"From the Field"- Neil Thompson : Office 2007

SharePoint 2007 - Incoming Email

neilth — Fri, 26 Oct 2007 18:44:00 GMT

There are many little "gotchas" with setting up incoming email for MOSS. Just nit picky little things, normally they are all about email infrastructure, SMTP, etc. My advice below is to help you avoid taking your heart medication, it can be easy to set this up, but it can also be a hair pulling, eye rolling, staying up all night and getting no results kind of affair as well.

I promise, this technology does actually work, but if you deviate from the standard build (see list item 3 below for "standard build" as defined by me) you will fall off a cliff unless really understand what you are doing.

I'm not an exchange guru, just a humble BizTalk/Moss guy.

Don't just do this trial and error and play with settings until it works. It won't work. Be deliberate and intentional, setup the standard way and then slowly change things, each time checking to see if the forwarding still works.

This is where I recommend you start, read all this stuff first, before you race off back to your Virtual Machines.

Plan incoming e-mail (Office SharePoint Server) <link updated - August 2009>
Configure incoming e-mail settings (Office SharePoint Server)<link updated - August 2009>
In addition to the technet site, a very good place to start is

Read these documents and set it up in a lab exactly as described until it works
Now introduce incremental changes to the infrastructure and after each one, verify that email is still getting through, or not.

Gotchas and Advice

Trust me, for the first run, just make the FQDN of the moss server (SMTP server) the same as the @domain that you are trying to send to

Clarification
AD domain = example.com,
moss server name = MOSS2K7
moss FQDN = MOSS2K7.example.com
email domain = MOSS2K7.example.com
example address = myemail@moss2k7.example.com
Trust me, for the first run, start off by actually allowing MOSS to own an OU and manage it's own contacts, don't be a cowboy and hope to configure them manually on the first try.
Just do everything the default way the first time, use a lab environment if you have to
Use the OWA website on your lab email server (or a local instance of Outlook conntected to that server) to send emails around, don't try to hook-up external MX-Records and send from external emails.
Keep and eye out for .eml files showing up in the Queue folder on the MOSS box. This is a sign that the SMTP server is forwarding them elsewhere and that is a sign that there is a fundamental problem with the email coming in. Most likely the SMTP sever does not recognize that it is the utlimate destination for emails with that @domainname address.

If you try to read from the SMTP queue on the MOSS server, you will get

A critical error occurred while processing the incoming e-mail file C:\Inetpub\mailroot\Queue\NTFS_cab371a601c8166600000011.EML. The error was: The process cannot access the file 'C:\Inetpub\mailroot\Queue\NTFS_cab371a601c8166600000011.EML' because it is being used by another process..

The solution to this is "DON'T READ FROM THE QUEUE". If the emails are in the SMTP queue on your Moss server then your email/smtp settings are probably messed up. (Perhaps you did not take my advice on keeping the FQDN of the MOSS server the same as the @domain name that you are sending mail to?)

______________________

If you try to "drag and drop" from queue to the drop folder manually, you will get

A critical error occurred while processing the incoming e-mail file C:\Inetpub\mailroot\drop\NTFS_db489bee01c8166600000012.EML. The error was: Bad senders or recipients..

Don't tell me, let me guess. You copied the .eml files from the Queue folder to the Drop folder and then saw sharepoint delete them. Same point as above, If the emails are in the SMTP queue on your Moss server then your email/smtp settings are probably messed up. (Perhaps you did not take my advice on keeping the FQDN of the MOSS server the same as the @domain name that you are sending mail to?)

_______________________

SharePoint Office Server 2007 - Overview WebCasts for Decision Makers

neilth — Tue, 16 Oct 2007 21:34:00 GMT

This posting is intented to complement the Training Roadmap for Office SharePoint Server 2007 with additional resources for non-technical staff members.

This are excerpts from webcasts available at msevents.microsoft.com. These are best for Technical Decision Makers, Business Decisions Makers and Architects...or developers and IT Pros who have to explain this stuff to BDMs,TDMs, or Architects :)

These webcasts cover:

Productivity and Communication
Enterprise Search
Records Management
Enterprise Content Management
Business Intelligence

Microsoft Webcast: Improve Productivity and Communication Using Office SharePoint Server 2007 (Level 100)

Have you ever thought about how much time is lost by your employees because of miscommunication or by the learning curve for a new product, environment, or policy? Join this webcast to get a better understanding of how Microsoft IT is attacking this problem head-on with the built-in features in Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007.We describe using a programmatic approach to improving the quality, effectiveness, and timeliness of the communications and content sent to employees. We also examine how tools, support, availability of critical patches, and access to user education resources can help you boost productivity and communication. 2/22/2007 7:00 PM Pacific Time (US & Canada)- 2/21/2009 12:00 AM | Duration:52 Minutes

Primary Language: English

Primary Target Audience: Technology Decision Maker

Microsoft Webcast: Enterprise Search at Microsoft with Office SharePoint Server 2007

Like most large companies, Microsoft’s intranet contains terabytes of structured and unstructured content that employees need to find and use on a daily basis. In the past, it has been difficult to bring such diverse content sets together in a single search-center experience. Join this webcast to see how the recent release of Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 makes it possible for users to search different content repositories with just a few clicks. We explore how Microsoft manages its internal search experience built on SharePoint Server 2007, both on the central corporate portal site and as a search service used by more than 75,000 employees worldwide.2/15/2007 7:00 PM Pacific Time (US & Canada)- 2/14/2009 12:00 AM | Duration:69 Minutes

Primary Language: English

Primary Target Audience: Technology Decision Maker

A Web Seminar with AIIM and Microsoft: Records Management in Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007

Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 is a comprehensive Business Productivity platform, offering a rich set of capabilities including Enterprise Content Management. Following an introduction to the principles of electronic records management by Marc Fresko of Cornwell Management Consultants, Rob Gray, Microsoft UK Product Marketing Manager for SharePoint and ECM, will take a closer look at the Records Management capabilities of Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007.

11/10/2006 6:00 PM GMT, London- 11/9/2008 12:00 AM | Duration:74 Minutes

Primary Language: English

Primary Target Audience: Technology Decision Maker

http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032316620&culture=en-US

A Web Seminar with AIIM and Microsoft: Web Content Management using Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007

Microsoft and AIIM present Web Content Management using Office SharePoint Server 2007: Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 includes many features that are useful for designing, deploying, and managing enterprise intranet portals, corporate Internet presence Web sites, and divisional portal sites. These features enable you to author and publish Web content in a timely manner and can ultimately reduce the cost and overhead of managing multiple sites. Microsoft partner cScape deployed the world’s first web content management system on Office SharePoint Server 2007 with Ministry of Sound label HedKandi. Ben Robb, Lead Technical Architect at cScape and James Bacchus, CIO at Ministry of Sound will talk about the choice of SharePoint as a WCM platform and their plans for the future.

1/19/2007 8:00 PM GMT, London- 1/18/2009 12:00 AM | Duration:57 Minutes

Primary Language: English

Primary Target Audience: Technology Decision Maker

Microsoft Business Intelligence Solutions Demonstration

Demonstration of Business Intelligence Using Sharepoint Server, Office Excel 2007 and SQL Server 2005

8/23/2007 10:30 PM Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore- 8/22/2009 12:00 AM | Duration:25 Minutes

Primary Language: English

Primary Target Audience: Business PC User

SharePoint 2007 Training Material Roadmap

neilth — Tue, 16 Oct 2007 19:55:00 GMT

This blog posting is a page designed to support basic feedback and management for the Training Material Roadmap that I created for Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 (WSS 3.0) and Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 (MOSS 2007).

(Oct 16 2007) - Training Document Now Released!
Word Document Version - Click Here
WebPage Version (Limited Formatting) - Click Here

You may use this page to:

Obtain a copy of the roadmap document (not the accompanying DVD) - click here for doc version!
Request additional references for particular topics
Get links to supplemental blog postings

Click here for webcasts for Business Decision Makers, Technical Decision Makers, and Architects

Provide feedback or suggestions regarding future iterations of the roadmap

I welcome your feedback and criticism for how the materials have been organized in the roadmap. I would like to help you navigate the massive topic of SharePoint 2007 technologies and nobody can give me more insight into your training and rampup needs than you.

Office 2007 Open Format

neilth — Wed, 20 Jun 2007 06:59:00 GMT

Office 2007 users want to see something cool? Save out a word 2007 .docx format, rename the file to have a .zip extension, and then crack it open. How cool is that?