Collecting email on request

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If you want to allow users to decide when Content Collector should collect email for further processing, you must configure a collector for interactive archiving. With interactive archiving, Lotus® Notes® and Microsoft Outlook client users can flag documents for archiving or stubbing. Documents flagged by email client users are selected for processing the next time the collector runs.

Before you begin

Before Content Collector can collect documents, you must configure a source connector otherwise, Content Collector cannot access the source system.

About this task

When users flag a document for processing by Content Collector, an email is sent to a specific mailbox, the trigger mailbox. This email instructs an interactive collector (EC Collect Email by User Selection collector) to process documents in the client mailbox that the request came from. The collector searches the trigger mailbox for archiving or stubbing requests that were submitted by client users or picks up email directly from certain folders in the users' mailboxes, according to the schedule that you define. Alternatively, users can trigger archiving by putting the email into specific folders, which are also monitored on a set schedule.
Note: Stub links are generated while archiving from a Microsoft Exchange Online mailbox (a migrated mailbox or a mailbox created on Microsoft Exchange Online) irrespective of the mailbox flags (Litigation Hold and Single Item Recovery) set on the user mailbox.
As the administrator, you define the trigger mailbox to which processing requests are sent or the folders into which users can put the email to be archived. Content Collector creates these folders in the client mailboxes. With this type of collector, you can also let users specify additional archiving information for a document when they manually submit it for archiving. This additional archiving information can later be used when the document is processed in a task route.
Note: Microsoft Exchange Hybrid: When trigger mails are sent across Exchange Environments, the Content Collector trigger mail properties are not retained. For example, Exchange Online mailbox to an Exchange On-premises mailbox. As a result, the archival does not work. This happens because the TNEF Encapsulation is not enabled by default for the Exchange Remote Domains. To enable the TNEF Encapsulation for the Remote Domains, perform the following steps on the Exchange Online and Exchange On-premises Management Shell:
  1. Run the following command: Get-RemoteDomain, and note the "Name" of the remote domain configured for Exchange Hybrid.
  2. Run the following command: Set-RemoteDomain <remote_domain_name> -TNEFEnabled $true -AllowedOOFType "InternalLegacy", where <remote_domain_name> is the Name noted is step 1.
The changes take approximately 30 minutes to apply. After that, the new trigger mails will have the required Content Collector mail properties and the archival works as expected.

Procedure

To configure an email collector for interactive archiving:

  1. Open the Configuration Manager and click Task Routes.
  2. Create or select the task route to which you want to add the collector.
  3. In the Toolbox, click Email > EC Collect Email by User Selection and add it to the task route diagram.
  4. On the General page in the configuration pane, define general settings.
    1. Specify a name and a description for the collector.
    2. If you do not want to use the collector right away, deselect Active.
    3. Define the location that the collector monitors for archiving or stubbing requests.
      Select one of the following options:
      Collect from a trigger mailbox
      Monitor a trigger mailbox for archiving or stubbing requests that were initiated by client users. You define the trigger mailbox when you define the collection sources. Using the information in the request documents, Content Collector can identify the mailboxes to collect the email from.
      Collect from folders
      Monitor specific folders periodically and collect the email in those folders. You define these folders when you define the collection sources. Content Collector creates the folders in the mailboxes of your client users. Users drag email that they want to archive into these folders.

      If you enabled Content Collector for gathering and using additional archiving information, you can also specify whether such information is associated with the email in the monitored folders. In this case, only those documents are collected for which additional archiving information was specified.

      To exclude documents from the collection that were already processed by a collector, select Ignore items previously processed. Specify also whether this option applies only to documents that were processed by the current collector or whether it applies to all documents that were processed by any collector.

  5. On the Schedule page, set a collector schedule by specifying when and how often the collector checks the trigger mailbox for archiving requests or the specified folders for documents to collect.
  6. On the Collection Sources page, configure one or more collection sources.
    Depending on your selection on the General page, you must define a trigger mailbox or folders as collection source:
    • Specify the mail server on which the trigger mailbox resides. Note that you must also specify the trigger mailbox in the client configuration, so that clients can send archiving and stubbing requests to the trigger mailbox. The collector processes the requests that it finds in the trigger mailbox.
      Option Description
      Lotus Domino® When you specify the Domino server, use the Lotus Notes® abbreviated format ATE75TS/D/ATE.

      Also specify the path to the Notes database that serves as the trigger mailbox in the Database path field. The path must be relative to the Domino Data directory. For example, enter z_dir/iccjobs.nsf.
      Microsoft Exchange

      Specify the Internet address of the trigger mailbox in the Mailbox SMTP address field. For example, enter iccjobs@company.com.
    • Specify the mailboxes in which to create drag-and-drop folders for interactive archiving. The collector searches these folders for selectable documents.
      Option Description
      Lotus Domino In the Add Collection Sources window, select one of the following options:
      Domino database
      Collects email from the specified Domino database.

      Enter the name of the Domino server in the Domino server field. Use the Lotus Notes abbreviated format, for example, ATE75TS/D/ATE. For a local database, leave the Domino server field empty. Then enter the path to the database in the Database path field. For a local database, enter the full path to the database. For a database on a server, the path must be relative to the Domino Data directory. Use the same format as in this example: e_dir/131456.nsf.

      All Domino databases in a server directory
      Collects documents from all Notes applications that can be found in the specified folder on a Domino server.

      Enter the name of the Domino server in the Domino server field. Use the Lotus Notes abbreviated format, for example ATE75TS/D/ATE. Also enter the name of the folder in the Folder name field. The folder path must be relative to the Domino Data directory. If you leave this field empty, the Domino Data directory is used.

      You can also include items in subfolders.

      All mailboxes of users in a group
      Collects email from the mailboxes of users belonging to a certain user group.

      In the Group name field, enter the name of a user group as shown in the Lotus Notes address book.

      All mailboxes on a server (except journal mailboxes)
      Collects email from all the mailboxes that can be found on the specified email server.
      Note: Journaling databases will be excluded from the collection.

      Enter the name of the email server in the Domino server field. Use the Lotus Notes abbreviated format, for example, ATE75TS/D/ATE.

      Resolving mailboxes by their home server can be very slow, especially if you have multiple servers in the same Domino domain, because the mailboxes are resolved indirectly by determining the home server of all users. If your mailboxes are organized in a way that, for example, they all reside in a subdirectory of the respective Domino server's data directory, it is much more efficient to configure the collection source type All Domino databases in a server directory.

      Mailbox
      Collects email from the specified mailbox only.

      Enter the address of the mailbox owner in the Mailbox address field. Use either the SMTP format for example, iccuser@mycompany.com, or the Lotus Notes abbreviated format, for example, iccuser/Germany/mycompany.
      Microsoft Exchange In the Add Collection Sources window, select one of the following options:
      All mailboxes of users in a group
      Collects email from the mailboxes of users belonging to a certain user group.

      In the Group name field, enter the display name of a group that exists in the Active Directory or the display name of a dynamic group.

      Note: Microsoft Exchange Online: OAuth support is enabled for with Azure Active Directory from Content Collector 4.0.1 fix pack 10 interim fix 13 (4.0.1.10 interim fix 13).
      Microsoft Exchange Hybrid:
      • The user group must be available on the local Active Directory because the synchronization happens from the local Active Directory to Azure Active Directory.
      • OAuth is not used in Content Collector, because it resolves the users in a group from the local Active Directory.

      All mailboxes on a server (except journal mailboxes)
      Collects email from all the mailboxes that can be found on the specified email server.

      Enter the name of the email server in the Mail server or computer name field, for example, server1.company.com. If Content Collector runs in the same domain, you can enter server1.

      Note:
      • Microsoft Exchange Online: The collection source is not supported.
      • Microsoft Exchange Hybrid: The collection source is supported. To use this collection source, you need to enter the hostname of the On-premises Exchange Server.
      • Microsoft Exchange On-premises and Hybrid: If Active Directory fails to resolve mailboxes on a server, add the Exchange server hostname to the list of host entries.

      Mailbox
      Collects email from the specified mailbox only.

      Enter the Internet address of the mailbox owner in the Mailbox SMTP address field, for example, iccuser@mycompany.com.

      Note: Microsoft Exchange Hybrid:
      • The source can be an online or on-premises mailbox.
      • On-premises shared mailboxes are supported.
      If a mixed collection source is used, the MAPI Profile user must be an Exchange Online user and should have 'Full Access' privilege on all the mailboxes in the collection source.
      If there are logon errors logged in MAPI logs, perform the following steps:
      1. Open the Outlook profile (Example: AFU_OUTLOOK.OFFICE.COM) from Control Panel -> Mail (32-bit) of the mailconnector user.
      2. Go to Email Accounts > Data Files > Settings.
      3. Click Advanced Tab and add the required mailbox.
      4. Close the profile and open Outlook.
      5. Enter the credentials, if prompted.
      6. Restart the Task Route service.

      Define the drag-and-drop folders that are to be used for interactive archiving in the Monitored Folders section. In the Folder name field of the Add Monitored Folders window, enter a folder name. This folder will be created in all user mailboxes.

      Important: Do not include the root folder (/) in the list of monitored folders. If you want to include the root folder and thus all folders, provide an empty include list. However, you should never archive documents from the Drafts folder. Archived draft documents are not archived again after they have been sent, and as a result, they cannot be retrieved. In Lotus Notes, draft documents (and tasks without a due date, which are also considered drafts) are always excluded from archiving. In Outlook, you should explicitly specify the monitored folders so that the Drafts folder is not included.
      When you add folders to the list, enter the following placeholders so that the correct folder is identified for both supported email clients, no matter which language the client is set to:
      • /%OUTBOX% for the folder serving as the Outbox folder in Outlook
      • /%SENT% for the folder serving as the Sent Items folder in Outlook or as the Sent folder in Lotus Notes
      • /%DRAFTS% for the folder serving as the Drafts folder in Outlook
      • /%TRASH% for the folder serving as the Deleted Items folder in Outlook
      • /%JUNK% for the folder serving as the Junk E-mail folder in Outlook or as the Junk Mail folder in Lotus Notes
      • /%RSS_FEEDS% for the folder serving as the RSS Feeds folder in Outlook
      • /%SYNC_ISSUES% for the folder serving as the Sync Issues folder in Outlook
      • /%INBOX% for the folder serving as the Inbox folder in Outlook or Lotus Notes.

      You can still specify folders in the format that is specific to the email client, for example, /Sent Items for Outlook or ($Sent) for Lotus Notes. However, this notation works only for one type of email client. You must use the native notation if a generic placeholder does not exist for the folder that you want to specify.

      For Lotus Notes the following considerations apply:

      • Folders created by Content Collector are not available for users until they close and reopen their mailboxes. You should specify only folders that already exist.
      • If Content Collector automatically creates a folder, and a client user manually creates a folder with the same name, two folders with identical names exist in the client user's mailbox. Content Collector might not find messages that were added to the monitored folder because Content Collector recognizes only the folder that was created first, while users see only the folders that they created.
  7. Save your settings.