Configuring Exchange Calendar for WXP Collaboration Workspace Insights

Introduction

This article provides guidance on collecting scheduling data from Microsoft Exchange or Office 365 to power HP WXP Collaboration “Room Insights.”

If the WXP Collaboration Exchange or Office 365 collector cannot collect data directly from your environment, you must export the data and push the data to WXP Collaboration APIs. Contact our Support team for instructions.

If you are using Office 365, refer to the document Office 365 Configuration for Workspace Insights for additional setup information.

Prerequisites

• Microsoft Exchange on-premises version 2013 or later, or Microsoft Office 365 Exchange.

• Sufficient Exchange Web Services (EWS) API bandwidth.

  • Depending on the number of rooms and the number of other applications hitting the EWS API, there may be the need to either load balance or increase capacity.

• WXP Collaboration Advanced Analytics module must be Live in production.

  • The “Historical” and “Webex” WXP Collaboration modules will not display Exchange data collected using this process.

Known Limitations

Any of the below limitations can lead to a collector malfunction:

• Attempting to collect data for more than 5,000 rooms.

• Special or Cyrillic characters like “Ꙍ” or “Ꙃ” in room names or room ID

• Attempting to collect data from more than one calendar source.

  • If multiple calendar sources exist, you must export data from all required databases, remove duplicate entries, format the data according to WXP Collaboration standards, and push the data to the WXP Collaboration API.

Best practice: Review the entire article before starting the integration.

Step 1: Creating and Configuring an Microsoft Exchange Service Account

In your Microsoft Exchange administrator portal, create an Exchange Service Account with a mailbox enabled for the account (this is a necessary requirement)

Microsoft Exchange Integration for WXP Collaboration - Room Insights uses an Exchange distribution list to determine which room resources are queried for scheduled meeting data.

1. Create a room distribution list and record its email address. For example: VyoptaRoomsDL@company.com.

2. Add all room mailboxes that require scheduling data collection to the distribution list.

Note: If your environment does not allow creation of a room distribution list, you may provide a CSV file that maps each ExchangeResourceID to a specific room name. You must maintain this file if room changes occur.

Step 2: Adding Microsoft Exchange to the WXP Collaboration Data Collector

To start collecting Microsoft Exchange data, add the Exchange Collector to your current data collector by performing the following:

1. Log in to the WXP Collaboration application.

   1. Microsoft Exchange Integration for Workspace Insights uses an Exchange distribution list to identify the room resources that are queried for scheduled meeting data.

2. Create a new room distribution list and document its email address. For example: VyoptaRoomsDL@company.com

3. Add all rooms applicable for scheduled meeting data collection to the newly created distribution list.

Note: If your environment does not allow creation of a room distribution list, you may provide a CSV file that maps each ExchangeResourceID to a specific room name. You must maintain this file if room changes occur.

Step 3: Configuring Application Impersonation

Related Documentation: Exchange Server: https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/office/dn722376(v=exchg.150).aspx

Recommended Default Settings: WXP Collaboration application asks for adding the service account as a member of the built-in "Discovery Management" admin role in Office 365. This will grant an application impersonation access to the service account, to impersonate all the room mailboxes in the organization.

Application Impersonal (Custom Settings)

If your security policy does not allow this configuration, use a custom application impersonation setup.

1. Create a security group in Office 365 and add the required rooms for which collector will be polling the meeting data, as members of the Group.

   

2. Create a new Management Write Scope “Vyopta Analytics VC Rooms Write Scope” using the below Office 365 command. You can use any value in place of SAC

   New-ManagementScope -Name "Vyopta Analytics VC Rooms Write Scope" -RecipientRestrictionFilter {CustomAttribute10 -eq 'SAC'}

3. Create a new admin management role in office 365s.

4. Select the write scope created above.

   1. Assign the ApplicationImpersonation, Legal Hold, and Mailbox Search roles to the management role and update the security group as a member of the group.

   2. Add the Exchange service account as a member of the role. This account is used by WXP Collaboration data collector application to query Exchange Web Service APIs

      

5. For all the members (rooms) added under the security group (point 1), do the following:

   • Add the same value (SAC) as a Custom attribute value for each mailbox.

     

   • To verify whether the change took place, use the following powershell command:

     Get-Mailbox -Identity "cybertron@vyopta.net" | fl name, *custom* (use Get-RemoteMailbox for mailboxes that are on-premise)

     

6. So for all the mailboxes that needs to be accessed by the service account, should have this Customattribute10 value equals SAC. This will grant an application impersonation access to the service account (qa_vyopta_svc) added in Step 3.

Step 4: AutomateProcessing Settings

Review and configure AutomateProcessing settings for room mailboxes as required. Refer to Microsoft documentation for Set-CalendarProcessing for additional details.

Contact Us

For any assistance, create a support case or email support@wxp.hp.com.