Connectors - Microsoft Exchange

Your appointments, tasks and emails are important; that's why they're part of every enterprise portal. That's exactly why we created the Connector for Microsoft Exchange. With it, you can access almost all information from your personal mailbox. The Connector puts you in a position to use this information for almost any application you would like. That means you could, for example, display a table in your CMS that accesses you personal mailbox, or just your inbox or outbox and then lists all mails that have the customer number of the currently selected customer in the subject. Or you can add a contact to you personal address book with a simple mouse-click.

1. General

1.1 Motivation

In addition to the representation of a pure enterprise portal, the requirement frequently comes about to integrate appointments, contacts, tasks, and emails into the web interface of an Intrexx portal. For this task, United Planet has developed the Connector for Microsoft Exchange, the most broadly used platform for messaging, for your use. The adapter has been integrated completely into the Intrexx application framework. With it, new uses for the software can be realized, such as integrating elements from the Microsoft Exchange server with Intrexx processes.

1.2. Distinction

Although all elements on the Exchange server and the personal mailbox can be accessed with the Connector for Microsoft Exchange, the adapter should not be understood as “a second Outlook WebAccess”. Similarily, the adapter cannot be used to substitute for the use of Outlook itself. Both of these products have been adjusted over decades for the requirements of users, and their range of functions have been set up to serve optimally as messaging clients.

1.3. Setup of the Connector



1.4. Security

In order to use the MediaGateway with Microsoft Exchange Server Version 2003 or higher, a functional Outlook Web Access (OWA) is required. This is normally prepared and activated by Microsoft Exchange. The security protocols used for this (HTTPS, SSL) are also supported by MediaGateway. The communication between the MediaGateway and the server takes place via CORBA and is encrypted with the use of a PKI (Public Key Infrastructure) called RSA. Supported logon processes are Basic, Digest, and Kerberos. The security protocols in use in these processes (HTTPS, SSL) are also supported by MediaGateway, as long as these are installed.

1.5. Implementing the connector

The Connector for Microsoft Exchange can be implemented like an Intrexx foreign data source. The adapter puts you in the position of being able to create almost any application you wish with information from the Microsoft Exchange server. This allows you, for example, to show a table in your customer management system that accesses your personal mailbox, the Inbox folder, or sent mails, listing all mails that have the customer number of the currently selected customer in their subject line. You could also add a contact to your personal address box with a mouse click. With the Connector for Microsoft Exchange , you will not work with copies of the data, but will rather access, in real time, your mailbox or the mailboxes to which you have assigned rights to the current user via Outlook.

1.6. Permissions

The access to data takes place exclusively using the permissions of the user logged onto the Exchange server. This means that any data access that a user executes using the MediaGateway can also be executed using OWA.

Via Microsoft Outlook, every user can make their mailbox accessible to other users, as well as restrict this access in multiple levels, such as only to read, or to read and write. In each case, this is enabled by the user herself.

2. System requirements

The Visual Studio 2017 C++ Runtime Library from Microsoft needs to be installed for the ODBC connection. This can be downloaded here.

3. Quickstart

The following links provide you with a quickstart guide to using Microsoft Exchange data in your portal:

1. Installation
2. Setting up the connection
3. Integrating Microsoft Exchange data in applications