Exchange Messaging Outlook
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Today's highlights:
Regular features:
Exchange 2007 Message Transport RulesIn Exchange 2000 Server and Exchange Server 2003 it was challenging
to manipulate e-mail messages as they were routed through the
organization or as they passed through the gateway to and from the
internet. In those versions, SMTP was managed by an extended
implementation of IIS SMTP. Controlling SMTP messages in simple
ways, such as archiving, appending a disclaimer or implementing a
catch-all mailbox, required coding (or borrowing code) SMTP
Transport event sinks and registering them on the appropriate
servers. While some functionality could be attained with VBScript,
many sinks required Visual Basic, C# or C++ to meet the goals of the
administrator. Exchange 2007 reverts to a proprietary SMTP
implementation that exposes some basic message control during
routing using a mechanism called Exchange 2007 Message Transport
Rules.
Hub Transport Role versus Edge Transport Role There is a slightly different scope and interface available for managing Transport Rules on the two roles that support them. Transport Rules administered at the hub transport server role are stored in the Exchange configuration container in Active Directory. Hub Transport Rules are centrally configured at the organization level. Transport Rules configured at the Edge Transport role are local to the Edge server, stored in ADAM. Hub Transport Rules are typically focused on compliance; whereas, Edge rules are often concerned with message hygiene. Creating and Administering Transport Rules The GUI for managing Transport Rules exists within the Exchange Management Console (EMC) and really resembles the Outlook Rules Wizard making it rather easy to learn. On a Hub Transport server, there is a Transport Rules tab in the Hub Transport properties of the Exchange Organization folder, as shown in Figure 1. This basic scenario shows 3 Transport Rules. The same 3 rules are visible through the Exchange Management Shell seen in Figure 2.  Figure 1  Figure 2 Creating a rule through the EMC is very simple. Like the Outlook Rules Wizard, message Transport Rules follow a logical creation path. If certain conditions are present in the message, then perform specific actions unless certain exceptions apply. Figure 3 shows an example of subject line manipulation based on a sender domain. Exchange Management Shell also has many Cmdlets for administering Transport Rules. The ‘action’ portion of the commands are self-explanatory:
 Figure 3 Other Features Rules can be based on a number of items, including internal versus external messages, header items, message body content, and sender or recipient information. The Hub Transport Rulesets are very valuable for compliance. All messages must go through a hub transport server, and therefore all messages can have rules applied to them. As such, administrators can maintain solid control of messages for archiving or establishing ethical walls internally (for example, the accounting personnel may be prohibited from emailing the plant workers or vice versa). There is a limit of 1000 Transport Rules in an Exchange organization; however, this limitation is simply the threshold Microsoft tested up to and therefore supports. Message Transport Rules are one of the most relevant areas of improvement for Exchange Server 2007. Tasks that were daunting in previous versions, yet menial in competing products, now have a quality solution with multiple interfaces and granular control. -- William Lefkovics A Bad Add-in with No SupportKen Slovak, a well respected Outlook developer, discovered a
problem with an Outlook toolbar add-in crashing Outlook and
blaming the crash on other add-ins but the company who released
the toolbar refuses to discuss it with him since he is not a
registered user.
The problem is with an Outlook add-in called the Telephony Toolbar from Broadcom (http://info.onvoip.net/toolbar/) When the profile contains an Exchange account it crashes Outlook 2007 and any VB 6 add-in that handles Application and NameSpace events. As soon as Outlook starts even a simple two line add-in in VB6 that does this: Private WithEvents ol As Outlook.Application ' in OnConnection Set ol = Application The telephony toolbar causes a crash but the events and error dialogs place blame on other add-ins, not the toolbar. It came to Ken's attention because the combination of the telephony toolbar and Attachment Options caused a crash for a customer. He later discovered other problems: declaring NameSpace or Application WithEvents related to the toolbar add-in when running on any OS with Outlook 2007 with an Exchange account profile. The problems aren't limited to Ken's add-ins: as all good testers do, he tested it with several popular commercial Outlook add-ins and verified the crashes are not limited to his add-ins. While we're hoping this VoIP add-in never gains wide usage, if you use it and have problems you'll know where the real problem lies. Bug: Plain Text Spell CheckWhen you use Outlook 2007 and your default message format is
plain text, beware of the spell check bug. When you use the
option to always check the spelling on sending, corrections
don't stick and the message is sent with the misspelled words.
If you use spell check as you type, corrections appear seem to stick. HTML message format is not affected. Printing Problems in Outlook 2007Outlook's printing abilities have always fell under the category
of "leaves much to be desired" and Outlook 2007 shows little
improvement. While Outlook does okay at printing emails (but
could do better), contact images and business card views are not
supported by the printer templates and calendar printing
capabilities seem to get worse with each version.
The printing bugs in Outlook 2007 include broken line wrapping in the calendar. Daily events and locations are truncated instead of wrapping to the next line, while multi-day events that extend into the next week print into the margin at the end of the first week instead of wrapping into the next week. Fortunately there is a workaround: the calendar printing assistant. It offers a number of templates and customizations, wraps lines as expected, and uses the traditional last month and next month thumbnail calendars. Calendar Printing Assistant for Microsoft Office Outlook 2007 http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/outlook/HA101687211033.aspx Printing HintsCalendar:
You'll have better options if you use a Word template to create the calendar. You can add clip art and background colors before printing or save it as HTML and email the document to others. The templates use last month and next month thumbnail calendars. The Calendar Printing assistant for Outlook 2007 also uses last month and next month for the small calendars. Contacts: Contact pictures are not included in printouts. Email: While you can't change the layout to avoid the user name in large letters at the top of the printout, if you use Word as the editor with Outlook 2003 or previous, you can hit forward then Print and you'll get just the To/From/Date/Subject header. Close the forward when finished. This doesn't work in Outlook 2007. You can open HTML messages in the browser to print, although this method removes both the username and the email header. When you want to print just part of an email message, you can use the same methods above: print after hitting Forward if Word is the editor or view in Browser. You'll have the much better print dialog in Word or IE. Unfortunately, Outlook 2007 doesn't use Word's better print engine, it sticks with the old Outlook print engine. Attachment names aren't included in the printouts in all versions of Outlook. If you need the attachment name and your version doesn't support it switch the message format to RTF. (Open the message, Edit, Edit message menu then change the format.) If these workarounds don't meet your needs, there are Word templates and other printing tools available, including two commercial add-ins offering many print options. Blueprint for Outlook http://www.savvisoft.com/ Outlook Printer http://www.outlookprinter.com/ Calendar Printing Tools for Outlook http://www.slipstick.com/addins/calendar_print.asp Ordering Category ColorsAn Outlook 2007
user asks: "When I label an event with multiple categories,
I would like to choose which category color the event takes on
the day/week/month view. For instance, I have an event, two
categories, Category A and Category B, each with different
colors, but I would like to have the event in the view take the
color of Category B, not Category A. "
Items in Outlook 2007 use the color of the last category you apply, so select Category B last. |
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New Utilities |
C2OutlookExport Category Organizer
CodeTwo Attach Unblocker Exporter for Outlook Ninja Disclaimers Outlook Attachment Remover Add-in Outlook Printer PST Creator Softalk Share Server |
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Updated Utilities |
Genie Outlook Backup MAPIViewer NNTP for Outlook OutBack Plus OutSource-XP |
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Other Resources |
Support WebCast: Microsoft Office Outlook 2007 integration with Microsoft
Windows SharePoint Services (WSS) version 3 Contact Lists and Document Libraries http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=939015 Support WebCast: Introduction to RSS in Microsoft Office Outlook 2007 http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=939017 Support WebCast: Introduction to security features and changes in Microsoft Office Outlook 2007 http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=939016 |
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NNew Exchange Knowledge Base Articles |
Database resources are not brought online when you use a "HRESERestoreComplete"
function to restore a cluster database programmatically in Exchange Server 2007 http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=938442 POP3 and IMAP4 clients cannot connect to a server that is running Exchange Server 2007 http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=937359 |
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New Outlook Knowledge Base Articles |
Description of the Outlook 2007 hotfix package: June 11, 2007 http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=938534 Description of the Outlook 2007 hotfix package: June 12, 2007 http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=937494 FIX: A table in a report that is delivered by SQL Server 2005 Reporting Services with Service Pack 2 appears to be compressed when the report is opened in Outlook 2007 http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=935399 No progress occurs in the "Installation Progress" dialog box when you install the 2007 Office system or a stand-alone 2007 Office product http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=937680 Description of the Outlook 2003 Junk E-mail Filter update: June 12, 2007 http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=936030 Error message when you try to create an IMAP profile in Outlook 2003: "The IMAP store could not be created" http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=937761 A rule that is based on the "through the specified account" option in Outlook 2003 works for two e-mail accounts, even though you specify only one e-mail account http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=937762 Delivery status notifications are unexpectedly generated in your personal folders (.pst) file after you install security updates 925938 and 929969 for Outlook 2003 http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=938104 The Mail icon is missing from Control Panel after you upgrade to Office 2003 by using a custom transform (.mst) file that contains an Office Profile Settings (.ops) file http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=937763 |
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More Information/h3> |
ISSN 1523-7990 |