SGriffin's MAPI Internals

Exchange Web Services and MAPI Props

Merry Christmas! With Exchange 12 (whoops! Exchange 2007) just around the corner, we're starting to get questions about Exchange Web Services. I just helped a customer with a sample illustrating the use of AdditionalProperties to fetch arbitrary MAPI properties from folders and messages. I figured I should clean up the sample and share it with the world.

Comment #1: It wasn't clear to me how to generate the web service proxy in Visual Studio. I don't do development directly on my Exchange server, so it wasn't as easy as doing "Add Web Reference" and picking "Web Services on the local machine". I finally found a reference indicating you can use either of these:

http(s)://MyServer/ews/services.wsdl
http(s)://MyServer/EWS/exchange.asmx?wsdl

Incidently, neither of these URLs is documented in the Exchange 2007 SDK. Maybe someone more familiar with web services would have found it obvious, but I certainly didn't. The SDK folks are working to correct this oversight.

Comment #2: The object ExchangeServiceBinding isn't documented in the SDK either. I had to borrow snippets from other samples to figure out how to use it. The SDK folks are working on that too.

Comment #3: The usual caveats for samples apply here - use at your own risk. Error handling is minimal, so if it crashes - it's not my fault. Enjoy!

using System;
using System.Net;
using EWS; //this is the web reference

namespace GetProps
{
    class Program
    {
        static void Main(string[] args)
        {
            ExchangeServiceBinding exchangeServer = new ExchangeServiceBinding();
            ICredentials creds = new NetworkCredential("SomeUser", "SomePassword", "SomeDomain");

            exchangeServer.Credentials = creds;
            exchangeServer.Url = @"http://MyServer/EWS/Exchange.asmx";

            DistinguishedFolderIdType[] folderIDArray = new DistinguishedFolderIdType[1];
            folderIDArray[0] = new DistinguishedFolderIdType();
            folderIDArray[0].Id = DistinguishedFolderIdNameType.inbox;

            PathToUnindexedFieldType ptuftDisplayName = new PathToUnindexedFieldType();
            ptuftDisplayName.FieldURI = UnindexedFieldURIType.folderDisplayName;

            PathToExtendedFieldType pteftComment = new PathToExtendedFieldType();
            pteftComment.PropertyTag = "0x3004"; // PR_COMMENT
            pteftComment.PropertyType = MapiPropertyTypeType.String;

            GetFolderType myfoldertype = new GetFolderType();
            myfoldertype.FolderIds = folderIDArray;
            myfoldertype.FolderShape = new FolderResponseShapeType();
            myfoldertype.FolderShape.BaseShape = DefaultShapeNamesType.IdOnly;
            myfoldertype.FolderShape.AdditionalProperties = new BasePathToElementType[2];
            myfoldertype.FolderShape.AdditionalProperties[0] = ptuftDisplayName;
            myfoldertype.FolderShape.AdditionalProperties[1] = pteftComment;

            Console.WriteLine("Getting inbox");
            GetFolderResponseType myFolder = exchangeServer.GetFolder(myfoldertype);

            FolderInfoResponseMessageType firmtInbox = 
                (FolderInfoResponseMessageType) myFolder.ResponseMessages.Items[0];

            Console.WriteLine("got folder: {0}",firmtInbox.Folders[0].DisplayName);

            if (null != firmtInbox.Folders[0].ExtendedProperty)
            {
                Console.WriteLine("Comment: {0}",firmtInbox.Folders[0].ExtendedProperty[0].Item.ToString());
            }
            else
            {
                Console.WriteLine("Comment: not found");
            }

            PathToUnindexedFieldType ptuftSubject = new PathToUnindexedFieldType();
            ptuftSubject.FieldURI = UnindexedFieldURIType.itemSubject;

            PathToExtendedFieldType pteftFlagStatus = new PathToExtendedFieldType();
            pteftFlagStatus.PropertyTag = "0x1090"; // PR_FLAG_STATUS
            pteftFlagStatus.PropertyType = MapiPropertyTypeType.Integer;

            FindItemType findItemRequest = new FindItemType();
            findItemRequest.Traversal = ItemQueryTraversalType.Shallow;
            findItemRequest.ItemShape = new ItemResponseShapeType();
            findItemRequest.ItemShape.BaseShape = DefaultShapeNamesType.IdOnly;
            findItemRequest.ItemShape.AdditionalProperties = new BasePathToElementType[2];
            findItemRequest.ItemShape.AdditionalProperties[0] = ptuftSubject;
            findItemRequest.ItemShape.AdditionalProperties[1] = pteftFlagStatus;
            findItemRequest.ParentFolderIds = new FolderIdType[1];
            findItemRequest.ParentFolderIds[0] = firmtInbox.Folders[0].FolderId;

            FindItemResponseType firt = exchangeServer.FindItem(findItemRequest);

            foreach (FindItemResponseMessageType firmtMessage in firt.ResponseMessages.Items)
            {
                if (firmtMessage.RootFolder.TotalItemsInView > 0)
                {
                    foreach (ItemType it in ((ArrayOfRealItemsType)firmtMessage.RootFolder.Item).Items)
                    {
                        Console.WriteLine("got item: {0}",it.Subject);
                        if (null != it.ExtendedProperty)
                        {
                            Console.WriteLine("Prop 0x1090: {0}",it.ExtendedProperty[0].Item.ToString());
                        }
                        else
                        {
                            Console.WriteLine("Prop 0x1090: not found");
                        }
                    }
                }
            }

            Console.WriteLine("\nHit any key to continue");
            Console.ReadKey(true);
        }
    }
}