Searching based on Categories in EWS

The Categories or Keywords properties on a Mailbox Item is one of the more commonly used Item properties in Exchange. When you want to search for Items with a particular Category set it does present some challenges in EWS.

With EWS you have 3 different search methods, the first being Restrictions (or SearchFilter's if your using the Managed API) that work like MAPI restrictions although you can't build restriction that are 100% equivalent to what you can in MAPI. One particular case is with the Categories property, because this is a Multi-Valued property (or String Array) the IsEqual and Contains Restrictions wont work like the Sproperty restriction in MAPI http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/office/cc815385(v=office.15).aspx

So the next type of Search you can do is a Search of a Mailbox folder using an AQS querystring which essentially does an Index search. Because the Categories property is an Indexed property this will work fine for Categories. The thrid type of Search you can do is eDiscovery in Exchange 2013 which I'll cover in another post

The following script does a search of the the Inbox folder for a particular Keyword using the AQS query

"System.Category:Categorytolookfor"

It also does a client side validation to ensure no false positives are included. To run the script just pass in the name of the mailbox you want to search and the Category to search for (enclosed in '' if there is a space) eg .\SearchCategory.ps1 glen@domain.com 'green category' . The script will output a CSV report of all the messages founds with that particular Category set.

I've put a download of this script here the code itself looks like

1. ## Get the Mailbox to Access from the 1st commandline argument  
2.   
3. $MailboxName = $args[0]  
4. $CategoryToFind = $args[1]  
5.   
6. ## Load Managed API dll    
7.   
8. ###CHECK FOR EWS MANAGED API, IF PRESENT IMPORT THE HIGHEST VERSION EWS DLL, ELSE EXIT  
9. $EWSDLL = (($(Get-ItemProperty -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue -Path Registry::$(Get-ChildItem -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue -Path 'Registry::HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Exchange\Web Services'|Sort-Object Name -Descending| Select-Object -First 1 -ExpandProperty Name)).'Install Directory') + "Microsoft.Exchange.WebServices.dll")  
10. if (Test-Path $EWSDLL)  
11.     {  
12.     Import-Module $EWSDLL  
13.     }  
14. else  
15.     {  
16.     "$(get-date -format yyyyMMddHHmmss):"  
17.     "This script requires the EWS Managed API 1.2 or later."  
18.     "Please download and install the current version of the EWS Managed API from"  
19.     "http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=255472"  
20.     ""  
21.     "Exiting Script."  
22.     exit  
23.     }  
24.     
25. ## Set Exchange Version    
26. $ExchangeVersion = [Microsoft.Exchange.WebServices.Data.ExchangeVersion]::Exchange2010_SP2    
27.     
28. ## Create Exchange Service Object    
29. $service = New-Object Microsoft.Exchange.WebServices.Data.ExchangeService($ExchangeVersion)    
30.     
31. ## Set Credentials to use two options are availible Option1 to use explict credentials or Option 2 use the Default (logged On) credentials    
32.     
33. #Credentials Option 1 using UPN for the windows Account    
34. $psCred = Get-Credential    
35. $creds = New-Object System.Net.NetworkCredential($psCred.UserName.ToString(),$psCred.GetNetworkCredential().password.ToString())    
36. $service.Credentials = $creds        
37.     
38. #Credentials Option 2    
39. #service.UseDefaultCredentials = $true    
40.     
41. ## Choose to ignore any SSL Warning issues caused by Self Signed Certificates    
42.     
43. ## Code From http://poshcode.org/624  
44. ## Create a compilation environment  
45. $Provider=New-Object Microsoft.CSharp.CSharpCodeProvider  
46. $Compiler=$Provider.CreateCompiler()  
47. $Params=New-Object System.CodeDom.Compiler.CompilerParameters  
48. $Params.GenerateExecutable=$False  
49. $Params.GenerateInMemory=$True  
50. $Params.IncludeDebugInformation=$False  
51. $Params.ReferencedAssemblies.Add("System.DLL") | Out-Null  
52.   
53. $TASource=@' 
54.   namespace Local.ToolkitExtensions.Net.CertificatePolicy{ 
55.     public class TrustAll : System.Net.ICertificatePolicy { 
56.       public TrustAll() {  
57.       } 
58.       public bool CheckValidationResult(System.Net.ServicePoint sp, 
59.         System.Security.Cryptography.X509Certificates.X509Certificate cert,  
60.         System.Net.WebRequest req, int problem) { 
61.         return true; 
62.       } 
63.     } 
64.   } 
65. '@   
66. $TAResults=$Provider.CompileAssemblyFromSource($Params,$TASource)  
67. $TAAssembly=$TAResults.CompiledAssembly  
68.   
69. ## We now create an instance of the TrustAll and attach it to the ServicePointManager  
70. $TrustAll=$TAAssembly.CreateInstance("Local.ToolkitExtensions.Net.CertificatePolicy.TrustAll")  
71. [System.Net.ServicePointManager]::CertificatePolicy=$TrustAll  
72.   
73. ## end code from http://poshcode.org/624  
74.     
75. ## Set the URL of the CAS (Client Access Server) to use two options are availbe to use Autodiscover to find the CAS URL or Hardcode the CAS to use    
76.     
77. #CAS URL Option 1 Autodiscover    
78. $service.AutodiscoverUrl($MailboxName,{$true})    
79. "Using CAS Server : " + $Service.url     
80.      
81. #CAS URL Option 2 Hardcoded    
82.     
83. #$uri=[system.URI] "https://casservername/ews/exchange.asmx"    
84. #$service.Url = $uri      
85.     
86. ## Optional section for Exchange Impersonation    
87.     
88. #$service.ImpersonatedUserId = new-object Microsoft.Exchange.WebServices.Data.ImpersonatedUserId([Microsoft.Exchange.WebServices.Data.ConnectingIdType]::SmtpAddress, $MailboxName)   
89.   
90. $AQSString = "System.Category:`"" + $CategoryToFind + "`""  
91. # Bind to the Inbox Folder  
92. $folderid= new-object Microsoft.Exchange.WebServices.Data.FolderId([Microsoft.Exchange.WebServices.Data.WellKnownFolderName]::Inbox,$MailboxName)     
93. $Inbox = [Microsoft.Exchange.WebServices.Data.Folder]::Bind($service,$folderid)  
94. $rptCollection = @()  
95. #Define ItemView to retrive just 1000 Items      
96. $ivItemView =  New-Object Microsoft.Exchange.WebServices.Data.ItemView(1000)      
97. $fiItems = $null      
98. do{      
99.     $fiItems = $service.FindItems($Inbox.Id,$AQSString,$ivItemView)      
100.     #[Void]$service.LoadPropertiesForItems($fiItems,$psPropset)    
101.     foreach($Item in $fiItems.Items){  
102.         #Validate exact Category Match  
103.         $match = $false  
104.         foreach($cat in $Item.Categories){  
105.             if($cat.ToLower() -eq $CategoryToFind.ToLower()){  
106.                 $match = $true;  
107.             }  
108.         }  
109.         if($match){  
110.             $rptObj = "" | Select DateTimeReceived,From,Subject,Size,Categories    
111.             $rptObj.DateTimeReceived = $Item.DateTimeReceived    
112.             $rptObj.From  = $Item.From.Name    
113.             $rptObj.Subject = $Item.Subject    
114.             $rptObj.Size = $Item.Size  
115.             $rptObj.Categories = [system.String]::Join(",",$Item.Categories)  
116.             $rptCollection += $rptObj  
117.         }  
118.     }      
119.     $ivItemView.Offset += $fiItems.Items.Count      
120. }while($fiItems.MoreAvailable -eq $true)   
121. $rptCollection | Export-Csv -NoTypeInformation -Path c:\temp\$MailboxName-CategoryReport.csv  
122. Write-Host "Report Saved to c:\temp\$MailboxName-CategoryReport.csv"