Good afternoon, I'm in the process of trying to produce production reports from Exchange. I'm looking at trying to procure the following types of reports. 1) All reports will only be emails sent and recieved counts (One Column Sent emails, other column of recieved emails). 2) I want the reports to be searchable by date ranges. 3) Don't want to do the reports via the message log tracker, as I clear out logs once a week 4) Want to be able to run the reports on an individual user, or a security group is there a way to do this in powershell, or a free software solution that can run this? I just want to find out how many emails are being sent and recieved by users and departments as a producvity report, and don't see reason to pay for it if exchange already has that information available somewhere.

On Wed, 17 Nov 2010 21:17:50 +0000, Ricardo_Lopez wrote: > > >Good afternoon, > >I'm in the process of trying to produce production reports from Exchange. I'm looking at trying to procure the following types of reports. 1) All reports will only be emails sent and recieved counts (One Column Sent emails, other column of recieved emails). 2) I want the reports to be searchable by date ranges. 3) Don't want to do the reports via the message log tracker, as I clear out logs once a week 4) Want to be able to run the reports on an individual user, or a security group > >is there a way to do this in powershell, or a free software solution that can run this? I just want to find out how many emails are being sent and recieved by users and departments as a producvity report, and don't see reason to pay for it if exchange already has that information available somewhere. The people that sell the software that does what you want seem to have a different perspective. If you need historical data you're into storing the information in a database. The database design will depend on how you want to retreive the information stored in it. If all you want are simple data sets then you can process the message tracking logs each day, summarize what you want, write the information to simple files (CSV, maybe?) and then use the information in the summarized files to get the information want from them in any way you want to present it. If you want to be reduce the number of summarized files (you'll have hundreds after a few months) you can roll up the old daily data into monthly files after, say six months. Then roll up data older than a year into quarterly summaries. Or you can spend the money to buy something that already does what you want and avoid the initial cost of writing the code and the ongoing maintenance (just think of the fun you'll have when log file formats change!). --- Rich Matheisen MCSE+I, Exchange MVP --- Rich Matheisen MCSE+I, Exchange MVP

I understand the advantage of buying a program that will do this for me. However, in our envornment, we also run Asterisk, and want to develop custom reports almost to provide what we need from Exchange. If the only way to get the data is processing the log files, then I would probably want to end up processing the Trans logs, import them into a database, and then from there, pull the reports. My next question is, whats the powershell (or any tools/commands) that can get me the sent/recieved numbers say for a certain user, or a certain distribution group? I'm atleast wanting to get some basic numbers to dish out so we can began to look at the information returned, verify its correct, and find out how to develop it. Also thinking on using PHP/ASP if possible. Initial cost on development shouldn't be a problem, as we have a few of them on staff. Thanks for the Info so far Rich. Just want to find out how to get the data out. PS: To confirm, is this meaning that there is no way on obtaining that information directly from the EDB file for history/past reports. it can only be ran, and processed through the log files?

On Wed, 17 Nov 2010 22:20:51 +0000, Ricardo_Lopez wrote: > > >I understand the advantage of buying a program that will do this for me. > >However, in our envornment, we also run Asterisk, and want to develop custom reports almost to provide what we need from Exchange. If the only way to get the data is processing the log files, then I would probably want to end up processing the Trans logs, import them into a database, and then from there, pull the reports. > >My next question is, whats the powershell (or any tools/commands) The message tracking logs are just text files. Extract the data any way you want. Powershell's not my first choice for dealing with large files, though. It can get pretty slow when you start shovelling data into large arrays. >that can get me the sent/recieved numbers say for a certain user, or a certain distribution group? You'd have to get the data by examing each row of the file, identifying the event you want ("Received" is probably what you're looking for) and then accumulating the data by the sneder and recipients (of which there can be many -- especially if you want count distribution list expansions -- but leave that for another day). >I'm atleast wanting to get some basic numbers to dish out so we can began to look at the information returned, verify its correct, and find out how to develop it. > >Also thinking on using PHP/ASP if possible. Initial cost on development shouldn't be a problem, as we have a few of them on staff. How you present the information is another subject. >Thanks for the Info so far Rich. Just want to find out how to get the data out. > >PS: To confirm, is this meaning that there is no way on obtaining that information directly from the EDB file for history/past reports. it can only be ran, and processed through the log files? What are you going to find in a mailbox that would be accurate? Users manage the mailbox contents and they can delete stuff, move stuf to different folders, etc. Plus you have to troll throuhg ALL the mailboxes, get the folder hierarchy, get the message headers from the folders, examine the dates, etc. and do that every day. Log file only have the information for one day. --- Rich Matheisen MCSE+I, Exchange MVP --- Rich Matheisen MCSE+I, Exchange MVP

Thanks again for your help Rich. I've done more research on my system, and found that the best way to do what I need is by indeed using the Log files. However, I don't want to mess with the Transaction log files to much for Exchange. So instead, I've enabled the SMTP tracking logs on my exchange box, and already found how I can extract the data I need. I can't extract the subject from what it appears now, but I dont need it yet for Productivity reports. Thanks for your input and putting me on the right path!

On Thu, 18 Nov 2010 16:42:36 +0000, Ricardo_Lopez wrote: > > >Thanks again for your help Rich. > >I've done more research on my system, and found that the best way to do what I need is by indeed using the Log files. > >However, I don't want to mess with the Transaction log files to much for Exchange. > >So instead, I've enabled the SMTP tracking logs on my exchange box, and already found how I can extract the data I need. You should be using the message tracking logs. They have the detail you really want. --- Rich Matheisen MCSE+I, Exchange MVP --- Rich Matheisen MCSE+I, Exchange MVP