Needing Different Age Based Policy for Calendar Items

[EVGarrison]

Hi all,

If i could get some advice before i jump in and do this wrong.

We have a Default Mailbox Policy thats Archviving Items once they get to 6 months old, including IPM.appointment (calendar items)

The busines now wants to leave all calendar items until they are 2 years old before they are touched by EV.

I was going to create a new policy to only archive IPM.appointments, set it to 2 years. Remove that message class from the main default policy.

Then i wasnt sure, do i need to create a new provisioning group with the "Whole Exchange Org" as the tpye? Is it that simple, other than assigning that new Calendar policy to the new provisioning group....

Have i missed anything?

Thanks in advance.

[GabeV]

Hi EVGarrison,

You can use Policy Manager (EVPM) and apply a different retention to the Calendar folder. Take a look at the utilities guide for your EV version for more details about the utility.

I hope this helps.

[WiTSend]

You can only have one policy applied to a mailbox, so creating a separate policy for just appointments won't work without manipulating your provisioning groups and creating more admin overhead.  Another option would be to use EVPM and apply a policy directly to the Calendar folders.  The disadvange to this is that it is a point-in-time policy, meaning that it would only affect the mailboxes you included when you run the EVPM command.  Any new mailboxes would not get the policy until you run the EVPM set again.  You can schedule it to run periodically and since we're talking about 2 years before archiving that wouldn't be that big a problem.

[EVGarrison]

Ok guys il take a look and get back to you very soon.

Running EV 10.0.4 by the way.

Thanks

[EVGarrison]

Guys,

I’ve had a read of the Util doc and found what i think i need, how does this look for the evpm, the only thing im not sure is what goes under [Mailbox] if i need anything??

[Directory]
DirectoryComputerName = EV
Sitename = Sitename

[Mailbox]
Not sure what should be here??

[Filter]
 Name = FolderFilter
 CreateShortcut=true
 DeleteOriginal=true
 UnreadMail=true
 UseinactivityPeriod=true
 InactivityUnits=years
 InactivityPeriod=2
 
[Folder]
 Name=\Calendar
 FilterName=FolderFilter
 RetentionCategory=Forever
 OverrideArchiveLocks=true

Do i need to define

ProvisioningGroup = Whole Exchange Organisation???

Also, am i removing the IPM.appointment class from the default policy still and then this EVPM creates a policy that takes care of the calenders or do i leave IPM.apointments checked and the EVPM defines within that policy the age to archive them?

Regards

[WiTSend]

[Mailbox]
distinguishedname = all
 

You don't need to change your provisioning groups for this, it will take effect on all mailboxes that are already provisioned.   Also if you uncheck IPM.appointments then the archiving tasks won't archive them.

What this script does is modify the hidden message to include a specific archiving policy (archive after 2 years)  for the specified folder, overriding the default policy in that instance. 

[EVGarrison]

Ok Witsend thats great help, so to confirm this is all fit for purpose, the [FIlter] and [Folder] sections have correct attributes in? I presume if anything is wrong it will tell me and not just run without any feedback?

[Directory]
DirectoryComputerName = EV
Sitename = site

[Mailbox]
DistinguishedName = all

[Filter]
Name = FolderFilter
CreateShortcut=true
DeleteOriginal=true
UnreadMail=true
UseinactivityPeriod=true
InactivityUnits=years
InactivityPeriod=2
 
[Folder]
Name=\Calendar
FilterName=FolderFilter
RetentionCategory=Forever
OverrideArchiveLocks=true

[WiTSend · Accepted solution]

one additional correction.  Default Exchange folders do not need the "\" before them so under [Folder] you would list "Name=Calendar"

Also, is your retention category really "Forever"?

And, yes, generally if there is an error it won't run, but that depends on the error.  I'd run it against a specific or text mailbox and then do a run-now to test before I ran it against my whole environment.

[EVGarrison]

No its not, here i just use the category name i presume.

Also, what will i be able to test from a test mailbox as all mailboxes have had thier Cal items processed, changing it to 2 years the new policy now shouldnt touch anything for ages so a run now wouldnt show anything surely?

Or is it to test it doesnt clear out calenders entirely?

Thanks and answer marked.

[WiTSend]

RetentionCategory=Forever.  The "Forever" should be the name of the Retention Category you intend to use. 

Given that it is a 2 year policy it would be difficult to test, but testing is just to verify that the script is correctly applied.  I suppose you would do the same thing by opening up the "Vault Information" in the Outlook client and review the settings from the hidden message of the Calendar.