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.

Known issues

The Outlook scanner does not work with Java 11. Please use Java 8 for the Jobserver that will run the scanner.

Scanner Configuration

To create a new Outlook Scanner job, specify the respective adapter type in the Scanner Properties window – from the list of available connectors, “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 connector’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.

Scanner parameters

The common adaptor parameters are described in Common Parameters.

The configuration parameters available for the Outlook Scanner are described below:

  • 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)

  • 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.

  • loggingLevel* See: Common Parameters.

Parameters marked with an asterisk (*) are mandatory.

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.