Exchange Reporter Plus gathers information about your Exchange organization from the following sources.

• Active Directory
• Exchange Servers
• Exchange Mailboxes and Public folders
• Message Tracking Logs of Exchange Servers
• Outlook Web Access Info Logs
• Event logs of Exchange Server and Domain Controller

After collecting data from the above sources, the data is stored in its intrinsic database, and then converted to meaningful reports and statistics along with necessary graphs and comparison charts.

Yes. On downloading and installing Exchange Reporter Plus, the product starts in trial mode. During the trial mode, data is gathered for reporting from the entire Exchange organization. After 60 days, the trial license expires; product stops to fetch data and switches to 'Free' edition mode where you can manage up to 25 Exchange mailboxes. However, the previously fetched data can be viewed and used.

No. The trial version is fully functional for a period of 60 days. Once the evaluation period expires, the product switches to ‘Free’ edition mode where you can manage up to 25 Exchange mailboxes with 'Standard' edition functionality.

Yes, you are entitled to receive free 24x5 technical support during the evaluation period. The support team can be contacted at support@exchangereporterplus.com or at the toll free number +1 888 720 9500.

To access Exchange Reporter Plus, double click on the desktop shortcut icon of Exchange Reporter Plus.

The product can also be started from

Start → Programs → Exchange Reporter Plus → Start Exchange Reporter Plus

Alternatively, you can open a Web browser and type http://<hostname>:<port number> in the address bar. Hostname refers to the DNS name of the machine where Exchange Reporter Plus is running and the "port number" is the port at which Exchange Reporter Plus is running. The default port number is "8181".

When you buy Exchange Reporter Plus, your license will be based on number of mailboxes you want to manage in your organization. If you require data to be collected from specific mailboxes present across the Exchange servers, you can selectively manage those mailboxes using the manage/unmanage option in the product. Data is gathered for reporting only from the mailboxes that are managed.

The system requirement for Exchange Reporter Plus is available here.

Hardware Requirements

• CPU: P4, 1.0 GHz
• RAM: 1 GB – 4 GB
• Disk Space: 10 to 20 GB (The storage space requirements might vary depending upon your organization size, mailbox size, traffic frequency and outlook web access logins.)

Software Requirements

Exchange Reporter Plus needs MAPI to extract "mailbox size and content related data". MAPI can be made available by installing any of the below.

• Microsoft Exchange Server MAPI Client and Collaboration Data Objects 1.2. [For Exchange 2010 environments only MAPI download option is supported.]
• For environments other that Exchange Server 2010, Microsoft Outlook 2003, 2007 or 2010.

Supported Platforms

• Windows XP
• Windows 2003
• Windows 7
• Windows 2008

Supported Browsers

• Internet Explorer 6.0 and above
• Firefox 2.0 and above

For Exchange Reporter Plus to be started as a Windows Service, stop the console (Click on Start--> All Programs --> Exchange Reporter Plus --> Stop Exchange Reporter Plus) and then install "Exchange Reporter Plus Service" (Click on Start → All Programs → Exchange Reporter Plus → Service → Install "Exchange Reporter Plus Service").

When you install "Exchange Reporter Plus Service", it will invoke a User Interface. Please provide the credentials of a user who has the administrative privileges on the local machine where the product is installed.

Once the "Exchange Reporter Plus Service" is installed, you can start the product as "Windows service". When Exchange Reporter Plus is started in Windows XP / Windows 2003 machines with firewall enabled, Windows may pop up security alerts asking whether to block or unblock Java(TM) Platform SE binary program. Unblock this program to start Exchange Reporter Plus.

Exchange Reporter Plus makes use of MAPI component to access the mailbox object properties. To access the MAPI component, the configured account must be a local system administrator account while running Exchange Reporter Plus as a service.

No, you don’t have to re install on buying Exchange Reporter Plus. After you purchase Exchange Reporter Plus, you will be provided with a license key. Provide the license file under the ‘License’ tab in the product and upgrade to the registered version of the product. All the data collected during your evaluation period will continue to exist.

After installing Exchange Reporter Plus, an Exchange organization should be added with details of the Global Catalog Server. The product should be provided with a privileged account that will be used to access various data sources to collect information on the Exchange organization.

Refer our Quick Configuration Guide to know the conditions to be satisfied.

Exchange Reporter Plus uses the credentials of a mailbox user to interact with all other Exchange mailboxes in the organization. Only if this user has an activated Exchange mailbox and privileges to access other users’ mailboxes, Exchange organization level data can be gathered.

The user credential that Exchange Reporter Plus uses must have administrator privileges like read/write access on all organization mailboxes to interact and read the mailbox properties of all activated Exchange users.

To upgrade to the latest build, follow the Service Pack Installation steps listed here.

MAPI is a messaging architecture and a Component Object Model(COM) based API for Microsoft Windows providing access to all the contents of the messaging stores. Exchange Reporter Plus uses MAPI to access mailbox and public folder objects along with its properties which makes it an integral component for generating Mailbox and Public folder reports.

Exchange Reporter Plus uses MAPI to communicate with mailboxes and public folders. The reports that are dependent on MAPI are

• Mailbox Size reports
• Mailbox Content reports
• Public Folder Size reports
• Public Folder Content reports

The list of MAPI providers for various Exchange server environments are listed in the Quick Configuration Guide.

You can get access to the important points to consider under the ‘MAPI Configuration Note’ section in the Quick Configuration Guide.

MAPI can be installed from three different sources namely

• Exchange System Manager
• MAPI CDO
• Outlook 2003, 2007 and 2010

Exchange System Manager can be used only with Exchange Server 2003 environments. Hence it is not compatible in 2010 environments. The method used by MAPI to retrieve mailbox and public folder information fails in Exchange Server 2010 environment that has Outlook application installed. To work around this issue, Exchange Reporter Plus should be re installed in a new machine with MAPI CDO for 2010 environments.

Yes, Microsoft Outlook should be set as the default mail client when used as a MAPI provider.

Exchange Reporter Plus gathers data from various data sources and IIS servers are one among them. The IIS log files are parsed to collect Outlook Web Access (OWA) logon information which in turn is used for generating reports like Logon by Users, Browser based Logon. Hence IIS log path information should be configured properly to obtain OWA information.

The csCookie field contains the session id information that uniquely identifies OWA user Logons. If this field is not enabled, then Exchange Reporter Plus will not be able to detect OWA logons, and as a result will not be able generate any of the OWA reports. Only after enabling this field, the OWA logon information can be captured.

Exchange Reporter Plus collects the log path information from Active Directory. Hence when a change is made in MS Exchange, the change is not reflected in Active Directory and Exchange Reporter Plus. This calls for a manual update to the log path under ‘Admin -> Log/Store Path’ setting.

OWA logs provide the much needed information for the Exchange reports. Hence it is important to check if the logging is enabled or not.

To check if OWA logging is enabled:

For IIS 6.0

• Open IIS manager by clicking Start → Control Panel → Administrative Tools → Internet Information Services (IIS) Manager.
• Expand server → Websites → Default Web Site. Right click to select Properties.
• Check if ‘Enable Logging’ is enabled.

For IIS 7.0

• Open IIS manager by clicking Start → Control Panel → Administrative Tools → Internet Information Services (IIS) Manager.
• Expand server → Sites → Default Web Site. In the home pane, double click on Logging.
• In the Actions pane, check if disable is displayed indicating that logging has been enabled.

The following are the fields that should be enabled while configuring OWA.

• time
• date
• cs-uri-stem
• cs-uri-query
• cs-username
• c-ip
• cs(User-Agent)
• cs(Cookies)
• sc-status

A message tracking log is a detailed log with information on all the messaging activity happening in an Exchange environment that has the Hub Transport server role, the Mailbox Server role or the Edge Transport server role installed. These logs provide information on the path of every message going through the Exchange system. These logs are the foundation for the Exchange reports and hence the need to configure MTL log path.

To check if MTL logging in enabled:

• For Exchange Server 2003, open the Exchange System Manager and right click against the server to open ‘Properties. From the Properties dialog and under the ‘General’ tab, check if message tracking is enabled.
• For Exchange Server 2007 and 2010, open the Exchange Management Console. Click on the ‘Hub Transport’; right click against the server and click on 'Properties'. Under ‘Log Settings’ tab, check if message tracking logging is enabled.

If the product is installed on the below mentioned platforms, then there is no requirement for Mailbox Permission Gathering task. This is because Remote Powershell is used for this task which is available in these environments by default.

• Windows 7
• Windows Server 2008
• Windows Server 2008 R2
• Windows Server 2012

If the platform where the product is installed does not support Remote Powershell by default, then Exchange Management Shell is needed.

Exchange System Manager(ESM) is required in Exchange Server 2003 environments.

Diagnostic Logging should be configured for mailbox logon events to be recorded in the ′Application Log′ in ′Event Viewer ‘. These events are used for generating Mailbox Logon reports.

‘Default Domain Controller Policy’ and ‘Object level Auditing’ should be configured for accessing Mailbox Property Changes and Mailbox Permission Changes reports. Upon configuration, events related to mailbox permission and property changes will be recorded in the ′Security Log′ in ′Event Viewer′ . You can access the detailed Exchange Audit configuration video here.

When the product is installed within the Exchange forest, Domain Controller Policy is configured automatically using a Microsoft API. Outside the Exchange forest, this API cannot be used for automatic configuration and hence should be configured manually.

If the product is installed on the following platforms

• Windows 7
• Windows Vista
• Windows Server 2008
• Windows Server 2008 R2

and the Domain controller is Windows Server 2008 or Windows Server 2008 R2, then Exchange audit events are automatically updated to the logs and triggered to the product.

In other cases, the data should be fetched from the event logs. Scheduled data collection will happen every 2 hours which can be customized as needed.