end-user question: restoring a large number of emails from vault without links in the client

[rodberry]

I recently ceased employment at a university that uses EV with an exchange server. I use outlook as my mail client under windows.

when EV was introduced, i didn't get the idea that my emails no longer existed on my local machine, except as links to the real data in the vault.

the problem is that when I backed up the folders as .pst files, somehow the links to the vault items are no longer there.

The archive manager add-on for outlook appears to only let me retrieve one message at a time (there are 30,000 messages - 3 years of emails)

is there some way to directly download the whole archive - or is it possible to convert it into a big .pst file?

this is driving me crazy. The IT support people know little about the workings of EV so I need to know exactly what to ask them to do so they can relay the request to the person who actually maintains the EV.

my account has been extended for a month so I can deal with this.

I know that if I knew more about how EV works, I could have avoided this but this is my situation as of now and I can not go back in time.

I know that the messages are all still there, I just need to find a way to get them in some usable form before my account runs out.

thanks,

Rod.

[TonySterling · Accepted solution]

Rod,
The easiest thing for them to do would be to export your archive to a pst and deliever that to you.

Here are the steps:

To start the export:
1. In the left-hand pane of the Administration Console, right-click the Archives icon.

2. On the shortcut menu, click Export.

3. Work through the Export Archive wizard to complete the export

You can export only items that have been archived from mailboxes, not items archived from public folders or SharePoint workspaces.
When you export, you can filter the output by date and by retention category. So, for example, you could export items less than a year old that were archived with a retention category of Business.
When you export to PST files, the wizard lets you control the maximum size of the output files. The default maximum of 600 MB is ideal for writing to CD. If a file reaches the maximum size, the wizard automatically creates a numbered sequence of files, none of which exceeds the maximum size.

Folders in PST files can contain a maximum of 16,383 items. This is a PST file limitation. If a folder reaches this limit the Export Archive wizard automatically creates a new folder of the same name but with a number suffix. For example, if folder 'Inbox' is full, the Export Archive wizard automatically creates 'Inbox 1' to hold further items.  The wizard creates, for each PST file, a configuration file that you may need if you intend to import the PST file contents back into Enterprise Vault.

[TonySterling]

As a follow up, what you can then do is do a search in Outlook for the message class ipm.note.enterprisevault and delete all those items.  Those are shortcuts and you will not need them as the archived items will be in the pst they export for you.

Hope that helps.

[EmailAdmin]

Hi Rod,
Sorry to hear you are having this trouble.  This is not difficult for an EV administrator to do.  The short answer is: have the IT folks ask the person who maintains EV to export your archive to a PST.  If that person isn't familiar with the procedure, it's pretty straightforward.
All the Admin has to do is go to the Administration Console and right-click on Archives.  Select Export.  On the Export Archive dialog box, choose "Export archives to PST files" and click Next.  On the Export to PST File dialog box, the Admin can filter the archive list on a variety of fields, including Archive Name, Alias, Deparment, etc., or choose to list all available archives.  The admin should be able to figure this one out, then click Next.  The Admin should then select your  archive from the list and click Next.  The next dialog box allows the Admin to fine-tune which items in the archive get exported to PST; All Items, items with a specific Retention Category, all items within a date range, etc.  It sounds like you want all items.  So the Admin then just has to specify where to put the PST and how it should be structured.  He'll have a chance to review all the choices, and then perform the export.  There will be a summary after the export finishes,  indicating how many items were processed, whether or not any failed, etc.  All in a day's work!
Hope this helps.

[rodberry]

Hey thanks for that everyone. I figured it would be easy to do. It's not the help desk person's job to know every system in the place, it's just a matter of making sure they know who to ask or which .pdf file to direct the asker to.

I'll pass these instructions along.

This kind of problem sits in the grey area between the administratos and th eusers. It's partly a problem of integration too I guess.

I could imagine some improvements to the archive explorer tool. it gives the end user th eillusion of being able to manage thoer archive but it can only see a limited number of items and only a few per page. it also seems impossible to select more than one message at a time if I wanted to save several as .msg files, for example. it would be great to be able to export the whole lot. it would save the admin person having to do odd little jobs like this one for end users (or is that end, end users?)

I'll try what you suggested and get back hopefully to say tha the matter is resolved. :)

rrod.