The Cisco Unity Message Store Manager (MSM) allows you to perform several routine message store management tasks with a single tool. MSM Agents, defined to include a selectable set of subscribers, can generate message demographic reports, archive messages, delete messages, or set subscriber properties, all according to configurable schedules.

Requirements/Special Notes

Requires Unity 3.1.0(1) or greater, running in a Microsoft Exchange 2000, Microsoft Exchange 2003, or Microsoft Exchange 5.5 environment.
The user account running MSM must be a local administrator on the Cisco Unity server.
The user account running MSM must be a Full Exchange Administrator for Microsoft Exchange 2000, Microsoft Exchange 2003, or and Administrator for Microsoft Exchange 5.5.
The user account running MSM must have Send-As and Receive-As rights on each Exchange 2000 and Exchange 2003 mail store the Message Store Manager is expected to act on. See Checking Mailstore Access.
Currently VM Mailbox Rule scripts are supported on Microsoft Exchange 2000 and Microsoft Exchange 2003.

Upgrading from an earlier version of Message Store Manager

If you install a new version of Messages Store Manager in a directory different than the directory in which an earlier version was installed, you will need to copy the data file MSMDATA.XML from the old directory to the new directory to use the settings already configured.

Usage

Agents

The MSM is based on the idea of an Agent. Each agent represents a set of Cisco Unity subscribers, and has associated reports and scripts that are run periodically for all of the agent’s subscribers.

Figure 1

Figure 1 shows the MSM console application with four Agents defined, Directors, Everyone Else, and Managers, and Vice Presidents. Each Agent has four subfolders: Included, Excluded, Reports, and Scripts.

The Included and Excluded folders hold collections of Cisco Unity subscribers.

The Reports folder holds reports that can be run against the agent, and the Scripts folder holds scripts that can be run for the agent.

Adding an Agent

To add an agent, right click the root folder “Message Store Agents” or choose File from the menu, and choose New Agent.

Renaming an Agent

To add an agent, highlight the agent you want to rename, then right click the root folder “Message Store Agents” or choose File from the menu, and choose Rename Agent.

Deleting an Agent

To add an agent, highlight the agent you want to rename, right click the root folder “Message Store Agents” or choose File from the menu, and choose Delete Agent.

Setting Output Properties

The MSM can save log and report files to a folder you specify. The MSM can also delete log and report files older than a number of days you specify. To set the folder where logs and reports should be written, or to change log file and report aging parameters, choose File from the menu, and choose Set Output Properties.

Figure 2

Click Browse to change the folder where log files and reports will be written. If you need a new folder, click ‘New Folder’ to create a new folder after you click Browse. Then right-click on ’New Folder’ object and select ‘Rename’ from the pop-up menu to rename the new folder. If you do not choose a path, the log files and reports will be generated in the default TEMP folder of the current user.

To specify that you would like log files or report files deleted when they reach a certain age, check the appropriate check box and set the number of days the MSM should retain its log and report files.

Note: The MSM will purge log or report files older than the number of days you specify each time the MSM console is started or each time a script is run.

Included and Excluded Folders

The Included and Excluded folders each hold collections of Cisco Unity subscribers.

The Included folder holds all subscribers that should be acted upon when any report or script is run for the agent. Subscribers can be added to the Included set individually, by distribution list, by class of service, by extension range, by home server, or by importing a list from a CSV (comma separated value) text file.

Figure 3

The Excluded folder includes all subscribers that should NOT be acted upon. Subscribers can be added to the Excluded set in the same way they can be added to the Included set.

Figure 4

This structure, using an included and excluded folder, allows you to specify things like “every subscriber in the All Subscribers group except Eddie Emerson”. Whenever a script or report is run for the agent, the list of subscribers considered during the report or script is the result of subtracting the Excluded subscribers from the Included subscribers. If you highlight the agent itself, you will see this resultant list of subscribers after all distributions lists and classes of service have been “flattened”.

Figure 5

Note that when you add a distribution list to the included or excluded folder, all of the members of the distribution list are added, including any sub-groups and their members. However, ONLY the top-level distribution list is added explicitly. All of the members of the group are added implicitly. This means that if you add members to a distribution list in Unity, the next time you look at an Agent that includes that distribution list, the newly added subscriber will be affected. The list of subscribers in the Agent is dynamically generated each time it is needed, and will change as membership in distribution lists change. The same is true for class of service and home mail server. If you choose to add the {Default Subscriber} class of service to the Included folder of an Agent, and then add 20 new subscribers using the same class of service in Unity, the next time the Agent is used, it will include those 20 new subscribers. The “flattened” view of the agent is always generated in real time each time you highlight the Agent. It is also regenerated each time some action is performed on the Agent, like a script or report.

Adding Subscribers to the Included or Excluded folder

While Included or Excluded folder is highlighted, either right-click the folder or choose the Agent option from the main pull-down menu. You will see options to add Subscribers, Distribution Lists, Classes of Service, Extension Ranges, Home Servers, and from a CSV File. The process of adding subscribers to the Excluded folder is the same as that for adding subscribers to the Included folder.

Adding Individual Subscribers

Adding individual subscribers is simple. Choose Add Subscribers from the menu and a dialog box appears listing all qualified subscribers homed on the local Unity server.

Figure 6

Choose the subscriber or subscribers you want to add to the folder and click OK.

Adding Subscribers by Distribution List

To add subscribers to the Included or Excluded folder by Distribution list, choose Add Distribution List from the menu and a dialog listing all of the public distribution lists on the local Unity server will appear.

Figure 7

Choose the distribution list or lists you want to add to the folder and click OK.

Adding Subscribers by Class of Service

To add subscribers to the Included or Excluded folder by Class of Service, choose Add Class of Service from the menu and a list and a dialog listing all of the available classes of service will appear.

Figure 8

Choose the class or classes of service you want to add to the folder and click OK.

Adding Subscribers by Home Server

To add subscribers to the Included or Excluded folder based on their home mail server, choose Add Home Server from the menu, and a dialog listing all of the available home servers will appear.

Figure 9

Choose the home server or servers you want to add to the folder and click OK.

Adding Subscribers by Extensions Range

To add subscribers to the Included or Excluded folder by specifying a range of extension numbers, choose Add Extension Range from the menu and a dialog will appear that allows entry of two extensions.

Figure 10

Enter the starting and ending extension numbers for the range of extensions you’d like to include or exclude, and click OK. All subscribers whose extensions fall between these two extensions will be added to the Included or Excluded folder.

Note: Extensions are included in the range of extensions by an alphanumeric comparison, NOT a numeric comparison. So, extension 732000 will be included if the range you specify is 7300 to 7330.

Adding subscribers from a CSV file

To add subscribers to the Included or Excluded folder from a comma separated value file, choose Add from CSV file from the menu, and a dialog prompting for the CSV file will appear.

Figure 11

Enter the name of a file or click the Browse button to choose a file. The MSM will attempt to find subscribers in the local Cisco Unity database that match data in the CSV file.

The CSV file itself can identify subscribers either by alias or extension. You may include both values if you wish. The general format of a valid CSV file is:

ALIAS,EXTENSION

“ddunbar”,”7304”

“ggore”,”7307”

The first line of the CSV file must be a line with column names, specifically ALIAS and/or EXTENSION. Other columns may be included, but will be ignored by the MSM.

You may specify a file with only ALIAS or only EXTENSION.

ALIAS

“ddunbar”

“ggore”

EXTENSION

”7304”

”7307”

The MSM will attempt to match the values in the ALIAS and/or EXTENSION columns of the CSV file with existing subscribers, adding those subscribers it finds to the Included or Excluded folder.

If the CSV file you are importing contains both alias and extension, subscribers are searched for according to the following logic:

Find a subscriber whose extension matches the extension in the CSV record
If no match, find a subscriber whose alias matches the alias in the CSV record
If no match, no subscriber is added

Moving Included Subscribers to the Excluded Folder

It may be simpler to add subscribers to the Excluded folder by reviewing the subscribers in the Included folder and choosing to exclude some. You may highlight a subscriber, distribution list, class of service, or home server in the Included folder, then select the Members menu option or right click the selected member and ch~~oos~~oose Exclude and the selected member will be added to the same Agent’s Excluded folder.

Note: If you choose to exclude any top-level member from the Included folder, it will be moved to the Excluded folder. If you choose to exclude any implicitly included member, such as the member of a distribution list, they will be excluded, but will still appear under the top-level included member. To view the resulting “flattened” list of subscribers, select the Agent in the left-hand pane.

Reports

The Reports folder holds each report that can be run on the Agent.

Figure 12

There is currently only one report that can be run, the Subscriber Message Store Status Dump.

Subscriber Message Store Status Dump

The Subscriber Message Store Status Dump generates a CSV file with data about each included subscriber’s mailbox. This data is extensive and detailed and is intended to for analysis using a tool like Microsoft Excel or a database management tool.

Reports are dumped to a file based on the name of the Agent, and the time the report generation began. For example, the file name for a report for the “Sales” agent might look like:

Sales_MailboxDump_021002_091437.csv

Report files can be found in the TEMP folder of the user account used to run the report – by default the user that runs the MSM Console.

The first line of the file is a header with column titles for all of the fields in the CSV file. They are:

Column	Type	Description
ALIAS	Text	Subscriber’s alias
EXTENSION	Text	Subscriber’s DTMF access ID, or extension
WARNINGLIMIT	KB	Capacity of message box before warnings are generated
SENDLIMIT	KB	Capacity of message box before sending messages is prohibited
SENDRECEIVELIMIT	KB	Absolute maximum size of message box
SENDLIMITEXCEEDED	Boolean	1 if WARNING limit exceeded, 0 otherwise
SENDRECEIVELIMITEXCEEDED	Boolean	1 if SENDLIMIT exceeded, 0 otherwise
TOTALCOUNT	Count	Count of all messages in message box
TOTALSIZE	KB	Size of all messages in message box
TOTALREADCOUNT	Count	Count of read/heard messages in message box
TOTALREADSIZE	KB	Size of read/heard messages in message box
TOTALUNREADCOUNT	Count	Count of unread/unheard messages in message box
TOTALUNREADSIZE	KB	Size of unread/unheard messages in message box
VOICECOUNT	Count	Count of all voice messages in message box
VOICESIZE	KB	Size of all voice messages in message box
VOICEREADCOUNT	Count	Count of read/heard voice messages in message box
VOICEREADSIZE	KB	Size of read/heard voice messages in message box
VOICEUNREADCOUNT	Count	Count of unread/unheard voice messages in message box
VOICEUNREADSIZE	KB	Size of unread/unheard voice messages in message box
FAXCOUNT	Count	Count of all fax messages in message box
FAXSIZE	KB	Size of all fax messages in message box
FAXREADCOUNT	Count	Count of read/heard fax messages in message box
FAXREADSIZE	KB	Size of read/heard fax messages in message box
FAXUNREADCOUNT	Count	Count of unread/unheard fax messages in message box
FAXUNREADSIZE	KB	Size of unread/unheard fax messages in message box
RECEIPTCOUNT	Count	Count of all receipts in message box
RECEIPTSIZE	KB	Size of all receipts in message box
RECEIPTREADCOUNT	Count	Count of read/heard receipts in message box
RECEIPTREADSIZE	KB	Size of read/heard receipts in message box
RECEIPTUNREADCOUNT	Count	Count of unread/unheard receipts in message box
RECEIPTUNREADSIZE	KB	Size of unread/unheard receipts in message box
OTHERCOUNT	Count	Count of all other messages in message box
OTHERSIZE	KB	Size of all other messages in message box
OTHERREADCOUNT	Count	Count of read/heard other messages in message box
OTHERREADSIZE	KB