Outlook Scanner

Introduction

The Outlook scanner can extract messages from an Outlook mailbox and use it as input into migration-center, from where it can be processed and migrated to other system supported by the various mc importers.

The Microsoft Outlook Scanner currently supports Microsoft Outlook 2007 and 2010 and uses the Moyosoft Java Outlook Connector API to access an Outlook mailbox and extract emails including attachments and properties.

Scanner is the term used in migration-center for an input adapter. Using the Outlook Scanner Module to read the data that needs processing into migration-center is the first step in a migration project, thus scan also refers to the process used to input data to migration-center.

The scanner module works as a job that can be run at any time and can even be executed repeatedly. For every run a detailed history and log file are created.

A Scanner is defined by a unique name, a set of configuration parameters and an optional description.

Outlook Scanners can be created, configured, started and monitored through migration-center Client, but the corresponding processes are executed by migration-center Job Server.

Exporting objects from an Outlook mailbox

The Outlook scanner connects to a specified Outlook mail account and can extract messages from one (or multiple) folder(s) existing within that accounts mailbox. All subfolders of the specified folder(s) will automatically be processed as well; an option for excluding select subfolders from scanning is also available. See chapter Outlook scanner parameters below for more information about the features and configuration parameters available in the Outlook scanner.

In addition to the emails themselves, attachments and properties of the respective messages are also extracted. The messages and included attachments are stored as .msg files on disk, while the properties are written to the mc database, as is the standard with all migration-center scanners.

After a scan has completed, the newly scanned email messages and their properties are available for further processing in migration-center.

Outlook Scanner Properties

To create a new Outlook Scanner job, specify the respective adapter type in the Scanner Properties window – from the list of available adapters, “Outlook” must be selected. Once the adapter type has been selected, the Parameters list will be populated with the parameters specific to the selected adapter type, in this case the Outlook adapter’s.

The Properties window of a scanner can be accessed by double-clicking a scanner in the list, or selecting the Properties button or entry from the toolbar or context menu.

Common scanner parameters

Configuration parameters	Values
Name	Enter a unique name for this scanner Mandatory
Adapter type	Select the “Outlook” adapter from the list of available adapters Mandatory
Location	Select the Job Server location where this job should be run. Job Servers are defined in the Jobserver window. If no Job Server migration-center will prompt the user to define a Job Server Location when saving the Importer. Mandatory
Description	Enter a description for this job (optional)

Outlook scanner parameters

Configuration parameters	Values
scanFolderPaths*	Outlook folder paths to scan. The syntax is \\<accountname>[\folder path]. The account name at least must be specified. Folders are optional (specifying nothing but an account name would scan the entire mailbox, including all subfolders). Multiple paths can be entered by separating them with the “|” character. Example: \\user@domain\Inbox would scan the Inbox of user@domain (including subfolders) Mandatory
excludeFolderPaths	Outlook folder paths to exclude from scanning. Follows the same syntax as scanFolderPaths above. Example: \\user@domain\Inbox\Personal would exclude user@domain’s personal mails stored in the Personal subfolder of the Inbox if used in conjunction with the above example for scanFolderPaths.
ignoredAttributesList	A comma separated list of Outlook properties to be ignored by the scanner. At least Body,HTMLBody,RTFBody,PermissionTemplateGuid should be always excluded as these significantly increase the size of the information retrieved from Outlook but don’t provide any information useful for migration purposes in return
exportLocation*	Folder path. The location where the exported object content should be temporary saved. It can be a local folder on the same machine with the Job Server or a shared folder on the network. This folder must exist prior to launching the scanner and must have write permissions. migration-center will not create this folder automatically. If the folder cannot be found an appropriate error will be raised and logged. This path must be accessible by both scanner and importer so if they are running on different machines, it should be a shared network folder. Mandatory
loggingLevel*	Sets the verbosity of the log file. Possible values: 1 - logs only errors during scan 2 - is the default value reporting all warnings and errors 3 - logs all successfully performed operations in addition to any warnings or errors 4 - logs all events (for debugging only, use only if instructed by fme product support since it generates a very large amount of output. Do not use in production) Mandatory

Log files

A complete history is available for any Outlook Scanner job from the respective items’ History window. It is accessible through the History button/menu entry on the toolbar/context menu. The History window displays a list of all runs for the selected job together with additional information, such as the number of processed objects, the start and ending time and the status.

Double clicking an entry or clicking the Open button on the toolbar opens the log file created by that run. The log file contains more information about the run of the selected job:

• Version information of the migration-center Server Components the job was run with

• The parameters the job was run with

• Execution Summary that contains the total number of objects processed, the number of documents and folders scanned or imported, the count of warnings and errors that occurred during runtime.

Log files generated by the Outlook Adapter can be found in the Server Components installation folder of the machine where the job was run, e.g. …\fme AG\migration-center Server Components <Version>\logs

The amount of information written to the log files depends on the setting specified in the ‘loggingLevel’ start parameter for the respective job.