Skip to main content

Exporting the OOF (Out of Office) Setting for every user on a server using CDO 1.2 and VBS

This is another one that came out of the Ether the Out of office functionality was one of the things that received a welcome makeover with Exchange 2007 / Outlook 2007. If you’re moving, migrating or just wondering if people are actually using the Out of Office Assistant then this might be the script for you. This script is broken down into 2 parts the first part of the script takes one command line parameter which is the name of the server you want to export the information from and then it does a ADSI query of Active Directory to get the detail of every account on the server in question. The second part of the script connects to each of the mailboxes the ADSI query found and looks to see if the oof setting is enabled. One of the good things about CDO 1.2 is that it makes getting and setting the oof setting on a mailbox very simple basically once you have logged on you can pull the oof setting from the outofoffice and outofofficetext property of the session object. The format this script uses to export the oofsetting is XML the text of the OOF message is held in a Cdata section to allow for any non standard characters that were used in the oof message that might throw the format.

Exporting the OOF setting is great but if you want to do more than just analyze the data you get back you need something that will read the data you exported and reset them on a mailbox. With the increased functionality of the OOF in Exchange 2007 has come extra complexity so while you could reset the OOF setting on Exchange 2007 using CDO 1.2 to make use of the extra functionality like internal and external OOF message you need to use Exchange Web Service. So watch this space for a sample.

To run the script you need to give it one cmdline parameter which is the servername of the server you want to run it against. Eg cscript exportoof.vbs servername it will write a file to c:\temp\offexport-servername.xml

I’ve put a download of the script here the script itself looks like

servername = wscript.arguments(0)
Set fso = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")
set wfile = fso.opentextfile("c:\temp\offexport-" & servername & ".xml",2,true)

wfile.writeline("<?xml version=""1.0""?>")
wfile.writeline("<ExportedOffs ExportDate=""" & WeekdayName(weekday(now),3) & ",
" & day(now()) & " " & Monthname(month(now()),3) & " " & year(now()) & " " &
formatdatetime(now(),4) & ":00" & """>")
set conn = createobject("ADODB.Connection")
set com = createobject("ADODB.Command")
Set iAdRootDSE = GetObject("LDAP://RootDSE")
strNameingContext = iAdRootDSE.Get("configurationNamingContext")
strDefaultNamingContext = iAdRootDSE.Get("defaultNamingContext")
Conn.Provider = "ADsDSOObject"
Conn.Open "ADs Provider"
svcQuery = "<LDAP://" & strNameingContext & ">;(&(objectCategory=msExchExchangeServer)(cn="
& Servername & "));cn,name,legacyExchangeDN;subtree"
Com.ActiveConnection = Conn
Com.CommandText = svcQuery
Set Rs = Com.Execute
while not rs.eof
GALQueryFilter = "(&(&(&(& (mailnickname=*)(!msExchHideFromAddressLists=TRUE)(|
(&(objectCategory=person)(objectClass=user)(msExchHomeServerName=" &
rs.fields("legacyExchangeDN") & ")) )))))"
strQuery = "<LDAP://" & strDefaultNamingContext & ">;" & GALQueryFilter & ";distinguishedName,mailnickname,mail;subtree"
com.Properties("Page Size") = 100
Com.CommandText = strQuery
Set Rs1 = Com.Execute
while not Rs1.eof
call procmailboxes(servername,rs1.fields("mail"))
wscript.echo rs1.fields("mail")
rs1.movenext
wend
rs.movenext
wend
rs.close
wfile.writeline("</ExportedOffs>")
wfile.close
set fso = nothing
set conn = nothing
set com = Nothing

wscript.echo "Done"




sub procmailboxes(servername,MailboxAlias)

Set msMapiSession = CreateObject("MAPI.Session")
on error Resume next
msMapiSession.Logon "","",False,True,True,True,Servername & vbLF & MailboxAlias
if err.number = 0 then
on error goto 0
if msMapiSession.outofoffice = false and msMapiSession.outofofficetext = "" then
wscript.echo "No OOF Data for user"
else
wfile.writeline("<OOFSetting DisplayName=""" & msMapiSession.CurrentUser & """
EmailAddress=""" & MailboxAlias & """ Offset=""" _
& msMapiSession.outofoffice & """><![CDATA[ " & msMapiSession.outofofficetext & "]]></OOFSetting>")
End if
else
Wscript.echo "Error Opening Mailbox"
end if
Set msMapiSession = Nothing
Set mrMailboxRules = Nothing

End Sub

Popular posts from this blog

The MailboxConcurrency limit and using Batching in the Microsoft Graph API

If your getting an error such as Application is over its MailboxConcurrency limit while using the Microsoft Graph API this post may help you understand why. Background   The Mailbox  concurrency limit when your using the Graph API is 4 as per https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/graph/throttling#outlook-service-limits . This is evaluated for each app ID and mailbox combination so this means you can have different apps running under the same credentials and the poor behavior of one won't cause the other to be throttled. If you compared that to EWS you could have up to 27 concurrent connections but they are shared across all apps on a first come first served basis. Batching Batching in the Graph API is a way of combining multiple requests into a single HTTP request. Batching in the Exchange Mail API's EWS and MAPI has been around for a long time and its common, for email Apps to process large numbers of smaller items for a variety of reasons.  Batching in the Gr...

EWS-FAI Module for browsing and updating Exchange Folder Associated Items from PowerShell

Folder Associated Items are hidden Items in Exchange Mailbox folders that are commonly used to hold configuration settings for various Mailbox Clients and services that use Mailboxes. Some common examples of FAI's are Categories,OWA Signatures and WorkHours there is some more detailed documentation in the https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc463899(v=exchg.80).aspx protocol document. In EWS these configuration items can be accessed via the UserConfiguration operation https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/office/dd899439(v=exchg.150).aspx which will give you access to either the RoamingDictionary, XMLStream or BinaryStream data properties that holds the configuration depending on what type of FAI data is being stored. I've written a number of scripts over the years that target particular FAI's (eg this one that reads the workhours  http://gsexdev.blogspot.com.au/2015/11/finding-timezone-being-used-in-mailbox.html is a good example ) but I didn't have a gene...

Sending a MimeMessage via the Microsoft Graph using the Graph SDK, MimeKit and MSAL

One of the new features added to the Microsoft Graph recently was the ability to create and send Mime Messages (you have been able to get Message as Mime for a while). This is useful in a number of different scenarios especially when trying to create a Message with inline Images which has historically been hard to do with both the Graph and EWS (if you don't use MIME). It also opens up using SMIME for encryption and a more easy migration path for sending using SMTP in some apps. MimeKit is a great open source library for parsing and creating MIME messages so it offers a really easy solution for tackling this issue. The current documentation on Send message via MIME lacks any real sample so I've put together a quick console app that use MSAL, MIME kit and the Graph SDK to send a Message via MIME. As the current Graph SDK also doesn't support sending via MIME either there is a workaround for this in the future my guess is this will be supported.
All sample scripts and source code is provided by for illustrative purposes only. All examples are untested in different environments and therefore, I cannot guarantee or imply reliability, serviceability, or function of these programs.

All code contained herein is provided to you "AS IS" without any warranties of any kind. The implied warranties of non-infringement, merchantability and fitness for a particular purpose are expressly disclaimed.