Use cases
On this page I collect possible user scenarios in connection with ExMixedFolders.
Importing customer data into an Exchange folder
A true story of an administrator of company XY, who could have really happened one way or the other:
Recently, a colleague from the customer service department came with an Excel spreadsheet of a CRM system. The file should be imported in a public folder from Exchange. After a short time, it turned out that the list is created weekly by the system. This work would then be carried out on a weekly basis in the future. Because I wanted to help, I googled for an already working PowerShell script, which would do this automatically. The internet brought a lot of things to light. Most of the examples referred to the New-MailContact cmdlet that creates objects in the AD. Unfortunately, however, the task was to read the contacts into a public contact folder. After I couldn’t find a suitable solution, I asked Somebytes because I have been using ExMixedFolders for matching public folders for some time now. But here I was told that a solution is still in progress too, but never was finished. A few days passed which I spend with other things. Later I received an unsolicited email from Somebytes asking me if I am still interested in the solution of the problem, because a new update of ExMixedFolders would feature the function of importing Excel and CSV files from other systems. I became curious and tested the program. Unfortunately, it was not possible to use the Excel file with any adaptions on my part, because it did not contain an ID and some fields were named different, but I was able to present the customer service an acceptable solution.
Shared contacts in the office and on the road
A customer writes:
We are 6 people here in the office, everyone has an Exchange mailbox and we want to share our contacts on the road and in the office. We have different devices. The designer works with Mac and iPhone and we work with Windows and Android as mobile devices. Each of us has already set up his own mailbox on our end devices. Everyone should be able to change and add contacts. For private contacts, everyone uses their own private mailbox.
In this case, it is best to merge your respective contact folders using ExMixedFolders. It can be run on one of the Windows workstations or better, and if available and accessible, on the server because it is always running.
Proceed as follows if you want to synchronize the contacts of all users.
After installing ExMixedFolders, you will find a configurator in which you can either create an Exchange connection for each user or, in the case of Impersonation, configure a service user who accesses Exchange and the user's mailboxes on a proxy basis.
After the connection to the exchange server is established, you can create a synchronization request for each user. You need 5 jobs for 6 users.
Specify a user to be used in each job on the left-hand side. The contacts are then synchronized by each user (2-6) to this user (1) and are distributed back to all users.
To select the mailbox folder, select the appropriate Exchange connection or, in case of impersonation, type the SMTP address of the mailbox in the user field and then select the user's contact folder.
You can then select "Save configuration and restart service" under Service and the process begins. If everything works properly, the configurator can be closed because the service works in the background.
Calendar synchronization and marking of authors in category colors
A customer writes:
I would like to achieve the same thing as this customer, but with the difference that these are calendars and their appointments should be color-coded, depending on which user has entered them.
To achieve this you can follow the same procedure. Then check the box in the configuration order. "categorize by author".
Now you only have to assign the desired color to the resulting categories. You can do this under Outlook in the main category list. If you don't want to do this for all users individually, you can also synchronize the categories via ExMixedFolders. ExMixedFolders offers a specially prepared job for this purpose in the menu under Synchronization jobs.
GAL Sync
Customer:
I don't want to sync my AD contacts manually.
Is there some tool?
Some companies with mobile employees without a permanent Internet connection need contact data of their own company on the way. For example, if you're called from your company, you can see the caller's name, contact picture, and other information in your smartphone.
In order to have the contacts offline, it is necessary to synchronize the required global address lists into a personal contact folder by using ExMixedFolders.
Distribute appointments centralized
The field manager asks in the IT:
Hello Mr. Witzbühl, we have been trying to provide our field staff with appointments in your Exchange calendar for some time now. We're currently trying to do that with meeting requests, but we do not want people to have to take appointments every time. You should just land in his calendar. Do you have another option?
Mr. Witzbühl from the IT department solved the problem with ExMixedFolders. He created a calendar in the mailbox of the field manager, which he called "fieldcalendar". Now Mr. Witzbühl created a task in ExMixedFolders for each employee, which copies the appointments from the fieldcalendar into the standard calendar of the employees (unidirectional). The appointments already in the calendar are not deleted or changed. In addition, he has appended a colored category to the appointments, which shows the employee that it is one from the fieldcalendar.
Show holiday calendar in Exchange Calendar
Short-tempered, Ms Zweisand called IT the other day:
Hello Mr. Dreibein, please go to the following website: https://www.schulferien.eu. As you can see, you will find the holiday calendars of the countries. You recently set up the public folder for us, which shows all our holidays, could you please also add the holidays. Thank you. When can I expect the implementatio
The whole thing happened two years ago. Mr. Dreibein had solved the matter by opening the calendar with Outlook at the beginning of each year and then copying the appointments into the public folder. But this year it was time to automate the whole thing. Since this year, Mr. Dreibein has been using the new import function from ExMixedFolders version 1.36, which can import iCal calendars from the web into any Exchange calendar.
His approach was as follows. After installing ExMixedFolders and connecting it to Exchange, Mr. Dreibein first noticed that he was allowed to use the software free of charge for one user, which corresponds exactly to his requirement, because only one user accesses the public folder for the import.
Now it creates a new CSV / iCal import task and picked the corresponding calendar for Thuringia from the page https://www.schulferien.eu/dow.... The address for 2018 is: https://www.schulferien.eu/dow... Next, Mr. Dreibein learned from the author of the programme that he simply has to replace the year in the address with a {Y} in order to import the correct file each year. (since version 1.35.29 there is also the placeholder {NY} for next year).
Here is an excerpt of the configuration:
There is nothing more to report about this, Mr. Dreibein is now taking care of his server fans again, which have to be replaced one by one.
Use company contacts in the vehicle
Customer mail:
Hello Somebytes team, we are a .... and for this reason we are often on the road with our vehicles, which also display the contacts of our smartphones. We are often called by employees from our company and would like to display not only the number but also the contact. Our company contacts are mainly stored in the ActiveDirectory, but also in public folders for some departments. We read on your site that you deal with such issues. Is there a way to transfer our contacts to the vehicles?
Since the vehicles mostly synchronise the default contacts and their subfolders, you could proceed as follows. Use the ExMixedFolders programme with an ActiveDirectory job to synchronise these contacts as contact subfolders in the driver's mailbox. Furthermore, you need a job to synchronise the public contacts you mentioned into another subfolder. When you connect your smartphone to the vehicle, the company contacts should be ready.