Configuring the ARCHIBUS Extension for Exchange Integration (Reservations Application)

The ARCHIBUS Extension for Exchange Integration is installed as part of the Reservations application installation. You can connect the ARCHIBUS Web Central Room Reservations application to Microsoft Exchange Servers by configuring the ARCHIBUS Extension for Exchange Integration. When using this configuration, the ARCHIBUS Room Reservations form within Web Central presents the usual ARCHIBUS room reservation information, such as scheduling for rooms, equipment, services, and catering. However, with Exchange integration, the Room Reservations form also presents the free/busy time of all invited attendees based on the Exchange calendar. Without Exchange integration, the free/busy time is based only on the existing reservations in the Web Central database.

Exchange listener

If you have configured Exchange integration, a listener can optionally be enabled or disabled . If the listener is enabled, changes made in Exchange calendars are propagated to Web Central, and Web Central receives a notification of the new meeting from Exchange. Web Central compares the meeting in Exchange with the reservation in Web Central. If the reservation was created with the Outlook Plug-in, the two meetings should match. If they don’t match (for example, because the meeting has been modified via Outlook Web Access after creating it), the reservation in Web Central is updated. The Exchange listener is not compatible with Exchange 2007 and should be used only for Exchange 2010 SP1 and up.

Deployment requirements

The following restrictions apply only for enabling Exchange integration in the Web Central Reservations application. The Outlook Plug-In does not require a specific Exchange version.

• The server-side application works with Microsoft Exchange 2007 (SP3 is required), and 2010 on 2003 and 2008 SP2 and 2008 R2 servers.

  Note: Although SP3 is required for Exchange 2007, the exchange.version property in reservations.properties should be set to Exchange2007_SP1. This is because the exchange.version property defines the Exchange Web Services (EWS) API version to use for communication between Web Central and Exchange. This API has not been updated with every Service Pack release of Exchange 2007; hence, the EWS API version Exchange2007_SP1 should be used for connecting to Exchange 2007 SP3.

For deployment requirements for the Reservation Outlook Plug-In, see Reservations Plug-In for Microsoft Outlook: Installation.

Exchange listener

Exchange 2010_SP1 or later is required for enabling the Exchange Listener.

Configuring Exchange integration

To configure Exchange integration:

1. Set your deployment option.
   1. Locate the file:

      [application directory]\WEB-INF\config\context\applications\reservations.properties file

   2. Set one of the following deployment option in the reservations.properties configuration file.
      • For Exchange integration without the ARCHIBUS Outlook Plug-In, set

        reservations.configurationFile=classpath:com/archibus/app/reservation/exchange-integration-context.xml

      • For Exchange integration that includes the ARCHIBUS Outlook Plug-In, set
        

        reservations.configurationFile=classpath:com/archibus/app/reservation/exchange-integration-context-remoting.xml

2. Set the properties required for Exchange integration.
   1. In the reservations.properties configuration file, set the following properties for Exchange integration:.
      • exchange.version. Required for Exchange integration. For more information, see the Deployment Requirements section of this topic.
      • exchange.organizerAccount Property. Email address of the reservations organizer account. Required for supporting non-Exchange users of the Reservations Application. This account will be the meeting organizer in Exchange for reservation requestors that do not have a mailbox on the connected Exchange.
      • exchange.resourceAccount. Email address of the reservations resource account. Required for automated processing of meeting updates from Exchange with the Exchange Listener. This account will be added to all meetings created in Exchange via Web Central and the ARCHIBUS Outlook Plug-In.

        If the listener is not used, the exchange.resourceAccount property should be empty. If not empty, it will be added to all meetings regardless of whether the listener is enabled (to support a clustered environment). For clustered environments, each instance needs this property.

        Note: By having two different properties (the organizerAccount and resourceAccount), the administrator can control whether the resourceAccount is added to all meetings (for the Exchange Listener), and whether non-Exchange users can create reservations without the one decision influencing the other.

        Note: The resource account is automatically added to all reservations when having the listener enabled. The listener uses the resource account for automatic updates from Exchange to Web Central. For this reason, this account mailbox can be configured to automatically archive old meetings, as well as to automatically remove attachments from the meetings.

      • exchange.url Exchange Web Services URL. This is required for Exchange integration. For example:

        exchange.url=https://server.domainname.local/EWS/Exchange.asmx

      • exchange.userName and exchange.password. These are the user name and password for the Exchange Impersonation service account. Required for Exchange integration. See Creating the Service Account.
      • exchange.enableListener. Flag to enable/disable the listener that processes meeting updates from Exchange. The Exchange Listener runs as a scheduled work flow rule. For clustered environments, only one instance should have the listener enabled. The Exchange Listener to process meeting updates is only supported on Exchange 2010 SP1 and later.
      • exchange.ProjectId Used for automated processing of meeting updates from Exchange with the Exchange Listener. Required for Exchange integration. For example:

        exchange.projectId=HQ-Sybase-Runtime

      The following properties are not required:

      • exchange.domain: Exchange Impersonation domain (not required)
      • exchange.proxyServer and exchange.proxyPort: Proxy settings for connecting to the Exchange Server (not required)
3. Application parameters. If needed, configure the following application parameters.
   • MaxRecurrencesToCheckFreeBusy: This number sets the maximum number of occurrences to check attendee availability when creating or editing a recurring reservation. A lower number increases performance. A higher number yields more accurate free/busy information. Default value is set to 10.

     Note: This application parameter applies to the Web Central Reservations application with or without Exchange integration.It is not applicable to the Outlook Plug-In.

Setting up mailboxes

You can create two mailboxes, one for the organizerAccount and one for the resourceAccount.

• The organizer mailbox is required only if you want users without a mailbox on the connected Exchange to be able to create reservations.
• The resource mailbox is required only if the Exchange listener is used.

No special permissions are required for these mailboxes, although the service account should be allowed to impersonate them. Typically, the organizerAccount would be a shared mailbox, and the resourceAccount would be a resource mailbox, but any type of mailbox will work. Although using the same mailbox for both organizerAccount and resourceAccount is an option, this is not recommended for performance reasons.

On Exchange 2010, using a resource mailbox allows additional configurations, such as always deleting non-calendar emails, deleting attachments from incoming meeting requests, deleting the body and/or subject of meeting requests, and automatically adding the name of the organizer to the meeting subject.

Note: Automatic processing of requests should not be enabled, as this is handled by the ARCHIBUS Reservations Application.

In addition to the special options for resource mailboxes, both mailboxes can be hidden from Exchange address lists, and their Free/Busy information can be hidden. These options can be set from the command line, or by using the Exchange Management Console. See the Exchange documentation for more information on these configurations.

Configuring Exchange Web Services

When using Exchange 2010 SP1 and up, you can configure access restrictions for Exchange Web Services (EWS) for the entire organization, per user, and per application via HTTP User Agent. By default, no restrictions are applied. However, if access to EWS has been disabled or limited, then it must be enabled.

Enabling Access to Exchange Web Services

Exchange Web Services are enabled by default on Exchange Servers with the Client Access Server Role installed. By default, no access restrictions are applied.

• If your Exchange Administrator has restricted access to Exchange Web Services on a user basis, the administrator should enable access for the Service Account configured for ARCHIBUS.
• If Access to Exchange Web Services is restricted on an application basis by means of the HTTP User Agent, the User Agent used by the ARCHIBUS Extension for Exchange Integration should be allowed to connect. This user agent string is 'ExchangeServicesClient/0.0.0.0'. The user agent is added directly by the EWS library but the EWS library API does allow customizing it.

Handling Security Certificates

For Java 1.5, the System Administrator will have to store the certificate in the trust key store. This is not required for java 1.6.

Using Exchange Impersonation

Exchange Impersonation is a mechanism that allows a single Windows Active Directory account to act on behalf of other users on a Microsoft Exchange mailbox, as if they were performing the action themselves. For details on setting up Exchange Impersonation, see Using Exchange Impersonation.