Hints & Tips: Exporting part of a GroupWise Mailbox

[Support 2]

Archive To Go 1.x is designed to export a full mailbox. In the next major version we will be introducing filtering capabilities, such as date range and folder selection.

In the mean time, if you have a need to export selected folders, an interim approach is outlined below, which uses the existing troubleshooting feature of A2G Creator 1.x. Troubleshooting features are documented in the Archive To Go Creator Manual.

Background

Using a text editor you can edit the a2goengine.exe.config which resides in the Archive To Go program folder (c:program filesadvansysArchive To Go). At present, the only parameter which can be edited is the startfolder value, which requires a GroupWise Folder ID. While this configuration file option is normally used for advanced troubleshooting, it can also be used to create a partial export of a GroupWise Mailbox.

Any folder from the ‘startfolder’ onwards will be exported by Archive To Go. The ‘startfolder’ can be an existing GroupWise folder, with or without subfolders, or you can create a new folder, which may include other subfolders you wish to export.

As Archive To Go Creator 1.x processes folders from top to bottom in the sequence in which they appear within the GroupWise Client’s folder tree view, you can place the ‘startfolder’ at the end of the folder structure, for example, just before the Trash Folder.

It is the Folder ID value which enables the Archive To Go Creator to start the export process from a specific folder (it will skip messages within all preceding folders). The Folder ID can be determined by using either Method A or Method B (recommended) below.

For example, you may wish to export the folder “Insurance”, which has a Folder ID of 3DEB6E3D.GWDEVDOM.GWDEVPO.100.1383236.1.C8.1

To start the Archive To Go Creator from the folder ‘Insurance’, you would edit the config file as shown below.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>

<configuration>

<appSettings>

<add key="startfolder" value="3DEB6E3D.GWDEVDOM.GWDEVPO.100.1383236.1.C8.1" />

</appSettings>

</configuration>

Please note that this feature is not designed to complete a previous process which resulted in partially created archive, i.e. it will not append to an existing archive.

STEP 1 – Setting the start folder

To use this troubleshooting feature, you will first need to obtain the start folder’s Folder ID. Two methods, A and B (recommended) are outlined below.

Method A

Within an Archive To Go archive, the Folder IDs are listed in the archive’s mailbox.xml metadata (media-nn_metadata folder),

For example, you may find the following entry in the mailbox.xml:

folder name=”Insurance” id=”3DEB6E3D.GWDEVDOM.GWDEVPO.100.1383236.1.C8.1″ type=”egwPersonalFolder

The Folder ID for the folder Insurance is 3DEB6E3D.GWDEVDOM.GWDEVPO.100.1383236.1.C8.1

To obtain a Folder ID without doing a complete Archive To Go mailbox export, you can create the folder(s) you need in the GroupWise Client, filling them with the appropriate messages for export, then run Archive To Go Creator.

Allow the Archive To Go process to progress where it starts exporting mailbox messages, then stop it shortly afterwards by pressing the Cancel button.

Choose the option to KEEP the partially created archive.

Then use the information above to locate the mailbox.xml file within the partial archive’s metadata and locate your ‘startfolder’ Folder ID.

Edit the a2goengine.exe.config as described above.

Note: If you use Advansys Formativ Creator or Studio, you can also write a very simple Applet to display a selected GroupWise folder’s ID and copy it to the clipboard. See the two lines of code below.

Sub Main(Client, GWEvent)

msgbox client.clientstate.selectedfolder.folderid

Utilities.ToClipBoard client.clientstate.selectedfolder.folderid

End Sub

Method B (recommended)

We have written a Formativ Express utility applet called the Archive To Go Start Folder. This solution enables you to select a GroupWise folder and make it the Archive To Go start folder. You can download the applet, contained within the archive-to-go-startfolder.zip, here: http://www.archive2go.com/archive2go/archive-to-go-startfolder.zip.

When you press the GroupWise toolbar button to run the applet, it works by automatically obtaining the selected Folder ID and updating the a2goengine.exe.config XML file in the Archive To Go program folder (c:program filesadvansysArchive To Go). This saves you going through the additional procedure for obtaining the folder ID from the partial Archive To Go output and then having to edit the config file manually (Method A above).

When you select a folder in the GroupWise client and then run the solution, you should see the dialog below. In this example, the folder has been set to User Groups.

You can RESET (clear) the Archive To Go start folder setting by holding the SHIFT key down while starting the solution.

Applet Installation

The applet is a Formativ Express solution. This means that if you don’t already own Formativ Runtime or have it installed, you can download Formativ Express for free from our Formativ Download Page. After installing Formativ Express, copy the Archive To Go Start Folder_Flexalock.vbf applet from the archive-to-go-startfolder.zip file to the c:my documentsadvansysformativapplets folder and restart your GroupWise client.

Applet Operation

• Select the desired start folder in the GroupWise client.
• Click the button on the main GroupWise toolbar.
• Run Archive To Go Creator and perform the export. Only messages within folders from the start folder onwards will be exported by Archive To Go.
• When complete, if desired, clear the start folder by holding the SHIFT key down while clicking the button.

STEP 2 – Initiating the partial export

Now that the start folder is set, run Archive To Go Creator again. While all folders will be created and displayed within the Archive To Go Viewer, only the ‘startfolder’ onwards will contain exported GroupWise messages.

This same technique was used by Advansys to create the GroupWise Resource Archive, which can be found here: http://www.novell.com/coolsolutions/tip/16569.html

Advansys Support.

[This message was edited by Support 2 on December 07, 2006 at 06:25 PM.]

Topic