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Configure Attribute Flow

This step will likely take the most time and you should pay close attention to the detail. As we map fields from Exchange to the metaverse and visa-versa we have to pay close attention to the flow direction as well as any advanced rules we need to apply. As you will find out, standard mapping rules will allow us to meet our objectives. From the Configure Attribute Flow screen, you can see that we are configuring flow for all three object types we wish to synchronize.

To make things simple for this installation, we are importing each of the Exchange settings into a single object type called Metaverse_contact. Moreover, we are only exporting objects into the Exchange environment as Remote-Address (custom recipients) and only into a specific, pre-determined container. When specifying attribute flow, you choose the source, the target and the fields you wish to map. In addition, you can specify any advanced mapping type you wish to use. When using the advanced features, we can select more than one object type as a source and the source code we wish to use to handle the business logic. Let’s go over an example. You should notice that the mail field highlighted in the picture shows an Advanced mapping rule is in place. If we click Edit, we can see which rule is being identified.

From the advanced flow options window, we can see that a specific flow rule named “mail” is identified. This tells MIIS that when performing an import on this object, it should reference the extension DLL identified in this MA (we will get to that later in the document) and that the logic in that code should be applied to this flow.

Inside our extension DLL, we have a sub called:

Public Sub MapAttributesForImport(ByVal FlowRuleName As String, ByVal csentry As Microsoft.MetadirectoryServices.CSEntry, ByVal mventry As Microsoft.MetadirectoryServices.MVEntry) Implements Microsoft.MetadirectoryServices.IMASynchronization.MapAttributesForImport

Within this sub, there are several import rules defined. This is the one named mail:

Case "mail"

If csentry(FlowRuleName).IsPresent Then

Dim work As String = csentry(FlowRuleName).Value

work = Replace(work, "/", "")

work = Replace(work, "\", "")

mventry(FlowRuleName).Value = work

End If

The purpose of this code is to cleanout illegal characters such as the “/” and “\” from the mail address (SMTP Address). An illegal address of Atlanta/sales@companya.com would be changed to atlantasales@companya.com. While the illegal characters would remain in the Exchange system, they would be clean in the metaverse and then legal to push to AD.

Export Attribute Flow (Send to Exchange from Metaverse)

Here are the current flow settings for the Exchange MA. You can see from this table, that we did not require specialized code to manipulate the data. Instead, we elected to clean the information during the import process so that data in the metaverse is “normalized”.

Export Attribute Flow

Data Source Attribute	To	Metaverse Attribute	Mapping Type	Allow Nulls
Remote-Address	-	Metaverse_Contact	-	-
cn	<--	cn	Direct	-
givenName	<--	givenName	Direct	Allow
mail	<--	mail	Direct	-
uid	<--	uid	Direct	Allow
MAPI-Recipient	<--	MapiRecipient	Direct	Allow
otherMailbox	<--	proxyAddresses	Direct	-
sn	<--	sn	Direct	Allow
department	<--	department	Direct	Allow
Company	<--	company	Direct	Allow
initials	<--	initials	Direct	Allow
pager	<--	pager	Direct	Allow
title	<--	title	Direct	Allow
st	<--	st	Direct	Allow
postalCode	<--	postalCode	Direct	Allow
postalAddress	<--	streetAddress	Direct	Allow
l	<--	l	Direct	Allow
facsimileTelephoneNumber	<--	facsimileTelephoneNumber	Direct	Allow
mobile	<--	mobile	Direct	Allow
telephoneNumber	<--	telephoneNumber	Direct	Allow
physicalDeliveryOfficeName	<--	physicalDeliveryOfficeName	Direct	Allow
rdn	<--	uid	Direct	-
co	<--	c	Direct	Allow
Target-Address	<--	targetAddress	Direct	Allow

Import Attribute Flow (Send to Metaverse from Exchange)

Importing Exchange information into the metaverse required much more work in that we needed to reformat, clean and construct new fields based on information collected from other fields. In order to correctly populate the proxyaddresses attribute, we had to contruct the field based on three Exchange 5.5 fields; otherMailbox, rfc822Mailbox and textEncodedORaddress. Custom code was created to combine these strings into a collection in order to populate the multi-value field in the MV. To see the source code for the specific rules extensions, refer to the code section at the end of this document.

Import Attribute Flow

Data Source Attribute	To	Metaverse Attribute	Mapping Type	Precedence Order
organizationalPerson	-	Metaverse_Contact	-	-
cn	-->	cn	Direct	2
groupOfNames	-	Metaverse_Contact	-	-
cn	-->	cn	Direct	3
Remote-Address	-	Metaverse_Contact	-	-
cn	-->	cn	Direct	4
organizationalPerson	-	Metaverse_Contact	-	-
Company	-->	company	Direct	2
Remote-Address	-	Metaverse_Contact	-	-
Company	-->	company	Direct	3
department	-->	department	Direct	2
mail	-->	mail	Rules Extension - mail	1
groupOfNames	-	Metaverse_Contact	-	-
mail	-->	mail	Rules Extension - mail	2
organizationalPerson	-	Metaverse_Contact	-	-
mail	-->	mail	Direct	3
co	-->	co	Direct	2
givenName	-->	givenName	Direct	2
Remote-Address	-	Metaverse_Contact	-	-
givenName	-->	givenName	Direct	3
initials	-->	initials	Direct	2
organizationalPerson	-	Metaverse_Contact	-	-
mobile	-->	mobile	Direct	2
title	-->	title	Direct	2
Remote-Address	-	Metaverse_Contact	-	-
title	-->	title	Direct	3
organizationalPerson	-	Metaverse_Contact	-	-
cn	-->	displayName	Direct	3
groupOfNames	-	Metaverse_Contact	-	-
cn	-->	displayName	Direct	4
Remote-Address	-	Metaverse_Contact	-	-
cn	-->	displayName	Direct	6
organizationalPerson	-	Metaverse_Contact	-	-
sn	-->	sn	Direct	2
Remote-Address	-	Metaverse_Contact	-	-
sn	-->	sn	Direct	3
organizationalPerson	-	Metaverse_Contact	-	-
facsimileTelephoneNumber	-->	facsimileTelephoneNumber	Direct	2
Remote-Address	-	Metaverse_Contact	-	-
facsimileTelephoneNumber	-->	facsimileTelephoneNumber	Direct	3
organizationalPerson	-	Metaverse_Contact	-	-
rdn	-->	mailNickname	Direct	3
Remote-Address	-	Metaverse_Contact	-	-
rdn	-->	mailNickname	Direct	5
groupOfNames	-	Metaverse_Contact	-	-
rdn	-->	mailNickname	Rules Extension - mailNickname	6
organizationalPerson	-	Metaverse_Contact	-	-
pager	-->	pager	Direct	2
Remote-Address	-	Metaverse_Contact	-	-
pager	-->	pager	Direct	3
organizationalPerson	-	Metaverse_Contact	-	-
postalCode	-->	postalCode	Direct	2
Remote-Address	-	Metaverse_Contact	-	-
postalCode	-->	postalCode	Direct	3
organizationalPerson	-	Metaverse_Contact	-	-
st	-->	st	Direct	2
rfc822Mailbox	-->	targetAddress	Rules Extension - targetAddress	1
groupOfNames	-	Metaverse_Contact	-	-
rfc822Mailbox	-->	targetAddress	Rules Extension - targetAddress	2
Remote-Address	-	Metaverse_Contact	-	-
rfc822Mailbox	-->	targetAddress	Rules Extension - targetAddress	3
organizationalPerson	-	Metaverse_Contact	-	-
Hide-From-Address-Book	-->	msExchHideFromAddressLists	Direct	2
groupOfNames	-	Metaverse_Contact	-	-
Hide-From-Address-Book	-->	msExchHideFromAddressLists	Direct	4
Remote-Address	-	Metaverse_Contact	-	-
Hide-From-Address-Book	-->	msExchHideFromAddressLists	Direct	6
organizationalPerson	-	Metaverse_Contact	-	-
postalAddress	-->	streetAddress	Direct	4
Remote-Address	-	Metaverse_Contact	-	-
postalAddress	-->	streetAddress	Direct	5
organizationalPerson	-	Metaverse_Contact	-	-
telephoneNumber	-->	telephoneNumber	Direct	1
Remote-Address	-	Metaverse_Contact	-	-
telephoneNumber	-->	telephoneNumber	Direct	3
uid	-->	uid	Direct	3
rdn	-->	uid	Direct	4
groupOfNames	-	Metaverse_Contact	-	-
uid	-->	uid	Rules Extension - uid	6
Remote-Address	-	Metaverse_Contact	-	-
otherMailbox,rfc822Mailbox,textEncodedORaddress	-->	proxyAddresses	Rules Extension - proxyaddresses	1
organizationalPerson	-	Metaverse_Contact	-	-
otherMailbox,rfc822Mailbox,textEncodedORaddress	-->	proxyAddresses	Rules Extension - proxyaddresses	2
groupOfNames	-	Metaverse_Contact	-	-
otherMailbox,rfc822Mailbox,textEncodedORaddress	-->	proxyAddresses	Rules Extension - proxyaddresses	3
textEncodedORaddress	-->	textEncodedORAddress	Direct	2
Remote-Address	-	Metaverse_Contact	-	-
textEncodedORaddress	-->	textEncodedORAddress	Direct	5
organizationalPerson	-	Metaverse_Contact	-	-
MAPI-Recipient	-->	MapiRecipient	Direct	1
Remote-Address	-	Metaverse_Contact	-	-
MAPI-Recipient	-->	MapiRecipient	Direct	3
organizationalPerson	-	Metaverse_Contact	-	-
l	-->	l	Direct	1
Remote-Address	-	Metaverse_Contact	-	-
l	-->	l	Direct	3
organizationalPerson	-	Metaverse_Contact	-	-
physicalDeliveryOfficeName	-->	physicalDeliveryOfficeName	Direct	1
Remote-Address	-	Metaverse_Contact	-	-
physicalDeliveryOfficeName	-->	physicalDeliveryOfficeName	Direct	3
organizationalPerson	-	Metaverse_Contact	-	-
co	-->	c	Direct	3
Remote-Address	-	Metaverse_Contact	-	-
co	-->	c	Direct	4
rfc822Mailbox	-->	Rfc822Mailbox	Rules Extension - Rfc822Mailbox	1
groupOfNames	-	Metaverse_Contact	-	-
rfc822Mailbox	-->	Rfc822Mailbox	Rules Extension - Rfc822Mailbox	2

MIIS Deployment for Exchange 5.5	Columnist's Index
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