Skip to main content

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.

Popular posts from this blog

Testing and Sending email via SMTP using Opportunistic TLS and oAuth in Office365 with PowerShell

As well as EWS and Remote PowerShell (RPS) other mail protocols POP3, IMAP and SMTP have had OAuth authentication enabled in Exchange Online (Official announcement here ). A while ago I created  this script that used Opportunistic TLS to perform a Telnet style test against a SMTP server using SMTP AUTH. Now that oAuth authentication has been enabled in office365 I've updated this script to be able to use oAuth instead of SMTP Auth to test against Office365. I've also included a function to actually send a Message. Token Acquisition  To Send a Mail using oAuth you first need to get an Access token from Azure AD there are plenty of ways of doing this in PowerShell. You could use a library like MSAL or ADAL (just google your favoured method) or use a library less approach which I've included with this script . Whatever way you do this you need to make sure that your application registration  https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/active-directory/develop/quickstart-register-

How to test SMTP using Opportunistic TLS with Powershell and grab the public certificate a SMTP server is using

Most email services these day employ Opportunistic TLS when trying to send Messages which means that wherever possible the Messages will be encrypted rather then the plain text legacy of SMTP.  This method was defined in RFC 3207 "SMTP Service Extension for Secure SMTP over Transport Layer Security" and  there's a quite a good explanation of Opportunistic TLS on Wikipedia  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opportunistic_TLS .  This is used for both Server to Server (eg MTA to MTA) and Client to server (Eg a Message client like Outlook which acts as a MSA) the later being generally Authenticated. Basically it allows you to have a normal plain text SMTP conversation that is then upgraded to TLS using the STARTTLS verb. Not all servers will support this verb so if its not supported then a message is just sent as Plain text. TLS relies on PKI certificates and the administrative issue s that come around certificate management like expired certificates which is why I wrote th

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 Graph is limited to a m
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.