search broken in v2?

[pesos]

Hi all,

We just upgraded from 1.5 to v2 which seemed to go smoothly. However I do not seem to be able to properly search as before.

We want to be able to search by email address so we can easily segregate users into various jobs, but this seems to be broken now.

If I enter @xyz then a few users come up that match but the vast majority do not.

[Mike Resseler]

Hmmm,
I just tested it but it doesn't seem to be an issue from my side. Can you do a search without the @ sign and let me know what it does?

[pesos]

Thanks mike. Same 3 users come up - all the rest do not.

[Mike Resseler]

That is weird. Can you log a support call? (As usual, post the case ID and the solution (after investigation) here)

[pesos]

will do (after a reboot and one more test)

[pesos]

Case 03123773

Support confirms that search has changed in 2.0:

"You nailed it on both fronts here. The behavior has been changed in 2.0 where its an object-based search versus the mailbox/mailbox short name. The backup, in the way you've specified, should back up only the mail/archive and any new members of the Members group will be added to the backup automatically."

So I guess we will do our selections based on group membership going forward.

Thanks Mike.

[Mike Resseler]

Thanks John,

But you can still select users? Are you selecting groups then?

[pesos]

It appears the only way to achieve what I want in v2 (select a subset of users based on email address) is to use a group that they happen to all be a part of. Search doesn't seem to be able to properly filter by using characters in the email address (unless something is wrong with my installation, but support seemed to indicate the former)... thanks!

[pesos]

Actually this doesn't achieve what we need. This misses important things like resources/rooms/shared cal mailboxes, etc.

Should the product be able to search by email address?

[Mike Resseler]

Hi John,

Just succeeded in testing, and you cannot do search by email address, only by name. I will add it as a feature request

[pesos]

Why is it that the 3 results we do get come up when we put in the first few characters of the email address domain?

What is the best way to target mailboxes with a particular domain/email address in the meantime?

Thanks!

[Mike Resseler]

Most probably because those few characters actually are in the name of the user. For example, imagine that the first 3 letters of my domain are Res. In that case my name would pop-up. (but even if it would be sel, then it is still part of my lastname and it would pop-up)

The best way:
I see two possibilities:
1) Use PowerShell to enumerate names based on a query to Office 365. Use that list and add them with PowerShell to a backup job
2) Assuming that one subscripting is equal to one domain/ email address. Point on the organization alone and then create a job, then only the users for that organization will be selectable

[pesos]

I'm slow but I'm not THAT slow...

If those characters were in the user's name I would not have asked the question.

I enter xyz in the search and user Peter Pantera comes up, along with a couple of others.

[Mike Resseler]

John,

I am going to ask the DEV team what is happening. Because I am lost now (And no, I didn't mean you are slow :p)

[pesos]

has me scratching my head too!

[Mike Resseler]

Hey John,

We might have the reason... Could you post us a screenshot to confirm our thoughts?

Thanks
Mike

[pesos]

Hi Mike, don't see how to add images here on the forum. I replied to the ticket and copied in the screenshot there.

Thanks!

[Mike Resseler]

Thanks!

Just checked. You can see between the ( ) that the actual email address or UPN is there. And our search actually looks into that also because it is seen as simple text. That is the reason why you find it. We do this for some accounts when we find objects with same name but different ID's. Anyway, long story short. Our developer team has added it into our system as a feature request. Maybe one last question, any other field that you would like to see searchable?

[pesos]

Hi Mike, sorry maybe I wasn't clear... What you're describing is *exactly* the behavior we would expect. The problem is not that these 3 accounts show up in the results when we put characters from the email address domain/upn in... it's that the dozens of other accounts that have the exact same upn/email address domain don't!

[Mike Resseler]

No, that is clear. We need to modify it for the next update. That is indeed very clear.
I was just explaining why today you sometimes have objects that do show the UPN and others don't (which is the default behavior for now)

[pesos]

Sorry just reread your message (it's not yet 8am here and I need breakfast)

Thanks!

[Mike Resseler]

Lol. It's 8 PM here so the brain is burned with me anyway

[pesos]

If anyone comes looking for group related questions... two nuggets:

1) VBO appears to properly expand and populate nested groups (YAY!)

2) VBO does NOT appear to allow non-mail-enabled groups to be targets (BOO!)... It does oddly enough distinguish between distro groups and security groups, but security groups have to be mail-enabled for them to appear in v2 search...

[Mike Resseler]

John,

For #2. That is correct. Is non email-enabled security groups something you would like to see as a potential to create job selections?

[pesos]

It's looking like the best way for us to group our backups going forward will be via group since VBO:
1) handles nesting properly
2) checks and autoupdates group membership when the job runs

Typically we have clients who have a "Staff" group which is email enabled, and an "all" group which includes the staff group as well as interns, volunteers, generic mailboxes, etc. The latter is not used for email and this is not email-enabled (one less group to manage and worry about the wrong person sending to etc). Would definitely be nice to be able to leverage groups in VBO without having to mail-enable them and then go in and manage who can send to them, hide them from address lists, etc - especially when that you didn't really want to be mail-enabled in the first place...

Thanks!

[Mike Resseler]

Understood. Well, as said, it is not in v2 but we can look at this going further

[vishalgupta]

Most probably because those few characters actually are in the name of the user. For example, imagine that the first 3 letters of my domain are Res. In that case my name would pop-up. (but even if it would be sel, then it is still part of my lastname and it would pop-up)

The best way:
I see two possibilities:
1) Use PowerShell to enumerate names based on a query to Office 365. Use that list and add them with PowerShell to a backup job
2) Assuming that one subscripting is equal to one domain/ email address. Point on the organization alone and then create a job, then only the users for that organization will be selectable

Hey Mike,

1) Do we have such ready made PS script? which could enumerate names based on a query to Office 365 and using that list add them to a backup job?

[Mike Resseler]

Vishal,

I don't. But I believe there are some SE's who have already built something like this. You should ask in your engineering group