Administration Guide

Configuring Microsoft Exchange Server Settings

Updated in 2021.1

Before you configure the integration, you need to complete these steps:

  1. Choose a Windows account which the Mail Connector will use. This must be a Windows account with sufficient permissions to access the Microsoft Exchange mailbox you want to monitor. You can create a special Exchange mailbox account for this job, or use an existing one. In this section we will refer to that account as the “Microsoft Exchange account.”

  2. On the computer hosting the Automation Server, start the Alloy Automation Server Manager and change the Automation Server startup account to your Microsoft Exchange account..

    INFO: For details on the Automation Server startup account, see Installation Guide: Choosing Startup Account and Authentication.

    INFO: For instructions on changing the Automation Server account, see Installation Guide: Automation Server Configuration.

Alloy Navigator supports both the MAPI and EWS protocols:

  • Exchange Web Services (EWS) — EWS is an application programming interface (API) for e-mail integration in newer versions of Microsoft Exchange, introduced with Exchange Server 2007 SP1. EWS are installed and configured by default if Outlook Web Access is enabled in your environment.

  • Messaging Application Programming Interface (MAPI) — MAPI is an outdated way of e-mail integration for older versions of Microsoft Exchange.

    IMPORTANT: Using MAPI requires an e-mail profile for the Microsoft Exchange account on the Automation Server computer. The profile must be created using the 64-bit version of Microsoft Outlook. For more detailed instructions, see How to create MAPI e-mail profile.

After you have completed the preliminary steps, create a Mail Connector job for your Microsoft Exchange account as follows:

  1. From the Sidebar, navigate to E-mail Processing > Mail Connector and click New. The Mail Connector dialog box appears.

  2. Under Mail Server, choose which service to use: Messaging Application Programming Interface (MAPI) or Exchange Web Services (EWS).

  3. Depending on your choice, proceed as follows:
    • For Messaging Application Programming Interface (MAPI):

      • Specify the Outlook profile that you created earlier:

        • If you want to use the profile that is used by Microsoft Outlook by default, select the Use default profile check box.

        • If you want to specify a non-default profile, clear the Use default profile check box and select a profile from the Mail Profile list.

          IMPORTANT: The profile must be created using the 64-bit version of Microsoft Outlook. For details, see Configuring Microsoft Exchange Server Settings.

    • For Exchange Web Services (EWS):

      1. Choose one of the following:

        • If Autodiscovery is not enabled, click Specify the Exchange Web Services URL or server name and type the URL path. The default URL is the following:

          https://hostname.domain.com/EWS/Exchange.asmx

          Alternatively, you can type just the server name, and the system will suggest the full URL path.

        • If your EWS server has Autodiscovery configured, click Autodiscover the Exchange Web Services URL using this address and type the e-mail address of the Microsoft Exchange account.

      2. Provide the user name and password for the Microsoft Exchange account.

      3. By default, Alloy Navigator automatically detects the version of your Microsoft Exchange Server. However, in some situations you may need to specify your MS Exchange Server version in the Version field.

      4. If you want to prevent communication with the Microsoft Exchange Server when a certificate validation error occurs, select the Reject invalid certificates check box.

      5. Specify which folder on the server the Mail Connector will monitor for incoming messages. The default folder is INBOX. If needed, you can use a subfolder, such as INBOX/Support.
  4. Click Test Connection to confirm that the Mail Connector can connect to the specified mail server.

  5. Click OK to save your settings and close the Mail Connector dialog box.

Next Steps

Now you can proceed as follows:

  1. Customize the schedule. For instructions, see Customizing the Mail Connector Schedule.

  2. To understand how the Mail Connector’s job is going to work, switch to the Processing tab of the Mail Connector dialog box and review the processing rules. You can customize them, if needed. For instructions, see Configuring Processing Statements.

  3. To clean the message from unwanted text, switch to the Preprocessing Rules tab and choose preprocessing rules for your job. Alloy Navigator offers a set of pre-configured rules for the popular e-mail clients. These rules are initially disabled. You can view the rules and change their order. For more information, see Configuring Preprocessing Rules.

  4. Test the job and check its results to make sure it works correctly. For instructions, see Checking Results of a Mail Connector Job.

  5. If you want to monitor several Microsoft Exchange accounts, configure several Mail Connector jobs, one job per each account. This scenario requires that you configure Microsoft Exchange accounts and assign distinctive names to each job. For instructions, see Running the Mail Connector under a dedicated Microsoft Exchange account.