A look into Conversations with EWS and Powershell in a Mailbox

Conversation views in email clients have become par for the course these days, while I'm personally not a great fan it can be a useful feature to use when looking at Mailbox data. With EWS from Exchange 2010 you can use the dedicated EWS operations which are documented http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/office/dn610351(v=exchg.150).aspx . In Exchange 2013 the conversation operations have been enhanced to offer more functionality such as the ability to use an AQS QueryString to filter the results plus also the ability to apply actions to conversation like applying categories or a specific retention tag.

One interesting thing you can apply these conversation operations to is looking at Mailbox statistics in a different way by looking at the operation of Mailboxes to see how engaged the owners or users of the Mailboxes are, by seeing how engaged in the conversation that are happening in the Mailbox. eg

The FindConversation operation in Exchange will return information such as the MessageCount and Size in a particular folder as well as the GlobalCount and Sizes across all folders in a Mailbox for a conversation.This is sample of a script that uses the findconversation operation to do some statistical sampling of conversation data. So what this does is

• Does a FindConversation on the Inbox folder to grab the conversation information for the Inbox
• Does a FindConversation on the SentItems Folder to grab the conversation stats for the Sent Mail
• Combines the results together to work out the participation rate in the conversation based on the amount of Messages this particular mailbox sent.
• For Exchange 2013 you can also query based on the received date of the email so you can look at the last 7 days worth or data etc.

So you can run the script like this to examine the whole of the Inbox

 .\converstats.ps1 user@domain.onmicrosoft.com

or you can use a Date to specify how much data you want to look at eg for the last 7 days use

.\converstats.ps1 user@domain.onmicrosoft.com (get-date).AddDays(-7)

In the script itself I've got it set to only report on conversation with a messagecount greater then 3 and sort the conversation by the participation rate you can adjust this by fiddling with the following line

$Script:rptcollection.Values | Where-Object {$_.InboxMessageCount -gt 3} | Sort-Object ParticipationRate -Descending | Export-Csv -NoTypeInformation -Path c:\Temp\$MailboxName-cnvStats.csv

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

1. $MailboxName = $args[0]  
2. $StartDate = $args[1]  
3.   
4.   
5. ## Get the Mailbox to Access from the 1st commandline argument  
6.   
7. ## Load Managed API dll    
8.   
9. ###CHECK FOR EWS MANAGED API, IF PRESENT IMPORT THE HIGHEST VERSION EWS DLL, ELSE EXIT  
10. $EWSDLL = (($(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")  
11. if (Test-Path $EWSDLL)  
12.     {  
13.     Import-Module $EWSDLL  
14.     }  
15. else  
16.     {  
17.     "$(get-date -format yyyyMMddHHmmss):"  
18.     "This script requires the EWS Managed API 1.2 or later."  
19.     "Please download and install the current version of the EWS Managed API from"  
20.     "http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=255472"  
21.     ""  
22.     "Exiting Script."  
23.     exit  
24.     }  
25.     
26. ## Set Exchange Version    
27. $ExchangeVersion = [Microsoft.Exchange.WebServices.Data.ExchangeVersion]::Exchange2013_SP1  
28.     
29. ## Create Exchange Service Object    
30. $service = New-Object Microsoft.Exchange.WebServices.Data.ExchangeService($ExchangeVersion)    
31.     
32. ## Set Credentials to use two options are availible Option1 to use explict credentials or Option 2 use the Default (logged On) credentials    
33.     
34. #Credentials Option 1 using UPN for the windows Account    
35. $psCred = Get-Credential    
36. $creds = New-Object System.Net.NetworkCredential($psCred.UserName.ToString(),$psCred.GetNetworkCredential().password.ToString())    
37. $service.Credentials = $creds        
38.     
39. #Credentials Option 2    
40. #service.UseDefaultCredentials = $true    
41.     
42. ## Choose to ignore any SSL Warning issues caused by Self Signed Certificates    
43.     
44. ## Code From http://poshcode.org/624  
45. ## Create a compilation environment  
46. $Provider=New-Object Microsoft.CSharp.CSharpCodeProvider  
47. $Compiler=$Provider.CreateCompiler()  
48. $Params=New-Object System.CodeDom.Compiler.CompilerParameters  
49. $Params.GenerateExecutable=$False  
50. $Params.GenerateInMemory=$True  
51. $Params.IncludeDebugInformation=$False  
52. $Params.ReferencedAssemblies.Add("System.DLL") | Out-Null  
53.   
54. $TASource=@' 
55.   namespace Local.ToolkitExtensions.Net.CertificatePolicy{ 
56.     public class TrustAll : System.Net.ICertificatePolicy { 
57.       public TrustAll() {  
58.       } 
59.       public bool CheckValidationResult(System.Net.ServicePoint sp, 
60.         System.Security.Cryptography.X509Certificates.X509Certificate cert,  
61.         System.Net.WebRequest req, int problem) { 
62.         return true; 
63.       } 
64.     } 
65.   } 
66. '@   
67. $TAResults=$Provider.CompileAssemblyFromSource($Params,$TASource)  
68. $TAAssembly=$TAResults.CompiledAssembly  
69.   
70. ## We now create an instance of the TrustAll and attach it to the ServicePointManager  
71. $TrustAll=$TAAssembly.CreateInstance("Local.ToolkitExtensions.Net.CertificatePolicy.TrustAll")  
72. [System.Net.ServicePointManager]::CertificatePolicy=$TrustAll  
73.   
74. ## end code from http://poshcode.org/624  
75.     
76. ## 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    
77.     
78. #CAS URL Option 1 Autodiscover    
79. $service.AutodiscoverUrl($MailboxName,{$true})    
80. "Using CAS Server : " + $Service.url     
81.      
82. #CAS URL Option 2 Hardcoded    
83.     
84. #$uri=[system.URI] "https://casservername/ews/exchange.asmx"    
85. #$service.Url = $uri      
86.     
87. ## Optional section for Exchange Impersonation    
88.     
89. #$service.ImpersonatedUserId = new-object Microsoft.Exchange.WebServices.Data.ImpersonatedUserId([Microsoft.Exchange.WebServices.Data.ConnectingIdType]::SmtpAddress, $MailboxName)   
90. if($StartDate -ne $null){  
91.     $AQSString = "received:>" + $StartDate.ToString("yyyy-MM-dd")   
92.     $AQSString  
93. }  
94. # Bind to the Inbox Folder  
95. $Script:rptcollection = @{}  
96. $folderid= new-object Microsoft.Exchange.WebServices.Data.FolderId([Microsoft.Exchange.WebServices.Data.WellKnownFolderName]::Inbox,$MailboxName)     
97. $Inbox = [Microsoft.Exchange.WebServices.Data.Folder]::Bind($service,$folderid)  
98. # Bind to the SentItems Folder  
99. $folderid= new-object Microsoft.Exchange.WebServices.Data.FolderId([Microsoft.Exchange.WebServices.Data.WellKnownFolderName]::SentItems,$MailboxName)     
100. $SentItems = [Microsoft.Exchange.WebServices.Data.Folder]::Bind($service,$folderid)  
101.   
102. function Process-Folder{    
103.     param (    
104.             $FolderId = "$( throw 'SMTPAddress is a mandatory Parameter' )",  
105.             $IsSentItems = "$( throw 'SMTPAddress is a mandatory Parameter' )"  
106.           )    
107.     process{   
108.         $cnvItemView = New-Object Microsoft.Exchange.WebServices.Data.ConversationIndexedItemView(1000)  
109.         $cnvs = $null;  
110.         do  
111.         {  
112.             $cnvs = $service.FindConversation($cnvItemView, $FolderId,$AQSString);  
113.             "Number of Conversation returned " + $cnvs.Count  
114.             foreach($cnv in $cnvs){  
115.                 $rptobj = $cnv | select Topic,LastDeliveryTime,UniqueSenders,UniqueRecipients,InboxMessageCount,GlobalMessageCount,InboxMessageSize,SentItemsMessageCount,SentItemsMessageSize,ParticipationRate      
116.                 if($Script:rptcollection.Contains($cnv.Id.UniqueId)-eq $false){  
117.                     if($IsSentItems){  
118.                         $rptobj.SentItemsMessageCount = $cnv.MessageCount  
119.                         $rptobj.SentItemsMessageSize = $cnv.Size  
120.                         $rptobj.InboxMessageCount = 0  
121.                         $rptobj.InboxMessageSize = 0  
122.                         $rptobj.LastDeliveryTime = $cnv.LastDeliveryTime  
123.                         $rptobj.UniqueSenders = $cnv.GlobalUniqueSenders  
124.                         $rptobj.UniqueRecipients = $cnv.GlobalUniqueRecipients  
125.                     }  
126.                     else{  
127.                         $rptobj.InboxMessageCount = $cnv.MessageCount  
128.                         $rptobj.InboxMessageSize = $cnv.Size  
129.                         $rptobj.SentItemsMessageCount = 0  
130.                         $rptobj.SentItemsMessageSize = 0  
131.                         $rptobj.LastDeliveryTime = $cnv.LastDeliveryTime  
132.                         $rptobj.UniqueSenders = $cnv.GlobalUniqueSenders  
133.                         $rptobj.UniqueRecipients = $cnv.GlobalUniqueRecipients  
134.                     }  
135.                     $Script:rptcollection.Add($cnv.Id.UniqueId,$rptobj)  
136.                 }  
137.                 else{  
138.                     if($IsSentItems){  
139.                         $Script:rptcollection[$cnv.Id.UniqueId].SentItemsMessageCount = $cnv.MessageCount  
140.                         $Script:rptcollection[$cnv.Id.UniqueId].SentItemsMessageSize = $cnv.Size  
141.                     }  
142.                     else{  
143.                         $Script:rptcollection[$cnv.Id.UniqueId].InboxMessageCount = $cnv.MessageCount  
144.                         $Script:rptcollection[$cnv.Id.UniqueId].InboxMessageSize = $cnv.Size  
145.                     }  
146.                        
147.                 }                 
148.               
149.             }  
150.             $cnvItemView.Offset += $cnvs.Count  
151.         }while($cnvs.Count -gt 0)  
152.     }  
153. }  
154. Process-Folder -FolderId $Inbox.Id -IsSentItems $false  
155. Process-Folder -FolderId $SentItems.Id -IsSentItems $true  
156. foreach($value in $Script:rptcollection.Values){  
157.     if($value.GlobalMessageCount -gt 0 -band $value.SentItemsMessageCount -gt 0){  
158.         $value.ParticipationRate = [Math]::round((($value.SentItemsMessageCount/$value.GlobalMessageCount) * 100))  
159.     }  
160.     else{  
161.         $value.ParticipationRate = 0  
162.     }  
163. }  
164. $Script:rptcollection.Values | Where-Object {$_.InboxMessageCount -gt 3} | Sort-Object ParticipationRate -Descending | Export-Csv -NoTypeInformation -Path c:\Temp\$MailboxName-cnvStats.csv  
165.