Exchange Email Integration

Microsoft Exchange is a popular group messaging and collaboration system. It provides users with email, contact management, calendaring and scheduling. As part of LiveTime’s commitment to enterprise integration, this article guides users through the integration of LiveTime with Microsoft Exchange email server for complete closed loop email management.

The following guide is based upon integration with Exchange 2003 or later and demonstrates how to enable IMAP or POP3 for access by LiveTime for auto request creation from users. Please note that MSExchange 2007 has known problems with supporting the IMAP protocol, and so is not recommended for users of that version.

Creating the Inbox

Load up the Exchange Management Console and Select Recipient Configuration and Click ‘New Mailbox…’ from the Actions list as shown below.

For User Information, enter the following details and click ‘Next >’:

Check the Organizational unit is correct.

First Name:
Support
Last name:
Inbox
Name:
Support Inbox (this may automatically be populated)
User logon name (User Principal Name):
support

Select the appropriate domain from the drop down if multiple domains are in use.

User logon name (pre-Windows 2000):
support (this should be automatically populated)
Enter a suitable password and confirm it.
Ensure ‘User must change password at next logon’ is unchecked.

On the Next screen leave the Alias as support and select a Mailbox database. Click ‘Next >’. On the next screen Click ‘New >’ and then Finish on the final screen to complete the task.

Configuring POP3/IMAP4 access

In the Exchange Management Console, select Recipient Configuration and then right click on the Support Inbox and select Properties.

Disable access that is not required as this will help to prevent accidental access to the mailbox, since we only want LiveTime to access this mailbox. If messages are accessed elsewhere, they may be flagged as read and then not retrieved by LiveTime.

In this example both POP3 and IMAP4 have been left enabled.

In the Exchange Management Console, select the Server Configuration > Client Access option on the left, then right click on IMAP4 or POP3, depending on which of these types of connections you wish to use, and select Properties. The example screenshots show this for IMAP4 but the layout of the screens are the same.

Under the Authentication tab, ensure ‘Plain text logon (Basic authentication). No TLS connection is required for the client to authenticate to the server’ is selected.

Run %SystemRoot%\system32\services.msc to bring up the Services MMC. Ensure that Exchange IMAP4 and/or Exchange POP3 have been started and are set to Automatic Startup.

Configuring LiveTime

You can now edit the settings in the LiveTime email Setup. Please take note to use the full email address in the User Name fields. For the sending server, ensure Authentication is set to ‘Login’.

When logging in to Exchange you need to use a username that’s more than your simple login name. For example, if your email address is “J.User@server.com”, your Windows NT login name is “juser”, your NT domain name is “dom”, and your Exchange mailbox name is “Joe User”, then you would need to use a username of “dom\juser\J.User” when logging in using LiveTime.

Troubleshooting

If you are experiencing connection errors you can telnet to the Exchange Server. To test if the IMAP4 port is available, use the command:

telnet exchange.server.com 143

You can use port 993 if using IMAPS and other appropriate reports for other protocols (POP3 110, POP3S 995)

If you are successful you will see a similar result such as:

OK The Microsoft Exchange IMAP4 service is ready.

You can then check the login credentials by entering the following command “? LOGIN” followed by the email address and password.

To test if the SMTP port is available, use the following command:

telnet exchange.server.com 25

If you are successful you will see somethign like:

220 LTTestSVR01.uk.livetime.com Microsoft ESMTP Mail Service ready at ...