EWS Outlook Quick Steps Powershell how to

Quickstep's in Outlook is a feature that was added in Outlook in 2010 to help automate repetitive tasks you do with Email in Outlook. In this Post I'm going to go through how you can manipulate the objects associated with Quick steps using EWS and PowerShell.

How Quick Steps are implemented in a Mailbox

The OuickSteps Folder is created by Outlook (eg no Outlook no folder) In the Mailbox's IPM Root as a hidden folder called Quick Steps (with a FolderClass of IPF.Configuration) and within this folder there are FAI (Folder Associated Items) which represent each of the QuickStep Items. On each of those there is a PidTagRoamingXmlStream property which contains a ByteArray that represents an XMLDocument for each of the QuickStep items for example they look something like

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<CombinedAction Ordinal="3200" Tooltip="" Icon="MoveToFolder" Name="Clutter" Version="147153">
 <ActionMoveToFolder>
  <Folder>80010....06F006D0000000000</Folder>
 </ActionMoveToFolder>
 <ActionMarkAsRead>
 </ActionMarkAsRead>
</CombinedAction>

Getting the QuickSteps Folder

To Get the QuickSteps folder (if it exists) you can use the PidTagAdditionalRenEntryIdsEx property on the IPM Root folder which will contain the HexEntryId of the QuickSteps folder in the RSF_PID_COMBINED_ACTIONS PersistBlockType value. Eg you can do this using the following code

function Get-QuickStepsFolder
{
 param(
  [Parameter(Position=0, Mandatory=$true)] [string]$MailboxName,
  [Parameter(Position=1, Mandatory=$true)] [PSCredential]$Credentials,
  [Parameter(Position=2, Mandatory=$false)] [Microsoft.Exchange.WebServices.Data.ExchangeService]$service 
 )
 Begin
 {
  if(!$service){
   $service = Connect-Exchange -MailboxName $MailboxName -Credential $Credentials
  }
  $PidTagAdditionalRenEntryIdsEx = new-object Microsoft.Exchange.WebServices.Data.ExtendedPropertyDefinition(0x36D9, [Microsoft.Exchange.WebServices.Data.MapiPropertyType]::Binary)  
  $psPropset = new-object Microsoft.Exchange.WebServices.Data.PropertySet([Microsoft.Exchange.WebServices.Data.BasePropertySet]::FirstClassProperties)  
  $psPropset.Add($PidTagAdditionalRenEntryIdsEx)  
  $folderid= new-object Microsoft.Exchange.WebServices.Data.FolderId([Microsoft.Exchange.WebServices.Data.WellKnownFolderName]::Root,$MailboxName)     
  $IPM_ROOT = [Microsoft.Exchange.WebServices.Data.Folder]::Bind($service,$folderid,$psPropset)  
  $binVal = $null;  
  $AdditionalRenEntryIdsExCol = @{}  
  if($IPM_ROOT.TryGetProperty($PidTagAdditionalRenEntryIdsEx,[ref]$binVal)){  
      $hexVal = [System.BitConverter]::ToString($binVal).Replace("-","");  
      ##Parse Binary Value first word is Value type Second word is the Length of the Entry  
      $Sval = 0;  
      while(($Sval+8) -lt $hexVal.Length){  
          $PtypeVal = $hexVal.SubString($Sval,4)  
          $PtypeVal = $PtypeVal.SubString(2,2) + $PtypeVal.SubString(0,2)  
          $Sval +=12;  
          $PropLengthVal = $hexVal.SubString($Sval,4)  
          $PropLengthVal = $PropLengthVal.SubString(2,2) + $PropLengthVal.SubString(0,2)  
          $PropLength = [Convert]::ToInt64($PropLengthVal, 16)  
          $Sval +=4;  
          $ProdIdEntry = $hexVal.SubString($Sval,($PropLength*2))  
          $Sval += ($PropLength*2)  
          #$PtypeVal + " : " + $ProdIdEntry  
          $AdditionalRenEntryIdsExCol.Add($PtypeVal,$ProdIdEntry)   
      }     
  }
  $QuickStepsFolder = $null
  if($AdditionalRenEntryIdsExCol.ContainsKey("8007")){  
      $siId = ConvertFolderid -service $service -MailboxName $MailboxName -hexid $AdditionalRenEntryIdsExCol["8007"]  
      $QuickStepsFolderId = new-object Microsoft.Exchange.WebServices.Data.FolderId($siId.UniqueId.ToString())  
      $QuickStepsFolder = [Microsoft.Exchange.WebServices.Data.Folder]::Bind($service,$QuickStepsFolderId) 
  }
  else{
   Write-Host ("QuickSteps folder not found")
   throw ("QuickSteps folder not found")
  }
  return $QuickStepsFolder
  

 }
 
}

Getting the Quick Steps Items

The Quick Step items are stored in the Folder Associated Items collection of the Quick Steps folder. To get these using EWS after you get the Quick Steps folder you just need to enumerate the items in the FAI collection by specifying an Associated Items traversal. eg the following code will return the existing Quick Step items

function Get-ExistingSteps{
  param(
  [Parameter(Position=0, Mandatory=$true)] [string]$MailboxName,
  [Parameter(Position=1, Mandatory=$true)] [Microsoft.Exchange.WebServices.Data.Folder]$QuickStepsFolder 
 )
 Begin
 {
  $NameList = @{}
  $enc = [system.Text.Encoding]::ASCII
  $PR_ROAMING_XMLSTREAM = New-Object Microsoft.Exchange.WebServices.Data.ExtendedPropertyDefinition(0x7C08,[Microsoft.Exchange.WebServices.Data.MapiPropertyType]::Binary);  
  $psPropset= new-object Microsoft.Exchange.WebServices.Data.PropertySet([Microsoft.Exchange.WebServices.Data.BasePropertySet]::FirstClassProperties)  
  $psPropset.Add($PR_ROAMING_XMLSTREAM)
  #Define ItemView to retrive just 1000 Items    
  $ivItemView =  New-Object Microsoft.Exchange.WebServices.Data.ItemView(1000)
  $ivItemView.Traversal = [Microsoft.Exchange.WebServices.Data.ItemTraversal]::Associated
  $fiItems = $null    
  do{    
      $fiItems = $QuickStepsFolder.FindItems($ivItemView)  
   if($fiItems.Items.Count -gt 0){
       [Void]$service.LoadPropertiesForItems($fiItems,$psPropset)  
       foreach($Item in $fiItems.Items){      
     $propval = $null
     if($Item.TryGetProperty($PR_ROAMING_XMLSTREAM,[ref]$propval)){
      [XML]$xmlVal = $enc.GetString($propval)
      if(!$NameList.ContainsKey($xmlVal.CombinedAction.Name.ToLower())){
       $NameList.Add($xmlVal.CombinedAction.Name.Trim().ToLower(),$Item)
      }
     }         
       }
   }    
      $ivItemView.Offset += $fiItems.Items.Count    
  }while($fiItems.MoreAvailable -eq $true) 
  return $NameList
 }
}

Export QuickStep XML

To Export the XML from a Quick Step Item you can grab the PR_Roaming_XMLStream property and then save this out to a file (it just plain XML) eg

function Export-QuickStepXML{
 param(
     [Parameter(Position=0, Mandatory=$true)] [string]$MailboxName,
  [Parameter(Position=1, Mandatory=$true)] [PSCredential]$Credentials,
  [Parameter(Position=2, Mandatory=$true)] [string]$Name,
  [Parameter(Position=3, Mandatory=$true)] [string]$FileName
 )
 Begin{
  #Connect
  $service = Connect-Exchange -MailboxName $MailboxName -Credential $Credentials
  $QuickStepsFolder = Get-QuickStepsFolder -MailboxName $MailboxName -service $service -Credentials $Credentials
  $ExistingSteps = Get-ExistingSteps -MailboxName $MailboxName -QuickStepsFolder $QuickStepsFolder
  if($ExistingSteps.ContainsKey($Name.Trim().ToLower())){
   $PR_ROAMING_XMLSTREAM = New-Object Microsoft.Exchange.WebServices.Data.ExtendedPropertyDefinition(0x7C08,[Microsoft.Exchange.WebServices.Data.MapiPropertyType]::Binary);  
   $psPropset= new-object Microsoft.Exchange.WebServices.Data.PropertySet([Microsoft.Exchange.WebServices.Data.BasePropertySet]::FirstClassProperties)  
   $psPropset.Add($PR_ROAMING_XMLSTREAM)
   $propval = $null
   if($ExistingSteps[$Name.Trim().ToLower()].TryGetProperty($PR_ROAMING_XMLSTREAM,[ref]$propval)){
    [System.IO.File]::WriteAllBytes($FileName,$propval)
    Write-Host ('Exported to ' + $FileName)
   }
  } 
 }
}

Creating a QuickStep from XML (Unsupported)

Note creating Quicksteps using anything other then Outlook should be considered unsupported so if you use this make sure you do your own testing. Creating a QuickStep from the XML is just a matter of creating an Item and setting the PR_Roaming_XMLStream property with the appropriate XML from the item. The following cmdlet first reads the existing Quicksteps to ensure your creating a Quickstep with the same name as an existing one. eg

function Export-QuickStepXML{
 param(
     [Parameter(Position=0, Mandatory=$true)] [string]$MailboxName,
  [Parameter(Position=1, Mandatory=$true)] [PSCredential]$Credentials,
  [Parameter(Position=2, Mandatory=$true)] [string]$Name,
  [Parameter(Position=3, Mandatory=$true)] [string]$FileName
 )
 Begin{
  #Connect
  $service = Connect-Exchange -MailboxName $MailboxName -Credential $Credentials
  $QuickStepsFolder = Get-QuickStepsFolder -MailboxName $MailboxName -service $service -Credentials $Credentials
  $ExistingSteps = Get-ExistingSteps -MailboxName $MailboxName -QuickStepsFolder $QuickStepsFolder
  if($ExistingSteps.ContainsKey($Name.Trim().ToLower())){
   $PR_ROAMING_XMLSTREAM = New-Object Microsoft.Exchange.WebServices.Data.ExtendedPropertyDefinition(0x7C08,[Microsoft.Exchange.WebServices.Data.MapiPropertyType]::Binary);  
   $psPropset= new-object Microsoft.Exchange.WebServices.Data.PropertySet([Microsoft.Exchange.WebServices.Data.BasePropertySet]::FirstClassProperties)  
   $psPropset.Add($PR_ROAMING_XMLSTREAM)
   $propval = $null
   if($ExistingSteps[$Name.Trim().ToLower()].TryGetProperty($PR_ROAMING_XMLSTREAM,[ref]$propval)){
    [System.IO.File]::WriteAllBytes($FileName,$propval)
    Write-Host ('Exported to ' + $FileName)
   }
  } 
 }
}

I've put all these samples into a QuickSteps EWS module which you can download from here some examples of what you can do with this

to Get the QuickSteps folder

Get-QuickStepsFolder -MailboxName mailbox@domain.com

To Get the existing Quick Steps

 Get-QuickSteps -MailboxName mailbox@domain.com

This returns a HashTable of the QuickSteps to access a Quickstep within the collection use the Index value eg
 $QuickSteps = Get-QuickSteps -MailboxName mailbox@domain.com
 $QuickSteps["clutter"]

To Delete and existing QuickStep

Delete-QuickStep -MailboxName gscales@datarumble.com -Name 'Task Name'

This cmdlet will search for a quickstep based on the Name attribute in the QuickSteps XML document if one is found it will prompt if you want to delete it.