Must Read: Tips for Working Faster in Microsoft Outlook.

The folks at Lifehacker did a fantastic article on 12+ Tips and Tricks to Work Faster in Microsoft Outlook.

Read it and pass it along to everyone else in your organization.

Scripting Sumatra's MDaemon to Exchange calendar migration tool

We've turned the mCalReader application for migrating calendars from MDaemon to Exchange into a scriptable application.

So from the Command Prompt or PowerShell you can issue the commands

mCalReader /usersrc:  /userex:  /cfg: /undo

What each of these mean:

• /usersrc:  the full email address of your source user on MDaemon.  e.g., zyg@sumatra.local
• /userex:  the full email target address on Exchange.  e.g., zyg-furmaniuk@sumatra.onmicrosoft.com
• /cfg:  the full path to the configuration file
• /undo:  remove the data mCalReader inserted for this user.

So a typical scripted insertion for a user would be:

mcalreader 

  /usersrc:zyg@sumatra.local 

  /userex:zyg-furmaniuk@sumatra.onmicrosoft.com 

  /cfg:"C:\Docs and Sets\Administrator\Desktop\mCalReader\_Config_bCalReader.xml"

To remove Sumatra-inserted data:

mcalreader 

  /usersrc:zyg@sumatra.local 

  /userex:zyg-furmaniuk@sumatra.onmicrosoft.com 

  /cfg:"C:\Docs and Sets\Administrator\Desktop\mCalReader\_Config_bCalReader.xml"

  /undo

Each individual user using this method will get their own individual log file:

How do you set the Configuration file?  Simple: Via the user interface to the tool.  You CAN edit the XML if you want, it's pretty straightforward, but the interface exists to make it as simple as possible to test that access to Microsoft Exchange is working.

Create a Company Shared Contacts Folder in Office 365

We got asked to look into shared contacts folders in Office 365.

It turns out we did not need to do anything because some folks at Cogmotive have already done it.

Check out their article Create a company Shared Contacts folder in Office 365.  It's very detailed and thorough.

imapsync vs PST: Tonnage and Speed

Our first lab test of volume for imapsync resulted in an average throughput of 11.8 message/second, or 830 kb/second transferring 3013 messages with 358 skipped messages (I think that had to do with headers and the way we treated them).

We then went into the real world with a Boston-based firm and compared moving PSTs to moving via imapsync.

One PST for a user took 15 minutes to export client-side.  We did not even bother continuing to time after that.

Using imapsync (for email) and our mCalReader (calendars, tasks, contacts) we read that user AND TWO OTHERS and inserted all three in 8 minutes.

Or imapsync has at LEAST 6 times the throughput.

Our conclusion was that imapsync is MUCH faster.  Our further conclusion is that for purposes of migration PSTs fall far short of ideal.  PSTs really suck to tell you the truth.

In going through some of our previous posts, I discovered an interesting factoid that we published years ago when comparing client-side migration speed vs. server-side migration speed.  Server-side was 2-3 time faster on insertion than a client side migration just for calendars.

MDaemon Mail to Exchange 2007 via Microsoft Transporter Suite

Gentle reader,

Today we will use Microsoft Transporter Suite for migrating email from MDaemon to Exchange 2007.

Why?  Obviously because we're going to get to moving calendars for this legacy product, but you only get to calendars if you're also doing email and we get asked about email, so we're documenting it here.

This is for on-premises Exchange migration to Exchange 2007 ONLY.  You want to go into Office 365, the read our previous article How to Migrate Oracle Beehive Email into Office 365 because the method will be the same.  

Why 2007?  Believe it or not Exchange 2007 is still out there, and we still get questions on it.  Might as well deal with reality.

We've also tested email migrations with imapsync (spoiler alert: imapsync is MUCH BETTER).

But it starts with Transporter since it's there, it's free, it's from Microsoft.  What is not to love? Quite a few things, actually, but free is a big draw.

First, download and install it.  But: WHERE should you download it and install it?

You won't even be able to get to the documentation (all in the form of help files) until after you install it -- so I'll cut to the chase:  you must have Exchange Recipient Admin rights and Exchange Impersonation rights on a computer with the Client Access server role installed for Exchange 2007. Later version of Exchange will of course require slightly different methods of setting these permissions (and we've blogged on those enough).

Refer to this section of the in-application help.

For MDaemon we're going to be using the Transporter for Internet Mail. The installer seems to already know we do not have Lotus Notes installed,

but  then very helpfully reminds us in case that was what we were really after.  

We're not in this case, so let's just accept the EULA and get this done.

Now we can actually execute the Transporter

You are now in a position to actually start defining which user mailboxes you will move.

But you need to give it a list in a CSV-- and you notice a distinct lack of a user manual. What should the format of this list be?

In one of the few times I will ever write that the Help Files are actually.... HELPful, I am bidding you to Click on Help and read them.

The format is then readily copied and uploaded.

My file looks something like this:

You'll see something like this and are ready to import.

Now migrate your email.

Corrupt MDaemon meetings in a migration

We found (in the wild) conditions where MDaemon meetings were corrupt, in this case missing their Organizers or Planners.

What to do?  They're corrupt and may or may not display in an MDaemon client -- but they are in the data.

Under our usual rubric of "it is better to recover everything we can and let the user delete if they do not want it -- because it is harder to re-create something not there than delete something that is" we recover the meeting and tag it with the category "Meetings_MissingOrganizer"

So you could search for those in Outlook post-migration and make decisions about them.

MDaemon Mail to Exchange via imapsync

Gentle reader of migration mindedness,

Today we will use imapsync for migrating email from MDaemon to Exchange.

Why?  Obviously because we're going to get to moving calendars for this legacy product, but you only get to calendars if you're also doing email and we get asked about email, so we're documenting it here.

Using imapsync will cost you all of 50 Euros.

Goodness, gracious it is worth it!  

This application has significant advantages over other products:  

1. It is really simple to install and use.
2. The "sync" in the title is serious.  You can upload all the data from a user set during working hours and then cut over the incremental changes starting on a Friday after closing time.
3. You can also use imapsync on a Linux environment as well as a Windows environment.
4. It is all in your control as opposed to run through someone else's data center or through a major integrator looking to run up hours.
5. It is very reasonably priced with the most liberal license I have seen.

We use the Windows version in our testing.

imapsync runs exclusively in the Command Prompt.

First off, please make sure you have enabled IMAP on your Exchange 2013 server.

Migrating from MDaemon to Office 365 looks something like this (if you use individual passwords for users).

imapsync.exe 
--host1 147.1.41.1 --user1 zyg@sumatra.local --password1  "XXXX" 
--host2 outlook.office365.com --user2 zyg@sumatra.onmicrosoft.com --password2 "XXXXX"  
--ssl2

If you set up a service account with FullAccess, you can accomplish a migration with a command like this:


imapsync.exe 
--host1 147.1.41.1  
--user1 jimi.hendrix@sumatra.local --password1  "XXXX" 
--host2 outlook.office365.com --port2 993 --sep2 / 
--user2 jimi.hendrix@sumatra.onmicrosoft.com  
--authuser2 riuliano@sumatra.onmicrosoft.com 
--password2 "XXXXX"  --ssl2

Note in  the above, for an Office 365 target system we need to use the "--sep2 /" command. 

Executing will give you some excellent statistics and feedback.

Other things to be aware of

Exchange Configuration Requirements:

Before you can run imapsync, you will have configure Exchange for IMAP.  This requires two steps.

Step 1: Start two IMAP4 services (and configure those services to automatically start if you wish.)

By default, in Exchange 2013 the IMAP4 service(s) are stopped:

To start those services: On the computer running the Client Access server role:

1. Set the IMAP4 service to automatically start:

     Set-service msExchangeIMAP4 -startuptype automatic

2. Start the Microsoft Exchange IMAP4 service.

     Start-service msExchangeIMAP4

On the computer running the Mailbox server role:

1. Set the Microsoft Exchange IMAP4 Backend service to start automatically.

     Set-service msExchangeIMAP4BE -startuptype automatic

2. Start the Microsoft Exchange IMAP4 Backend service.

             Start-service msExchangeIMAP4BE

In our case, the CAS and Mailbox server roles are on the same box:

Step 2: Configure Exchange IMAP4 External Connection so users can see (and thus use) the IMAP server settings

Use the powershell SET-IMAPSettings cmdlet, e.g.:

     Set-ImapSettings -ExternalConnectionSetting {:993:SSL}.

This requires you restart IIS.

This is true even if you are working within the firewall  Thus in our case, the External Connection is the same as the InternalConnection.

Finally,  Verify things are working, using OWA’s Options select Account, then pick the “Settings for POP or IMAP access” link.

For more information see: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb124489(v=exchg.150).aspx

These sample scripts for major migrations / multiple users will help you out a lot.

http://imapsync.lamiral.info/examples/sync_loop_windows.bat

http://imapsync.lamiral.info/examples/file.txt

I really like the way this user lays out a basic sequencing for migrations including how and when to change your MX records.

http://hadjigeorgiou.com/blog/mdaemon-to-microsoft-exchange-migration/

And on the more than crucial need for advance planning and testing, please read this thread.

#MDaemon Calendar Migration to #MSExchange / #Office365: Video and Documentation

We have calendar migration from MDaemon into Exchange working.

Here's the video.

The migration features are pretty much all dealt with in the video.

The main screen of the application gives you our usual set of options:

And the configuration holds no surprises.

The site we're doing this for has decided it's more important to migrate in a phased sequence of groups of users, so we're taking the calendars over as "flat" but with information on attendees and status in the Agenda/Notes body.  If there's demand for a full-state method we can do it.  But this keeps costs down.

Mapping Users

If you have a user in your legacy domain named "zyg" and in Exchange the ID is "zyg-furmaniuk", you enter the following line in the exceptions.txt folder:

When you validate, you will find the mapped (i.e., correct for the target) address.

Note that in the above example Room.222 did not validate, so either our mapping is wrong, or the account on Office 365 is not set up properly.  

Permissions

You will need a service account on the Exchange side.  This account needs permission to write to all accounts you're mapping into.  We've already blogged on permissions a lot. 

Firewall Requirements 

1. Your fire wall must be configured to allow Time Sync (we need Port 13 and we cycle among time servers, the top two being 64.90.182.55 and 206.246.118.250).
2. Your computer time should not differ from the US Navy Atomic Clock time by more than 1 hour or mCalReader will inform you.

Why do we require this?  Short answer: Digital Rights Management and version control.

Determining your EWS URL
For on-premises Exchange, the EWS URL formula is HTTPS://CAS_server/EWS/Exchange.asmx
In ON-PREMISES you will usually have your IIS set for Windows Authentication (see http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/gg247612.aspx for more details). This is also the default in hosted Exchange. Should you need to change this you may do so in the _Config_XML file by changing the HTTPAuthType parameter (options are Basic, Negotiate, ntlm, and Kerberos)
NB: You hear us talking about Exchange being a moving target in a migration. That’s true here. The default is Negotiate in Exchange 2013, and Basic in Exchange 2007 and 2010.

For Office 365 it is: 
https://outlook.office365.com/EWS/Exchange.asmx

Sumatra and MEC March 30-April 2

Two folks have asked us about us being at MEC  #IamMEC.  One's wanting calendar migration (and at over five thousand users we can talk).  The other about a private label for the holiday cmdlet.

In general we do not do conferences, but we think we're going to head to this one.   Contact us if you want to get together for a beer.  Like everyone else in Exchange programming we certainly owe Glen Scales one.

Useful Guided Walkthroughs for Calendaring in Office 365

Since one of our most popular posts ever is Shared Calendars in Exchange 2007 sp1, largely to show folks how to create shared calendars, I'm really happy that Microsoft is finally doing its own tutorials on some things that are just darned hard in Exchange.  Well, in this case Office 365.

Check out the new Guided Walkthroughs Microsoft has put up.

Of special interest to those followers of our blog are:

• Sharing calendar and contacts in Office 365

and

• Creating and managing resource mailboxes (conference rooms/equipment) in Office 365

Of course the other walkthroughs on email and mailbox access will be useful to you as well.

MDaemon Calendar Migration to Exchange

We got a wild request for migrating calendar data from MDaemon to Exchange and, seeing as how we're always looking for both an interesting challenge and a profitable business extension we brought up a server and created our traditional users and conference rooms.

Short answer: oh yeah, we can migrate the calendar, tasks, and contacts into Exchange. There are a few obvious issues and some amount of work to be done but there is no doubt about it.

Now the hard part: Is there anyone else out there who wants this?  

We're not sure that this is used outside of small and medium businesses, and they are not our traditional client base.

Opting out of Anyone on Google+ Sending you Email

Google has decided it does not have enough exploitable data traffic already and has made it a default for ANYONE on Google+ to send you email.

If you do not want this to happen to you (or your users) the Wall Street Journal published an easy-to-follow tutorial about changing this in your Settings.

Go here.

My two cents:  Google’s really pushing to be relevant in social networking.  But let us face it, this is a stretch.  They changed the whole YouTube comment system to Google+, and even the folks I know on YouTube all the time don’t give a damn.

Exchange Database Size Growth Post Undo -- LitigationHoldEnabled

Customers ask us how much space will Exchange require post-migration if they have to rollback (aka our UNDO.)  We typically suggest it's somewhere around 4x the size of the interim Access database,  and double the size of the Oracle Beehive tablespace.  This has been an inexact science, particularly since email continues to flow in (and out) of the organization during the UNDO process. 


One contributing factor to the space bloat is the "LitigationHoldEnabled" feature:  post-undo Exchange continues to hold onto deleted items (as it should!) Microsoft's Exchange team released an article and script that shows how to calculate the database Exchange 2010 and 2013 Database Growth Reporting Script.  It is certainly not needed for during testing --  you can always delete and re-create the exchange stores.  Rather, it's something to bookmark just in case you need to figure out why your DB storage requirements jump significantly.

Outlook.com makes it easy to switch from Gmail

So Microsoft is talking about how Outlook.com makes it even easier to switch from Gmail.

Their statistics on email dissatisfaction are interesting if not completely compelling.  In general we've had little experience of users at the enterprise level who are really happy with Google as an enterprise solution.

As nearly as we can tell the migration Microsoft offers is exclusively email.

If there's any corporate interest in a full-state calendar migration from Google to Exchange -- let us know.  One of the only reasons we did a migration INTO Google was with the expectation we'd have bigger opportunities getting people OUT of Google and into Exchange.

Open Source Server-Side Lite Holiday cmdlet for Exchange

Holidays in Exchange.

The words send shivers down my spine.

We got our first request for a tool to insert holidays server-side after we did a migration for the folks at HMS (shout out to you guys!) for Exchange 2003.  That was CDO-based tech, with its positives and negatives.

After Exchange 2007 came out we re-wrote the tool for Exchange Web Services  (EWS), added a variety of features and found that folks really wanted it, but not at enterprise licensing levels.  Go figure.

But it's a good way of showing what we can do with calendars in migrations, so we've produced an open-sourced lite version of a holiday cmdlet.

Sample code where we build the holiday looks like this:

So you can find the CodePlex project at sumatra.codeplex.com.

We've also hard-coded a few things (like, it's picking up your credentials to authenticate against Exchange, so you ARE the service account!).

We think of this more as a mini-tutorial on how to do a calendar-centric cmdlet.

Why a lite version and not the full thing?

Mainly because the full version has a lot of expertise behind it that we're reticent to just give to those of you toiling out there on software knock-offs.  

Where from here?

We are market-driven.  We're keeping an eye on what we hear back.

It's about time ... Outlook 2013 7 Day Preview is back!

It's about time (a calendaring geek's favorite expression) Microsoft fixed this issue!

I was very pissed that Outlook 2013 RTM no longer showed "future" appointments in the ToDo bar. I was thrilled to learn it's available -- see Microsoft's KB# 2837618. 

And now for the really good news:  The patch causes Outlook 2013's IMAP folders to fail to synchronize.  I'm thrilled to see my appointments 7 days out, but even more pissed that I can't get new mail sent to my inbox, or preventing me from setting up OOF messages. 

InfoWorld said it better than I could in a recent article: Botched Outlook 2013 patches KB 2837618 and KB 2837643 break Out Of Office reply, Free/Busy, and more. InfoWorld found a detailed synopsis of the issue, written by Matthew Stublefield from Missouri State University.

Bottom line: DO NOT apply this patch until Microsoft figures out how to fix the fiasco.

Oracle Beehive Unexpire and Unlock Accounts

Just to record all of this stuff in the event you need it.

If your passwords in Beehive / Oracle have expired, then Oracle Unexpire and Unlock Accounts is really, really useful.

So too is Oracle Database Security Checklist.

Protecting customer data from government snooping

Hell freezing over is too cliche.  

But Microsoft's Blog Entry from their General Counsel  is that kind of amazing just because I find myself in the rare position of applauding Redmond for taking some stand for user privacy against the knee-jerk, butt-covering, bureaucrats who think Orwell proposed a really great idea.

Keep it up, guys!

Yes, this is one of our rare posts that has nothing to do with calendaring but it is so momentous I need to get on record as supporting it.

Outlook 2013 Security Update breaks Out of Office for Exchange 2007 Mailboxes

Just what the title says:  Outlook 2013 Security Update breaks Out of Office in Exchange 2007 Mailboxes.  The link tells you what to do about it.

BlackBerry Open Letter

I just get back from my second trip to the airport today and what's in my inbox but a weird BlackBerry email.

In similar words from Hamlet: methinks they doth protest too much.

Here it is with brief commentary on BerryReview.

Maybe BlackBerry is not living under a rock for acknowledging they are under siege, but they do not acknowledge that this is not in the same envionment as before.  Like Thursday's Macy's Parade the balloons have collapsed and the parade has gone by.  Rather than a leader of the smartphone marathon BlackBerry is now in a dash to safeguard its highest hanging fruit while the lowest hanging drops in other baskets. 

We've had our love/hate affair with the BES server over the years. As both BES and our migration technology for E2K3 were CDO applications anything that screwed up BES (usually permissions or CDO calendaring bugs) were harbingers for what was going to happen with our code.  To this day some of our all-time most popular blog posts are referenced on the BlackBerry forum to deal with permissions issues.

I wish them good fortune.  

But I also wish you the same thing we advise everyone:  look at all your options and test the snot out of them with the knowledge that your user base is seeking direction from you now and your next performance review is coming faster than you think.