Here’s something I’ve run across a couple times while helping clients configure Exchange 2007, as well getting it wrong the first time I set it up in my test lab. If you are trying unsuccessfully to use the new Managed Folder Mailbox Policy feature in Exchange 2007 to move items from default folders into a new Managed Custom Folder there are a couple important steps worth verifying.
As an example I performed the following steps:
Created a new Managed Custom Folder named System Cleanup.
Configured Managed Content Settings on the default Inbox folder to identify items older than 7 days and move them into the System Cleanup folder.
I then created and configured a Managed Folder Mailbox Policy and applied it to a couple test mailboxes.
If you have performed similar steps but either (1) the new Custom Managed Folder is not appearing in your associated user’s mailboxes, or (2) the folder appears but no items are getting moved into it, then let’s check a couple important configuration steps that can be easily over looked or misunderstood.
(1) Was the Managed Folder Assistant Scheduled?
First, make sure that you’ve enabled and scheduled the Managed Folder Assistant under Messaging Records Management in the Mailbox Server Configuration.
Now instead of waiting until the next scheduled time for the assistant to run, just kick-off a new process using the following cmdlet:
Start-ManagedFolderAssistant
Check the Application event log for confirmation that the process started and completed.
Event Type: Information
Event Source: MSExchange Assistants
Event Category: Assistants
Event ID: 9021
Description:
Service MSExchangeMailboxAssistants. Managed Folder Mailbox Assistant for database First Storage Group/Mailbox Database (3b4042c3-296b-40e3-9e7b-7a17a000132e) is processing an on-demand request. There are 2 mailboxes to process.
Event Type: Information
Event Source: MSExchange Assistants
Event Category: Assistants
Event ID: 9022
Description:
Service MSExchangeMailboxAssistants. Managed Folder Mailbox Assistant for database First Storage Group/Mailbox Database (3b4042c3-296b-40e3-9e7b-7a17a000132e) has finished an on-demand request. 2 out of 2 mailboxes were successfully processed. 0 mailboxes were skipped due to errors.
Open the test user’s mailbox and verify that the Managed Custom Folder now appears and is populated with any moved items.
(2) Was the Managed Folder Mailbox Policy correctly configured?
Here’s where I messed up the first time configuring this in my lab as I had everything shown above set correctly, but was not getting any items old items pulled out of the Inbox and moved into System Cleanup. After some research and retracing of my steps I realized that I had not correctly associated all managed folders with the policy.
Originally I only added the new custom folder, thinking that was all that was required. The folder did appear in the user’s mailbox, but was empty even after multiple scheduled and on-demand requests had processed.
But what you need to do is associate all managed folders in the policy, both the target custom folder(s) and the default (and any custom) source folders which contain any Managed Content Settings you want applied, so I added the Inbox folder to the mailbox policy.
After making the change above and forcing the Managed Folder Assistant to run I checked my test mailbox to find that everything was now working correctly and some old messages had be moved into System Cleanup.
It makes sense now that I understand the process, as you need to tell the specific policy which existing Managed Content Settings to use, as just creating a folder policy doesn’t mean Exchange will execute those rules. This level of control offers the ability to setup different sets of rules and apply them to different mailboxes.
