MAPI properties

Before MAPI properties can be defined in Custom Properties.xml, they must be defined in the MAPI subsystem. Currently, the Enterprise Vault custom properties feature supports only STRING and DOUBLE properties. Enterprise Vault supports single or multi-valued properties.

In MAPI, properties are grouped by NAMESPACE. Typically, properties accessed by a particular application are defined in the same namespace. Each namespace is identified by a GUID. Each property is defined by its STRING ID and namespace GUID.

For each property that you want to include, you will need the following details from the property definition in the MAPI subsystem:

If the property is a standard MAPI property, the Identifier part (bits 16 to 31) of the hexadecimal MAPI tag. For example, if the MAPI tag for the standard property is 0x0070001E, the Enterprise Vault NAME value would be 0x0070.
If the property is a custom property, the GUID of the property's namespace.
If the property is a custom property, the property's STRING ID. If the property is a named property, the ID will be a name.

You can use third party MAPI tools, such as OutlookSpy, to view the MAPI properties associated with mailbox items.

Figure: Viewing MAPI properties shows how MAPI properties on a message are displayed in OutlookSpy.

Figure: Viewing MAPI properties

The selected property is the named property, "Keywords". This multi-valued property holds the Outlook categories assigned to the message. Details of the selected property are displayed on the right-hand side of the window.

Note that the "Keywords" property is only used here as an example of a named MAPI property. You do not need to add it as a custom property, because it is already indexed in a default Enterprise Vault system.

To make MAPI properties available to Enterprise Vault, you define them in the <CUSTOMPROPERTIES> section of Custom Properties.xml. The properties defined in this section can then be referenced in the content category and presentation sections.

Here is an example showing how properties can be defined:

<!-- 2. DEFINITION OF CUSTOM PROPERTIES AVAILABLE -->

<CUSTOMPROPERTIES>
  <NAMESPACE TYPE="MAPI"
GUID="{DA6007CD-01AA-408f-B7D3-6DA958A09583}">
	<PROPERTY NAME="Author1" TAG="CaseAuthor"/>
	<PROPERTY NAME="Status1" TAG="CaseStatus"/>
  </NAMESPACE>
  <NAMESPACE TYPE="MAPI" GUID="{EF1A0001-01AA-408f-B7D3-6DA958A09583}">
	<PROPERTY NAME="Author2" TAG="Client"/>
  </NAMESPACE>

  <NAMESPACE TYPE="MAPI">
	<PROPERTY NAME="0x0070" TAG="Topic"/>
	</PROPERTY>
	<PROPERTY NAME="0x1035" TAG="MsgID"/>
	</PROPERTY>
  </NAMESPACE>
</CUSTOMPROPERTIES>

In this example there are three NAMESPACES. The first two define custom MAPI properties, so the GUID of the NAMESPACE is required. As the properties defined in the third NAMESPACE are standard MAPI properties, no GUID is required.

The value of the TYPE attribute identifies the property type; in this example, the properties are MAPI properties.

Within each NAMESPACE the properties are defined in PROPERTY elements using NAME and TAG values, as follows:

If the property is a custom named MAPI property, NAME is the STRING ID defined in the MAPI subsystem. The value is case-sensitive and must match exactly the value in the MAPI subsystem.

If the property is a standard MAPI property, NAME is the Identifier part (bits 16 to 31) of the hexadecimal MAPI tag.
TAG identifies the property within Enterprise Vault. It can contain only alphanumeric characters (A-Z, a-z, or 0-9); spaces and underscore characters are not permitted. The value assigned to the property TAG must be unique within the XML file; although you can cross refer to the property using the TAG value, the same value cannot be used to identify any other entities in the file.

If you want to select messages by matching the values of specific properties, you need to create a <NAMEDPROP> filter in the appropriate XML ruleset file and specify the TAG value defined here.