Virtual Vault and Outlook To-Do Bar

[Jvansym]

Hi Everyone,

Just have a quick question about the EV client and the Outlook 2007 To-do bar. We have a user that is reporting when emails that are flagged for followup are archived by EV they are removed from the Outlook To-do bar and the user can no longer see the mail item in the task list.

I have tested this on my email client as well and it does seem to be the case when i drag an item marked as followup to my Virtual Vault it will immediately disappear from the list . My question is, is this expected behavior or is there another way to get items that were flagged as followup to still show in the task list under the To-do bar even after they are archived ?

I have figured out a work around by having the user just create a search folder for followup emails in the virtual vault but this means they have to look in two places. I have attached a document with screen shots of what i am seeing. Any help or suggestions would be appreciated.

We are using Outlook 2007 SP2, Exchange 2007 SP1 RU10, and EV 8.0 SP4.

[JesusWept3]

As a matter of interest, if you drag the item to a regular PST does it also show in the to-do bar as well?
 

[Rob_Wilcox1]

Personally I would log the issue with Support, to see if there is anything that can be done...  One other thing you might wish to try though...  you say you tested by dragging and dropping an item to Virtual Vault, this effectively "removes" the original item from the mailbox, and it disappears from the To Do bar, right?  So what happens if you drag and drop a flagged item from your Inbox to say the Inbox of a PST ?

[JesusWept3]

Echo?

[Jvansym]

Sorry it took a while to respond. I have since talked to the user again and he clarified his problem. To answer the first question yes if i drag and drop an item into a normal PST it will remove it from the outlook To-Do list however it will retain the followup flag on the message in the vault. This appears to be standard behavior for outlook even if EV isn't being used.

I passed this information along to the user and asked him to create a search folder in his vault for items flagged for followup. He the responded saying that that was not his only issue, apparently when items are automatically archived (not dragged and dropped to the vault but through the normal archive based on date) that the followup flags are removed from the item that has been archived. I tested this by manually archiving an item by using the store in vault button and waiting for the item to be deleted from our exchange server after the backup. I then confirmed that the items that were flagged for followup had the flags removed after being archived. The question now is, is this normal behavior for items to loose their follow up status when being archived and is there a way to retain the follow up flag while archiving the item ?

[JesusWept3 · Accepted solution]

yeah thats expected behavior, when an item is archived though it becomes a read only view of the items, you cannot change the metadata and have it update, due to the implications that it could have regarding compliance and what not.

If a user was to archive something as flagged and it reained the flag and then they couldn't unflag it, you'd have the same complaint in reverse, that you have items that are flagged but they can't remove it.

Simply put if the item is important to them to the point where they need to track it for email responses or something that pertains to their job role, they should not archive it until the tasks associated with that email have been "resolved"

[Jvansym]

Thank you for the response, that does make perfect sense. One last question, is there a way to set the mailbox policy to not automatically archive items that have followup flags on them in order to avoid this situation ?  Our current policy archives messages older than 90 days or if the user is within 60% of their mailbox quota and to not archive any messages younger than 4 weeks. Below are the items that we have set to be archived.

IPM.Document

IPM.Note

IPM.Post.