HOW TO … Configure Exchange Contact Replication

Construction Industry Solutions

How To Configure

Exchange Contact Replication

Page 1 October 07

Date: 19-Oct-07

Document Version no 1.1

Prepared by: Clinton Hastings, Don Barwick

Earliest available version of

COINS:

10.11.0711

HOW TO … Configure Exchange Contact

Replication

These notes are published as guidelines only.

This “How to…” Guide may contain recommendations about configuration changes. Your

configuration will almost certainly vary from the examples given in this document. Any

configuration changes should always be applied to a separate non-live environment first

and tested to prove that the features work as you require. Should you have any difficulties with this please contact either the coins communication centre or your account

manager to arrange for some specialist coins consultancy.

Please note that you should not expect the Applications Support team to conduct

configuration changes for you.


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CONTENTS

1 Purpose of this Document .................................................................................3

1.1 Overview of Functionality ..........................................................................3

1.2 COINS Versions .......................................................................................3

1.3 COINS Licensing ......................................................................................3

1.4 Exchange Version.....................................................................................3

2 Configuration ..................................................................................................4

2.1 Exchange Server Setup.............................................................................4

2.1.1 Create user ..........................................................................................4

2.1.2 IIS Service Manager - IIS Settings..........................................................6

2.1.3 Create a Public Folder in Outlook ............................................................7

2.1.4 Test Connection....................................................................................8

2.2 COINS setup..........................................................................................10

2.2.1 Functions...........................................................................................10

2.2.2 Generating Authentication Token (%WCI7060FPCN) ...............................10

2.2.3 Starting/Resuming Online Replication (%WCI7050FPCN) .........................12

2.2.4 Initial Replication of All Contacts (%WCI7040FPCN) ................................13


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1 Purpose of this Document

This document describes how to configure COINS and Microsoft Exchange Server to

enable COINS contacts to be replicated to a public folder on the Exchange Server.

1.1 Overview of Functionality

Using COINS Exchange Server Replication you can update contact details in Microsoft

Exchange from the corresponding contact details in COINS. This means you can use

COINS to manage your contact information, and use these alongside your other Outlook

contacts.

The replication is one-way only, which means that changes to the contacts must be done

in COINS.

Initially you copy COINS contacts to a public Exchange folder, then run a batch process

that updates this folder with any changes.

COINS first attempts to do replication “on-line”; this means that as soon as a record is

changed in COINS a process will run to replicate the change to the Exchange Server. If

a replication attempt fails then the process will switch to log-based replication; in this

mode all changes are stored to a replication log. Running the “Start/Resume

Replication” function will replicate all the entries in the log and re-enable on-line

replication.

1.2 COINS Versions

The functionality requires COINS v10.11 or later. It will be included in the 0711 patch

release but will be also be available as a fix for previous patch releases.

1.3 COINS Licensing

Additional licensing is required. The functionality is licensed as an “Extra” as X-

EXCHANGE, this must be set to “Y”.

1.4 Exchange Version

Exchange Server 2003 is required. Changes will be made to support Exchange Server

2007 once it is released.


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2 Configuration

2.1 Exchange Server Setup

2.1.1 Create user

For security reasons we recommend that you create a specific user account for

replication. You can then give this account restricted access.

The pre-Windows 2000 logon name is important as this will be required later.


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Setting “password never expires” is required as the user’s authentication details will be

stored in COINS and passed to the Exchange server as part of the replication process.

Then create the mailbox in the normal way.


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2.1.2 IIS Service Manager - IIS Settings

The replication process uses a technology called “webDAV”. This passes XML data to the

Exchange web site to update or delete contacts. From the IIS administration tool you

can check the name of the Exchange public folders store web site (usually Public) and

check the authentication methods on this web site. Right-click on the “Public” web site

and select “Properties”, select the “Directory Security” tab and click on the

“Authentication Methods” button. The replication process uses Basic Authentication, so

this box needs to be ticked. The Default Domain should be the same as the “pre-

Windows 2000 user logon name” in the user setup.


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2.1.3 Create a Public Folder in Outlook

Create a new public folder. Change the default message type to be “Contact Items”.

Then right-click on the new folder and bring up the properties dialog.

Assign permissions to the folder. The replication user should have the “Owner” role, all

other users should have the “Reviewer” role.


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On the “Outlook Address Book” tab you can specify whether this folder will appear in the

address book.

2.1.4 Test Connection

It should be possible to view the new public folder using Internet Explorer, using an

address like the following:

http://<exchange server>/Public/<folder name>

In the examples used in this document this would be:

http://devbox/Public/COINScontacts

Note that Internet Explorer will automatically pass your user name and password to the

web server. To test using the account created for replication, you will need to either log

on to the computer using this account or use an account which is not in the same

domain (e.g. a local account on the PC), in which case you will then be prompted with a

login box like the following:


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Enter the user name in the format DOMAIN\username. The domain is the pre-Windows

2000 domain name as shown in the user setup dialog.

If successful you should see a window like the following (no contacts have yet been

created):

You should be able to manually create a contact and then delete it.


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2.2 COINS setup

1. Enter the licensing details. Licensing is handled by an Extension X-EXCHANGE, set to

Y to indicate licensing.

2. Set the CI parameters:

EXCNAUTH Authentication token for the replication user (see below for

instructions on generating this).

EXCNREPL Is Exchange Replication turned on? If unticked then no replication

will occur.

EXCNURL URL to the exchange server and folder, e.g.

http://devbox/Public/COINScontacts/

2.2.1 Functions

A number of new OA functions have been created:

%WCI7040FPCN Replicate All Contacts

%WCI7050FPCN Start/Resume Replication

%WCI7060FPCN Generate Authentication Token (prompt for

username/password)

%WCI7061FPCN Generate Authentication Token (display token)

These will generally only be run by the COINS administrator.

2.2.2 Generating Authentication Token (%WCI7060FPCN)

The Authentication Token is an encoded version of the user name and password for the

replication user account. This is passed with every single replication request between

COINS and the Exchange server. The information is encoded using a weak algorithm

and can be reversed, so it is important to create a special user account and give this

account restricted access.


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Enter the username in the “pre-Windows 2000” format (e.g. DOMAIN\user name)

Once submitted a second page appears showing the encoded Authentication Token. You

can then copy this into the clipboard (Ctrl + C) and paste it into the CI/EXCNAUTH

parameter.


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2.2.3 Starting/Resuming Online Replication (%WCI7050FPCN)

This process will enable on-line replication, either for the first time or because replication

has switched to logging mode after an error. A report will be generated showing how

many log records were processed, any errors encountered and whether the on-line

replication was successfully enabled.


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2.2.4 Initial Replication of All Contacts (%WCI7040FPCN)

This process will replicate all contacts from COINS to Exchange.

Documents

HOW TO … Configure Exchange Contact Replication