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The Excel workbook Public-Folder-Migration-Actionplan-EN.xlsx spreadsheet is supposed to support you during a migration of Legacy Public Folders (Exchange Server 2010) to Modern Public Folders in Exchange Online.

The workbook consists of three spreadsheets:

• Overview
  The spreadsheet "Overview" is used to define the names of the source and target platform. Additionally, you can define the names of the persons or groups responsible for the on-premises and cloud infrastructure. Those names are used in the second spreadsheet. You can define a start date for the migration project. There is no additonal calculation taking place. The date is just referenced in the second spreadsheet. It's up to your creativity to add automatic calculations. Finally, a summary for each available task status (Open, In Progress, Finished) is provided.
   
• Public Folder Migration
  The spreadsheet "Public Folder Migration" contains the top down action plan for migration Legacy Public Folders to Modern Public Folders in Exchange Online. The required tasks are grouped and each task can be assigned and the status can be tracked. 
   
• Lookup
  This spreadsheet is used to provided the task status lookup values.

If you encounter any issues while preparing for migration or during migration of public folder, I recommend to check the Exchange Server Techcommunity Forum.

Links

• Current Release of the Action Plan DE/EN
• GitHub Repository 
• Techcommunity Forum Exchange Server

Enjoy Exchange Public Folders!

Description

When migrating to new version of Exchange Servers you must move your internal SMTP relay endpoints. This can be a challeging tasks as application owners mostly ignore your requests for such changes. 

You can use the information provided in the receive connector log files to identify remote clients (MTAs / MTUs) connecting to the legacy infrastructure. The assumption is that protocol logging is enabled. You can easily active protocol logging across all receive connector fo a single server using the following EMS PowerShell one-liner:

Get-ReceiveConnector -Server EX01 | Set-ReceiveConnector -ProtocolLoggingLevel Verbose

The scripts searches the log files for the connection's EHLO response which containes the remote name or remote IP-address of the system connecting to the receive connector.

You can either search

• Legacy Exchange Servers (aka Exchange Server 2010)
• Modern Exchane Servers 
  • Frontend Transport
    or
  • Backend Transport (aka Hub Transport)

For more information read the readme.md file at Github.

Note

You need to adjust the log file path to suit your IT infrastructure. A next releas will contain a more automatic solution.

Examples

# Search legacy Exchange servers SMTP receive log files for the last 4 days and save search results in a single CSV file

.\Get-RemoteSmtpServers.ps1 -Servers SRV01,SRV02 -LegacyExchange -AddDays -4 -ToCsv

Version History

• 1.0, Initial community release 
• 1.1, Fixed Issue #2

Links

• Download and follow at Github: https://github.com/Apoc70/Get-RemoteSmtpServers
• Download and like at TechNet Gallery: https://gallery.technet.microsoft.com/Fetch-remote-SMTP-servers-9e72f1a3

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Description

When you want to migrate your legacy public folders from Exchange 2010 to modern public folders in Exchange Online you must prepare the public folder names for migration.

Public folder names are not allowd to contain the following:

• Backslash "\"
• Forward slash "/"
• Leading or trailing spaces

The script Fix-PublicFolderNames.ps1 fixes the public folder names in preparation for migration to modern public folders.

Examples

# EXAMPLE
# Rename and trim public folders found on Server MYPFSERVER

.\Fix-PublicFolderNames -PublicFolderServer MYPFSERVER

Version History

• 1.0, Initial community release

Links

• Download and follow at Github: https://github.com/Apoc70/Fix-PublicFolderNames
• Download and like at TechNet Gallery: https://gallery.technet.microsoft.com/Rename-and-Trim-Legacy-85e483b1

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Description

This scripts removes or updates users in legacy public folder ACLs. This reduces the likelihood of legacy public folder migration errors due to corrupted ACLs.

When you perform a migration from legacy public folders to modern public folders, you might see the following error as part of the migration reports.

A corrupted item was encountered: Folder ACL

Corrupted items count towards the bad item limit and will not be migrated.

When you take a closer look at the public folder ACLs, you'll see that there will be orphaned users and even users that have not been properly converted during past legacy replications.

In preparation for a modern public folder migration, you should clean up the public folder ACLs from so-called zombie users.

Tasks performed by the script:

• Remove orphaned users listed with SIDs, e.g. NT User:S-1-*
• Identify ACL user/group with notation NT User:DOMAIN\samAccountName
  • Remove user/group, if the object cannot be found in Active Directory
  • Replace user/group, if the object can be found in Active Directory

Examples

# EXAMPLE 1
# Validate ACLs on public folder \MYPF and all of it's child public folders on Exchange server EX200701
.\Clean-PublicFolderACL.ps1 -RootPublicFolder "\MYPF" -PublicFolderServer EX200701 -ValidateOnly

# EXAMPLE 2
# Clean ACLs on public folder \MYPF and all of it's child public folders on Exchange server EX200701
.\Clean-PublicFolderACL.ps1 -RootPublicFolder "\MYPF" -PublicFolderServer EX200701

Version History

• 1.0, Initial community release
• 1.1, Fixed group replacement logic
• 1.2, Script optimization

Links

• Download and follow at Github: https://github.com/Apoc70/Clean-PublicFolderACL
• Download and like at TechNet Gallery: https://gallery.technet.microsoft.com/Remove-orphaned-users-and-bba62a39

Follow

• Twitter @stensitzki
• LinkedIn
• Xing

When you run your Exchange Organization in hybrid mode with Office 365 and you migrate your on-premise Public Folders to Office 365, you are required to configure a remote Public Folder Mailbox in the Exchange Organization settings.

Organization Configs with Exchange 2013 Public Folders On-Premise

With Public Folders on-premise your Exchange Online Org looks like this:

Get-OrganizationConfig | fl *public*

DefaultPublicFolderAgeLimit             :
DefaultPublicFolderIssueWarningQuota    : 1.7 GB (1,825,361,920 bytes)
DefaultPublicFolderProhibitPostQuota    : 2 GB (2,147,483,648 bytes)
DefaultPublicFolderMaxItemSize          : Unlimited
DefaultPublicFolderDeletedItemRetention : 30.00:00:00
DefaultPublicFolderMovedItemRetention   : 7.00:00:00
PublicFoldersLockedForMigration         : False
PublicFolderMigrationComplete           : False
PublicFoldersEnabled                    : Remote
PublicComputersDetectionEnabled         : False
RootPublicFolderMailbox                 : 00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000
RemotePublicFolderMailboxes             : {PublicFolder-Mailbox001}

With Public Folders on-premise your On-Premise Exchange Org looks like this:

Get-OrganizationConfig | fl *public*

DefaultPublicFolderAgeLimit             :
DefaultPublicFolderIssueWarningQuota    : Unlimited
DefaultPublicFolderProhibitPostQuota    : Unlimited
DefaultPublicFolderMaxItemSize          : Unlimited
DefaultPublicFolderDeletedItemRetention : 30.00:00:00
DefaultPublicFolderMovedItemRetention   : 7.00:00:00
PublicFoldersLockedForMigration         : True
PublicFolderMigrationComplete           : True
PublicFoldersEnabled                    : Local
PublicComputersDetectionEnabled         : False
RootPublicFolderMailbox                 : ae0ef819-90d2-45d0-92b6-8b2062cf71a3
RemotePublicFolderMailboxes             : {}

Organization Configs with Exchange 2013 Public Folders in Exchange Online

With Public Folders in Exchange Online your Exchange Online Org looks like this:

Get-OrganizationConfig | fl *public*

DefaultPublicFolderAgeLimit             :
DefaultPublicFolderIssueWarningQuota    : 1.7 GB (1,825,361,920 bytes)
DefaultPublicFolderProhibitPostQuota    : 2 GB (2,147,483,648 bytes)
DefaultPublicFolderMaxItemSize          : Unlimited
DefaultPublicFolderDeletedItemRetention : 30.00:00:00
DefaultPublicFolderMovedItemRetention   : 7.00:00:00
PublicFoldersLockedForMigration         : False
PublicFolderMigrationComplete           : False
PublicFoldersEnabled                    : Local
PublicComputersDetectionEnabled         : False
RootPublicFolderMailbox                 : 5810bb30-cdda-4287-85a4-8a2547bb9b01
RemotePublicFolderMailboxes             : {}

With Public Folders in Exchange Online your Exchange On-Premise Org looks like this:

Get-OrganizationConfig | fl *public*

DefaultPublicFolderAgeLimit             :
DefaultPublicFolderIssueWarningQuota    : Unlimited
DefaultPublicFolderProhibitPostQuota    : Unlimited
DefaultPublicFolderMaxItemSize          : Unlimited
DefaultPublicFolderDeletedItemRetention : 30.00:00:00
DefaultPublicFolderMovedItemRetention   : 7.00:00:00
PublicFoldersLockedForMigration         : True
PublicFolderMigrationComplete           : True
PublicFoldersEnabled                    : Remote
PublicComputersDetectionEnabled         : False
RootPublicFolderMailbox                 : 00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000
RemotePublicFolderMailboxes             : {mcsmemail.de/Users/PF365-Mailbox-01-55e3d544-ed5a-4557-9008-d8c1b6f06d86}

The remote public folder mailbox has been added to the on-premise Exchange confguration by using:

Set-OrganizationConfig -RemotePublicFolderMailboxes PF365-Mailbox-001 -PublicFoldersEnabled Remote

To be able to add the remote public folder mailbox in a hybrid configuration you are required to add the public folder mailbox (or mailboxes, if you have more than one serving the hierarchy) as a mail user.

Microsoft provides a PowerShell script as part of a script collection here.

The issue with Import-PublicFolderMailboxes.ps1

When you run the Import-PublicFolderMailboxes.ps1 script you might run into the following error:

Cannot bind parameter 'Name' to the target. Exception setting "Name": "The length of the property is too long. The
maximum length is 64 and the length of the value provided is 65."
    + CategoryInfo          : WriteError: (:) [New-MailUser], ParameterBindingException
    + FullyQualifiedErrorId : ParameterBindingFailed,Microsoft.Exchange.Management.RecipientTasks.NewMailUser
    + PSComputerName        : ex2013.mcsmemail.de

The name attribute for a mail user is limited to 64 characters. But why are you exceeding the length when the mailbox name is only 17 characters long?

It turns out that the PowerSheel script adds a prefix name "" and ther mailbox GUID as a suffix. And voilá, the name exceeds the allowed length for the mail user name attribute.

Recommendation

Don't use more than 16 characters when naming the Public Folder mailboxes in Office 365.

Or modify the Import-PublicFolderMailboxes.ps1 script to fit your needs.

$hasPublicFolderServingHierarchy = $true;
$displayName = $publicFolderMailbox.Name.ToString().Trim();
# ORIG: $name = "RemotePfMbx-" + $displayName + "-" + [guid]::NewGuid();
$name = $displayName + "-" + [guid]::NewGuid();
$externalEmailAddress = $publicFolderMailbox.PrimarySmtpAddress.ToString();

Links

• Microsoft Exchange 2013 Public Folders Directory Sync Support Scripts

You need assistance with your Exchange Server setup? You have questions about your Exchange Server infrastructure and going hybrid? You are interested in what Exchange Server 2016 has to offer for your environment?
Contact me at thomas@mcsmemail.de
Follow at https://twitter.com/stensitzki