• Outlook migration featuring enterprise vault – handling deleted messages stored on server with VBA?

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    #498676

    Hi all,

    the company to which we outsourced our ICT is migrating our mail to new servers…
    Our mails are at this moment archived with Enterprise Vault… which will be abandoned after the migration (if I’m informed correctly).
    Important issue: mails which are deleted more than (say) 4 years ago, are expected to resurrect again during migration, as due to some rule, the deleted mails were not really deleted but stayed somehow stored at the server, at that time.

    Our ICT provider claims there is no solution. Now I wonder…
    Enterprise Vault tags all archived mails using the mailitem.messageclass property (*).
    So…

    Can’t this be solved by locally running a VBA-script in outlook:
    – before migration: categorising all (read: visible) mails, e.g. by adding a category ‘BeforeMigration’ in the mailitem.categories property (**)
    (I assume that deleted mails which are stored on the server won’t be tagged along with the regular ones…)
    – after migration: delete all mails with no ‘BeforeMigration’ category in their .categories property… but with also an EnterpriseVault tag in their .messageclass property (as such excluding new mails received since the tagging, as these won’t be archived yet)…

    One issue to consider will probably be running time, especially in big mailboxes…
    Another might be how I’ll present it to users with a minimum of time effort: maybe by using an Access file with VBA, a form with some explanation and then two command buttons…

    Anyone had any experience with this… or concerns/tips?
    Actually this should be work done by our ICT provider… but I would like to be sure I have a point that it IS possible, before eventually pressing the button a bit further…

    Thanks in advance!

    (*) http://msdn.developer-works.com/article/11547708/VBA+in+Outlook+-+messages+archived%3F+%28Enterprise+vault%29
    (**) https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/office/ff860423.aspx

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    • #1490647

      Enterprise Vault may or may not have kept your deleted mail, it depends on the settings. I’m assuming you know that they have been kept by EV. To recover those emails your IT admins will need to restore the mail before the migration.

      I assume you want to mark all mail currently in the mailbox before the migration so you can ensure no deleted items are restored as part of the migration? If the deleted items are restored the the Deleted folder in Outlook, they can be managed per mailbox. If users are using the Deleted folder as part of their filing they deserve to lose emails, but you can fix this by advising them to move those emails prior to migration. If the deleted items are restored to a new folder there is no issue as they can be managed per mailbox.

      What does the ICT team have in mind for those emails?

      cheers, Paul

    • #1490671

      This is not an uncommon problem for companies who are restoring data from Enterprise Vault… they often want to only restore data for which they have short-cuts for a number of reasons. The EV built-in tools only have a way to restore everything.

      Cheers,

      David

    • #1490730

      David,

      If you are going to advertise, please provide price information – it doesn’t seem to be on your web site.

      cheers, Paul

    • #1490735

      So, if I understand it correctly… this should be possible through VBA :).

      @David
      , thanks for the tip. I’ll think about forwarding it along with my own idea… (And: same remark as Paul… Could you send me a PM with pricing info, both for individual use and for a big organisation? Chances are small it’ll be used, but you never know…)

      @Paul
      : the ICT team currently has in mind to leave it up to us, users, to delete all those old resurrected mails manually (again)…

    • #1490785

      As long as the old emails are placed in a new folder I don’t see an issue. It only takes a couple of seconds to delete the folder and you can do it in PowerShell on the server.

      cheers, Paul

    • #1490904

      @Paul: tx, that’s right… but they just can’t tell how it’ll happen. Well… It’ll probably become ‘wait and see’ then…

    • #1490909

      It’s a worry when IT can’t tell you!

      cheers, Paul

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