers mailbox a couple of things happen :

* archived items won’t have the right icon

* opening archived items will just open the shortcut

* still no client buttons (for things like search and archive explorer).

There are a couple of ways out of this though …  you could enabled the admin-assistant, but put them in a policy that doesn’t ever doing anything, and gives them no buttons (save for search and archive explorer perhaps), or you could tell the user to use http://yourvaultserver/enterprisevault/search.asp, and / or http://yourvaultserver/enterprisevault/archiveexplorerui.asp