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EWS Managed API and Powershell How-To Series Part 7 Using the Configuration Information Operation

In the past couple of posts I've been looking at using the special operations in EWS that allow you to access the unconventional data in a mailbox such as OOF, FreeBusy etc. In this post I'm going to look at accessing the FAI (Folder Associated Items) userconfiguration Items. These are used to store a lot of the Meta-Information for various mailbox functions such as the Master Category list, Works hours, OWA Signature and various other configuration options. The best documentation for the options and formats that are used to store config information in FAI Items is the following Exchange Protocol Document http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc463899%28v=exchg.80%29.aspx.

Before looking at EWS you should consider whether using the Exchange Management Shell maybe a better option, most of the configuration Setting can now be set using EMS cmdlet's such as eg OWA Signature(Get-MailboxMessageConfiguration), WorkHours(Get-MailboxCalendarConfiguration).

With UserConfiguration information that is stored on a FAI item the Item will have a special ItemClass and the config data itself is stored in one or more Mapi properties in either a custom XML format,Roaming Dictionary format or Binary format. Lets look at a few examples of dealing with the different formats for different config Items

Master Category List

The first one I'll cover is the Master category list which I've shown an example of before but the Master Category list is held in a FAI item in the Mailboxes Calendar Folder with a ItemClass of IPM.Configuration.CategoryList and the data for the catergory list is held in a Mapi property in a Custom XML format that is documented in the Exchange Protocol Document i linked above.


To Access the Master Category list which is useful if you need to show the color associated with a particular Keyword.

  1. $folderid= new-object Microsoft.Exchange.WebServices.Data.FolderId([Microsoft.Exchange.WebServices.Data.WellKnownFolderName]::Calendar,$MailboxName)     
  2. #Specify the Calendar folder where the FAI Item is  
  3. $UsrConfig = [Microsoft.Exchange.WebServices.Data.UserConfiguration]::Bind($service, "CategoryList", $folderid, [Microsoft.Exchange.WebServices.Data.UserConfigurationProperties]::All)  
  4. #Get the XML in String Format  
  5. $CatXML = [System.Text.Encoding]::UTF8.GetString($UsrConfig.XmlData)  
  6. #Deal with the first character being a Byte Order Mark  
  7. $boMark = $CatXML.SubString(0,1)  
  8. #Parse the XML  
  9. [XML]$CatXML = $CatXML.SubString(1)  
  10. $NewCat = $CatXML.categories.category  
If you want to add a new Category the easiest way to do this is to clone a existing category from the existing XML change the properties then append it to the Categorylist. Here's an example

  1. $folderid= new-object Microsoft.Exchange.WebServices.Data.FolderId([Microsoft.Exchange.WebServices.Data.WellKnownFolderName]::Calendar,$MailboxName)     
  2. #Specify the Calendar folder where the FAI Item is  
  3. $UsrConfig = [Microsoft.Exchange.WebServices.Data.UserConfiguration]::Bind($service, "CategoryList", $folderid, [Microsoft.Exchange.WebServices.Data.UserConfigurationProperties]::All)  
  4. #Get the XML in String Format  
  5. $CatXML = [System.Text.Encoding]::UTF8.GetString($UsrConfig.XmlData)  
  6. #Deal with the first character being a Byte Order Mark  
  7. $boMark = $CatXML.SubString(0,1)  
  8. #Parse the XML  
  9. [XML]$CatXML = $CatXML.SubString(1)  
  10. #Clone exiting Entry  
  11. $NewCat = $CatXML.categories.category[0].Clone()  
  12. #Set properties  
  13. $NewCat.name = "My New Cat meow"  
  14. $NewCat.color = "10" #Steel Cat  
  15. $NewCat.keyboardShortcut = "0"  
  16. $NewCat.guid = "{" + [System.Guid]::NewGuid().ToString() + "}"  
  17. $NewCat.renameOnFirstUse = "0"  
  18. [Void]$CatXML.categories.AppendChild($NewCat)  
  19. $UsrConfig.XmlData = [System.Text.Encoding]::UTF8.GetBytes($boMark + $CatXML.OuterXml)  
  20. #Update Item  
  21. $UsrConfig.Update()  
OWA UserOptions

The most common form of data-format that is used for a configuration item is the Dictionary an example of this is the OWA.UserOptions FAI item that is held in the Root of the Mailbox. This contains the OWA configuration for the user including the OWA Signature. To show the settings that are currently held in the dictionary in this configuration Item we can use.

  1. $folderid= new-object Microsoft.Exchange.WebServices.Data.FolderId([Microsoft.Exchange.WebServices.Data.WellKnownFolderName]::Root,$MailboxName)     
  2. #Specify the Root folder where the FAI Item is  
  3. $UsrConfig = [Microsoft.Exchange.WebServices.Data.UserConfiguration]::Bind($service, "OWA.UserOptions", $folderid, [Microsoft.Exchange.WebServices.Data.UserConfigurationProperties]::All)  
  4. $UsrConfig.Dictionary  
If you wanted to set the OWA Signature for a user you would use something like this

  1. $folderid= new-object Microsoft.Exchange.WebServices.Data.FolderId([Microsoft.Exchange.WebServices.Data.WellKnownFolderName]::Root,$MailboxName)     
  2. #Specify the Root folder where the FAI Item is  
  3. $UsrConfig = [Microsoft.Exchange.WebServices.Data.UserConfiguration]::Bind($service, "OWA.UserOptions", $folderid, [Microsoft.Exchange.WebServices.Data.UserConfigurationProperties]::All)  
  4. $hsHtmlSigniture = "Im away use <a href='www.bing.com'>www.bing.com</a>";  
  5. $stTextSig = "Get a HTML email editor it is 2012 you know";  
  6. if($UsrConfig.Dictionary.ContainsKey("signaturehtml")){  
  7.     $UsrConfig.Dictionary["signaturehtml"] = $hsHtmlSigniture  
  8. }  
  9. else{  
  10.     $UsrConfig.Dictionary.Add("signaturehtml",$hsHtmlSigniture)  
  11. }  
  12. if($UsrConfig.Dictionary.ContainsKey("signaturetext")){  
  13.     $UsrConfig.Dictionary["signaturetext"] = $stTextSig  
  14. }  
  15. else{  
  16.     $UsrConfig.Dictionary.Add("signaturetext",$stTextSig)  
  17. }  
  18. $UsrConfig.Update()  
Message Records Management

The MRM Tag configuration for a mailbox is also held within a FAI item (you shouldn't be modifying this setting via EWS) but it is useful if you are creating a script that is going to be stamping these tags on Folders or Items to be able to retrieve them via EWS. This is a sample of getting the MRM Policy and Archive Tags from the FAI items that is held in the Inbox

  1. $folderid= new-object Microsoft.Exchange.WebServices.Data.FolderId([Microsoft.Exchange.WebServices.Data.WellKnownFolderName]::Inbox,$MailboxName)     
  2. #Specify the Inbox folder where the FAI Item is  
  3. $UsrConfig = [Microsoft.Exchange.WebServices.Data.UserConfiguration]::Bind($service, "MRM", $folderid, [Microsoft.Exchange.WebServices.Data.UserConfigurationProperties]::All)  
  4. $ConfXML = [System.Text.Encoding]::UTF8.GetString($UsrConfig.XmlData)    
  5. [XML]$ConfXML = $ConfXML    
  6. $ConfXML.UserConfiguration.Info.Data.PolicyTag  
  7. $ConfXML.UserConfiguration.Info.Data.ArchiveTag  
If you love working with Binary data than there is a lot more that can be done on the customization side using this operation to modify View Definitions etc these are very targeted configurations though and can be time consuming so I'm not going to cover those for now.
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