XFOR: Retaining MS Mail Mailbox SMTP Addresses After Dirsync

ID: Q147534

The information in this article applies to:

SUMMARY

As part of the migration process from Microsoft Mail to Microsoft Exchange, Administrators may decide to start using the Internet Mail Connector (IMC) that ships with Microsoft Exchange instead of the Microsoft Mail SMTP Gateway.

In order to do this, the Administrator needs to set up Directory Synchronization (dirsync) between Microsoft Mail and Microsoft Exchange.

After Directory Synchronization has successfully completed, all the Microsoft Mail mailboxes will now reside in the Microsoft Exchange Directory as custom recipients. These custom recipients will however have a different SMTP address than that of the corresponding Microsoft Mail mailboxes.

To make the switch from the Microsoft Mail SMTP gateway to the IMC transparent to the Microsoft Mail users, the Administrator may need to change the SMTP address of each custom recipient so that it is the same as the old SMTP address for each user. This will allow each Microsoft Mail user to receive mail, via the IMC, at the same SMTP address that they used prior to the introduction of Microsoft Exchange.

The rest of this article describes how an Exchange Administrator can add another SMTP address to each MS Mail custom recipient. This new SMTP address will be the same as the users old SMTP address.


MORE INFORMATION

This article assumes that Directory Synchronization has been set up so that all the Microsoft Mail custom recipients, created by Directory Synchronization are created in a separate recipient container on the Microsoft Exchange side. It can also be applied in the case where the custom recipients for each Microsoft Mail postoffice have been created in a separate container. As long as all the recipients in a container are Microsoft Mail custom recipients, the information in this article will apply.

The process of adding an additional SMTP type address to each Microsoft Mail custom recipient involves exporting the custom recipient information to a text file, modifying this text file and then importing this modified information back into the Exchange Directory. The steps outlined below explain how this is done.

The steps below refer to Microsoft Excel 7.0. Most other spreadsheet programs could also be used.

Assume that the old SMTP address for the Microsoft Mail users is in the format:

user@postoffice.company.com
  1. From the Exchange Administrator program, select the "Directory Export" command from the "Tools" menu.


  2. Select the container that holds the Microsoft Mail custom recipients. If you have more than one such container, repeat these steps for each such container.


  3. Select a file to export the information to (msmail.csv).


  4. In the "Export Objects" section, select only "Custom recipient".


  5. Click on the "Export" button. This should export all the user information to the file selected (msmail.csv).


  6. Open up the file msmail.csv in Microsoft Excel, or any other spreadsheet that can read delimited text files.


  7. The first line in this file should contain the object field names. Check if you have a field called "Secondary-Proxy-Addresses". If not add this field to the cell at the end of the first line. Assume this cell is N1.


  8. Sort all the rows based on the column titled "E-mail address". In Microsoft Excel 7.0, this is done by selecting the "Sort" command from the "Data" menu and then selecting the column containing the "E-mail addresses" field, e.g. column I. This will sort all the rows so that the data displayed now is sorted by Microsoft Mail Network\Postoffice name.


  9. Find the column titled "Alias Name". Note the spreadsheet column name, e.g. column E.


  10. Go to column I, (the column titled "E-mail address"). In the second row of this column, note down the postoffice name in the e-mail address. For example, if the address is MS:35NET\35PO1\User1, the postoffice name is 35PO1.


  11. Go to the cell N2 (the cell below the "Secondary-Proxy-Addresses" cell). Type in ="SMTP:"&E2&"@35PO1.company.com". Press the ENTER key. "E2" is the cell in the second row in the "Alias Name" column. "35PO1" is the name of the postoffice you obtained in step 10.


  12. Look at the "E-mail address" column, column I. Count the number of rows from the second row that have the same Network and postoffice name (35NET\35PO1 in this example). Suppose there are 150 rows. Hence the last row with the same Network\Postoffice name should be Row 151.


  13. Select the cell N2 (the cell below the "Secondary-Proxy-Addresses" cell). Move the mouse cursor to the bottom right corner of this cell. The cursor should now change to a + (plus) sign.


  14. While the cursor is a + sign, hold down the left mouse button and drag the cursor to Row 151, which is the last row with the same Network\Postoffice name in the e-mail address. (you determined this row in step 12). Microsoft Excel should have automatically filled in all the cells, in column N up to row 151, with the correct SMTP addresses. These addresses should look like: 
    
user@35PO1.company.com

    where user is the alias name of each record (row in the spreadsheet).


  15. Starting at Row 152 (the first row with the new Network\Postoffice name), repeat steps 11 - 14, for each new Network\Postoffice name.


  16. Save this file and quit from Microsoft Excel.


  17. From the Exchange Administrator program, select the "Directory Import" command from the "Tools" menu.


  18. Select the file you just modified (msmail.csv).


  19. Click on the "Import" button.


  20. The new SMTP address should now be added to each custom recipients' e-mail addresses. This can be verified by bringing up the properties of a custom recipient and selecting the "E-mail Addresses" property page. The new SMTP address should appear in the list with type "smtp" (lowercase smtp).


External Internet users will now be able to send mail to the MS Mail users, through the IMC, at their old SMTP addresses and this mail will now be delivered to the MS Mail users via the MS Mail Connector.

NOTE: When Microsoft Mail users send mail out to the Internet through the IMC, these messages will appear to have come from the SMTP address that was automatically generated by dirsync for each custom recipient. This is the address with type "SMTP" (uppercase SMTP) in the list of e-mail addresses for each custom recipient. The new address we just added is of type "smtp" (lowercase smtp). Microsoft Exchange assumes the uppercase SMTP type address to be the default outgoing address.

Instead of using the above steps to manipulate the .CSV file, a simple program or macro could also be written to perform the same task of adding the "Secondary-Proxy-Addresses" field to each record in the .CSV file.

Additional query words: schedule plus 


Keywords          : kbusage XFOR 
Version           : winnt:4.0
Platform          : winnt 
Issue type        :

Last Reviewed: April 27, 1999