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Creating a new folder in EWS and add it to the MyContacts list in OWA in Exchange 2013/Office365

The peoples hub is one of the new features in Exchange 2013 and Exchange Online that is aimed at making your life richer. One little quirk if your creating new folders using EWS is that they won't appear in the My Contacts list inOWA eg if I was creating a folder named aNewContactsFolder you would get


To make the new Folder you just created appear in the MyContacts list rather then other contacts you need to set these two yet to be documented properties

PeopleHubSortGroupPriority 
PeopleHubSortGroupPriorityVersion

Setting the value of these two named properties to 5 and 2 respectively will make the folder appear under My Contacts, if you want to move the folder into other contacts set the values to 10 and 2

Here's a sample script to create a New Folder as a subfolder of a Mailboxes Contacts Folder and set these two properties so the Contact Folder appears under MyContacts

To run the script pass the emailaddress of the mailbox you want to run it against as the first parameter and the foldername as the second parameter eg use something like .\createMyContactsFldv2.ps1 jcool@domain.com newfolderss

I've put a download of this script here the script itself looks like.
  1. ## Get the Mailbox to Access from the 1st commandline argument  
  2. $NewFolderName = $args[1]  
  3. $MailboxName = $args[0]  
  4.   
  5. ## Load Managed API dll    
  6.   
  7. ###CHECK FOR EWS MANAGED API, IF PRESENT IMPORT THE HIGHEST VERSION EWS DLL, ELSE EXIT  
  8. $EWSDLL = (($(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")  
  9. if (Test-Path $EWSDLL)  
  10.     {  
  11.     Import-Module $EWSDLL  
  12.     }  
  13. else  
  14.     {  
  15.     "$(get-date -format yyyyMMddHHmmss):"  
  16.     "This script requires the EWS Managed API 1.2 or later."  
  17.     "Please download and install the current version of the EWS Managed API from"  
  18.     "http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=255472"  
  19.     ""  
  20.     "Exiting Script."  
  21.     exit  
  22.     }  
  23.     
  24. ## Set Exchange Version    
  25. $ExchangeVersion = [Microsoft.Exchange.WebServices.Data.ExchangeVersion]::Exchange2010_SP2    
  26.     
  27. ## Create Exchange Service Object    
  28. $service = New-Object Microsoft.Exchange.WebServices.Data.ExchangeService($ExchangeVersion)    
  29.     
  30. ## Set Credentials to use two options are availible Option1 to use explict credentials or Option 2 use the Default (logged On) credentials    
  31.     
  32. #Credentials Option 1 using UPN for the windows Account    
  33. $psCred = Get-Credential    
  34. $creds = New-Object System.Net.NetworkCredential($psCred.UserName.ToString(),$psCred.GetNetworkCredential().password.ToString())    
  35. $service.Credentials = $creds        
  36.     
  37. #Credentials Option 2    
  38. #service.UseDefaultCredentials = $true    
  39.     
  40. ## Choose to ignore any SSL Warning issues caused by Self Signed Certificates    
  41.     
  42. ## Code From http://poshcode.org/624  
  43. ## Create a compilation environment  
  44. $Provider=New-Object Microsoft.CSharp.CSharpCodeProvider  
  45. $Compiler=$Provider.CreateCompiler()  
  46. $Params=New-Object System.CodeDom.Compiler.CompilerParameters  
  47. $Params.GenerateExecutable=$False  
  48. $Params.GenerateInMemory=$True  
  49. $Params.IncludeDebugInformation=$False  
  50. $Params.ReferencedAssemblies.Add("System.DLL") | Out-Null  
  51.   
  52. $TASource=@' 
  53.   namespace Local.ToolkitExtensions.Net.CertificatePolicy{ 
  54.     public class TrustAll : System.Net.ICertificatePolicy { 
  55.       public TrustAll() {  
  56.       } 
  57.       public bool CheckValidationResult(System.Net.ServicePoint sp, 
  58.         System.Security.Cryptography.X509Certificates.X509Certificate cert,  
  59.         System.Net.WebRequest req, int problem) { 
  60.         return true; 
  61.       } 
  62.     } 
  63.   } 
  64. '@   
  65. $TAResults=$Provider.CompileAssemblyFromSource($Params,$TASource)  
  66. $TAAssembly=$TAResults.CompiledAssembly  
  67.   
  68. ## We now create an instance of the TrustAll and attach it to the ServicePointManager  
  69. $TrustAll=$TAAssembly.CreateInstance("Local.ToolkitExtensions.Net.CertificatePolicy.TrustAll")  
  70. [System.Net.ServicePointManager]::CertificatePolicy=$TrustAll  
  71.   
  72. ## end code from http://poshcode.org/624  
  73.     
  74. ## 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    
  75.     
  76. #CAS URL Option 1 Autodiscover    
  77. $service.AutodiscoverUrl($MailboxName,{$true})    
  78. "Using CAS Server : " + $Service.url     
  79.      
  80. #CAS URL Option 2 Hardcoded    
  81.     
  82. #$uri=[system.URI] "https://casservername/ews/exchange.asmx"    
  83. #$service.Url = $uri      
  84.     
  85. ## Optional section for Exchange Impersonation    
  86.     
  87. #$service.ImpersonatedUserId = new-object Microsoft.Exchange.WebServices.Data.ImpersonatedUserId([Microsoft.Exchange.WebServices.Data.ConnectingIdType]::SmtpAddress, $MailboxName)   
  88.   
  89.   
  90. #PropDefs   
  91. $PeopleHubSortGroupPriority = new-object Microsoft.Exchange.WebServices.Data.ExtendedPropertyDefinition([Microsoft.Exchange.WebServices.Data.DefaultExtendedPropertySet]::Common, "PeopleHubSortGroupPriority", [Microsoft.Exchange.WebServices.Data.MapiPropertyType]::Integer);  
  92. $PeopleHubSortGroupPriorityVersion = New-Object Microsoft.Exchange.WebServices.Data.ExtendedPropertyDefinition([Microsoft.Exchange.WebServices.Data.DefaultExtendedPropertySet]::Common, "PeopleHubSortGroupPriorityVersion", [Microsoft.Exchange.WebServices.Data.MapiPropertyType]::Integer);  
  93.   
  94. # Bind to the Contacts Folder  
  95.   
  96. $folderid= new-object Microsoft.Exchange.WebServices.Data.FolderId([Microsoft.Exchange.WebServices.Data.WellKnownFolderName]::Contacts,$MailboxName)     
  97. $Contacts = [Microsoft.Exchange.WebServices.Data.Folder]::Bind($service,$folderid)  
  98.   
  99. $NewFolder = new-object Microsoft.Exchange.WebServices.Data.Folder($service)    
  100. $NewFolder.DisplayName = $NewFolderName    
  101. $NewFolder.FolderClass = "IPF.Contact"  
  102. $NewFolder.SetExtendedProperty($PeopleHubSortGroupPriority,5);  
  103. $NewFolder.SetExtendedProperty($PeopleHubSortGroupPriorityVersion,2);  
  104. $NewFolder.Save($Contacts.Id)    
  105. "Created Folder"  

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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.