Hey all, Been banging my head against the wall on this one for a while now and while I know I am probably not proving enough info but I'd like some guidance on where to go next: I have two separate AD forests with their own Exchange 2007 server. I want Outlook 2007 users of domain A to be able to access the free/busy info of resourses on Domain B (boardroom and lunchroom). For this purpose: A.com = the SMTP domain of the source domain (this is where the user exists that is preforming the lookup) B.com = the SMTP domain of the target domain (there is where the resource exists that I want to lookup F/B from) I've set the following on Domain A's exchange server: Add-AvailabilityAddressSpace –forestname B.com -AccessMethod PerUserFB –UseServiceAccount $true But when I add a user pboardroom@B.com in outlook it says cannot retrieve free/busy. I have run the following test: Test-OutlookWebServices -Identity fzillman@A.com -TargetAddress pboardroom@B.com | fl Id : 1003 Type : Information Message : About to test AutoDiscover with the e-mail address fzillman@A.com. Id : 1006 Type : Information Message : The Autodiscover service was contacted at https://mail.A.com/autodiscover/autodiscover.xml. Id : 1011 Type : Error Message : The receipent address pboardroom@B.com is invalid. Please check your command parameters. Id : 1016 Type : Success Message : [EXCH]-Successfully contacted the AS service at https://mail.A.com/ews/exchange.asmx. The elapsed time was 15 milliseconds. Id : 1015 Type : Success Message : [EXCH]-Successfully contacted the OAB service at https://mail.A.com/ews/exchange.asmx. The elapsed time was 0 milliseconds. Id : 1014 Type : Success Message : [EXCH]-Successfully contacted the UM service at https://mail.A.com/unifiedmessaging/service.asmx. The elapsed time was 15 milliseconds. Id : 1011 Type : Error Message : The receipent address pboardroom@B.com is invalid. Please check your command parameters. Id : 1016 Type : Success Message : [EXPR]-Successfully contacted the AS service at https://mail.A.com/ews/exchange.asmx. The elapsed time was 15 milliseconds. Id : 1015 Type : Information Message : [EXPR]-The OAB is not configured for this user. Id : 1014 Type : Information Message : [EXPR]-The UM is not configured for this user. Id : 1017 Type : Success Message : [EXPR]-Successfully contacted the RPC/HTTP service at https://mail.B.com/Rpc. The elapsed time was 15 milliseconds. Id : 1006 Type : Success Message : The Autodiscover service was tested successfully. But to be honest I can't really tell if it was actually successful, even though it says the autodiscover was fine. One thing to note is that I have not run GALSync nor do I have a representation of that user on A.com Exchange Server. I dont really get if that is necessary in my situation. Again, apologies for the lack of information but could someone point me in the right direction? Thanks, Fred

A bit more info, I did have a OWA configuration issue that is now resolved, the outlook test is much cleaner: Test-OutlookWebServices -Identity fzillman@A.com -TargetAddress pboardroom@B.com | fl Id : 1003 Type : Information Message : About to test AutoDiscover with the e-mail address fzillman@A.com. Id : 1006 Type : Information Message : The Autodiscover service was contacted at https://mail.A.com/autodiscover/autodiscover.xml. Id : 1016 Type : Success Message : [EXCH]-Successfully contacted the AS service at https://mail.A.com/ews/exchange.asmx. The elapsed time was 15 milliseconds. Id : 1015 Type : Success Message : [EXCH]-Successfully contacted the OAB service at https://mail.A.com/ews/exchange.asmx. The elapsed time was 0 milliseconds. Id : 1014 Type : Success Message : [EXCH]-Successfully contacted the UM service at https://mail.A.com/unifiedmessaging/service.asmx. The elapsed time was 0 milliseconds. Id : 1016 Type : Success Message : [EXPR]-Successfully contacted the AS service at https://mail.A.com/ews/exchange.asmx. The elapsed time was 31 milliseconds. Id : 1015 Type : Information Message : [EXPR]-The OAB is not configured for this user. Id : 1014 Type : Information Message : [EXPR]-The UM is not configured for this user. Id : 1017 Type : Success Message : [EXPR]-Successfully contacted the RPC/HTTP service at https://mail.B.com/Rpc. The elapsed time was 0 milliseconds. Id : 1006 Type : Success Message : The Autodiscover service was tested successfully. Also, I didn't have the account added as a linked account in the exchange server for A.com. Once I did that, and I go to invite the resource to a meeting it shows as empty - doesn't show any meetings.

I have two separate AD forests with their own Exchange 2007 server. I want Outlook 2007 users of domain A to be able to access the free/busy info of resourses on Domain B (boardroom and lunchroom).For this purpose:A.com = the SMTP domain of the source domain (this is where the user exists that is preforming the lookup)B.com = the SMTP domain of the target domain (there is where the resource exists that I want to lookup F/B from) Quite possible. Here's the TechNet documentation:How to Configure the Availability Service for Cross-Forest Topologieshttp://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb125182(EXCHG.80).aspxMCTS: Messaging | MCSE: S+M | Small Business Specialist

Thanks Jon-Alfred, I've seen a few different technet articles that seem to all be about the same thing, but all explain it a little differently. That's the first time I've see that particular one. Of that entire article, the only thing that I didn't have done was: Get-ClientAccessServer | Add-AdPermission -AccessRights ExtendedRight -ExtendedRights "ms-exch-epi-token-serialization" -User "Sourceforest\Exchange Servers" On the target server. I've since done that but still the same result. I've preformed all the tests that the page you referenced me to have to offer and they all come back passed but I still just get blank (as if the resource is completely free) when it is not. Can someone comment on the linked mailbox portion of my question above? Is that the right approach? Is it necessary? I've enabled the debug in outlook, but when I preform the free busy lookup, the OPMLog doesn't seem to have anything of interest. Are there any other tests that I can preform to help narrow down the problem? Thanks, Fred

These links provides information on setting up the Availability Service across forests:http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb125182(EXCHG.80).aspxhttp://msexchangeteam.com/archive/2008/02/13/448127.aspx The following links provide more information on troubleshooting Availability Service problems: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb397225(EXCHG.80).aspxhttp://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb124805(EXCHG.80).aspx

I've been through both of those configuration pages and as far as I can tell I have all the configuration necessary for what I want to accomplish in my situation (separate forests with two-way trust). I've beat those troubleshooting steps to death. In my above post I put the results of the outlookwebservices test, from that I can't see anything wrong. Not saying there isn't something wrong, just doesn't look it too me. Several sites talk about replicating the GAL, but then other sites talk about simply having a representation of the object, then the msexchangeteam.com site (among others) talk about the mailbox you are working with being a linked mailbox. I have it configured with the linked mailbox, mainly because I only have a few accounts I need to have free/busy available for but also it seems to be the easiest way to go about it. Is this the right approach?

In order to try to be of any help, some questions:Two distinct forests with trusts or without?These two forests have different primary SMTP addresses: <user>@A.com and <user>@B.com?Autodiscover and Availability works within each forest?Now <user>@A.com (forest 1) needs to schedule resources in forest 2.Does Autodiscover from within forest 1 work for forest 2? Have you exported the SCP from forest 2 to forest 1?Autodiscover must work, as it will return the Availability Internal URL to the Exchange 2007 CAS server.Now there is one thing that puzzles me here:After you import the SCP from a remote domain, the Autodiscover service may not work correctly, and Outlook 2007 clients may not be able to query Out of Office and Free/Busy information. A software update is currently under development for this issue and is scheduled to be released in an upcoming Cumulative Rollup for Outlook 2007. How to Configure the Availability Service for Cross-Forest Topologies, Last Modified: 2009-12-08 http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb125182(EXCHG.80).aspxIs this issue fixed? December 8th was the second Tuesday of the Month, new patches?To your question about linked mailboxes:That's the approach we use. We are in the state of migrating a large international customer from several forests. Our hybrid "resource forest" consists of linked mailboxes and user mailboxes. For a linked mailbox with your two forests, it would work like this:A user in forest 1 logs on to forest 1, finds the SCP for forest 2 on a DC belonging to forest 1.Does this work with your two forests?One way to test this is from Outlook, Test E-mail AutoConfiguration. You can test both for <user>@A.com and <user>@B.com. MCTS: Messaging | MCSE: S+M | Small Business Specialist

Thanks for the response, just wanted to let you know I'm out of the office but when I'm back tomorrow I'll get a response to you. Thanks, Fred

Hi Fred, Any updates regarding the issue? When user attempts to retrieve other’s Free/Busy information in another forest. The Outlook and Exchange work through following process: 1. Outlook connect to Availability service to retrieve FreeBusy information. Outlook locate Availability service URL through Autodiscover 2. The Exchange locates the Availability service in another forest through Autodiscover 3. The Exchange server proxy the request to another forest’s Availability service to gather Free/Busy information. Therefore, you need to ensure: 1. The forest A is able to connect to Autodiscover service in forest B to locate Availability service URL in forest B 2. The Exchange Server in forest A need to trust the certificate provided by Exchange Server in forest B. You can increase diagnostic logging for Availability service in forest A and check whether any error is encountered. If you are not able to get clues from Application log after increase diagnostic logging, I think that you need to capture related trace to troubleshoot the issue. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Mike Shen TechNet Subscriber Support in forum If you have any feedback on our support, please contact tngfb@microsoft.com ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Don't feel bad - I've been banging my head against the wall on this one for some time now too - there is clearly a lack of consistency in the many different documented ways of getting this working, all perhaps targeting nuances in the scenario, but none clear on how to actually make it work. I've been through most of these troubleshooting guides a dozen times myself, and still only subtle clues tip me off as to why it isn't working. honestly, it doesn't seem like this should be that difficult. one thing I've noted that I didn't read about above was that you need to make sure you have a mailuser in the GAL for every mail contact you wish to resolve free/busy for. A mailuser with an external mail address is adequate.New-MailUser -name "Joe" -ExternalMailAddress "joe@b.com"that will do the trick, so long as the smtp address can resolve to SOMETHING in the gal. Exchange tends not to even try to retrieve F/B for users it doesn't recognize. Or maybe it's Outlook. I think it's both, in fact. one thing that I also note isn't mentioned in most of the discussions on this topic is use of the URL to specify the endpoint of the Availability Service, rather than relying on auto-discovery. If there's anyone out there who can comment on this, I'd appreciate it....more later...

I'm hoping someone has come up with more details on this issue in the past two weeks - I'm running into the same mash of difficulties reported by others in this thread and a dozen others like it. Actually it seems there are very few that have even tried to get this working, but most who have stumble on one of the many configuration pieces required to make this work. After going through all of the steps outlined above and in all of the varous technote articles and blog entries on the subject, I have been able to eliminate nearly every error reported. The last few I eliminated by changing the WebServicesVirtualDirectories to match the fqdn on the SSL certificate (shortened names, if not also included in the subject of the cert, have trouble establishing SSL pipelines). Adding the permissions to the ClientAccessServer seemed to help a bit as well. Still, I am still getting this error from Test-OutlookWebServices:RunspaceId : 38ce8a96-bf37-4e29-866f-481e2819c7e0Id : 1011Type : ErrorMessage : When querying Availability for user7@externaldomain.com received ErrorProxyRequestProcessingFailed:Unable to send cross-forest request for mailbox <user7>SMTP:User7@externaldomain.com because of inval id configuration.Any ideas what sort of configuration might be incorrect? I can access the server (and web service) through the browser, and have installed the certificate into the trusted store. FYI, I'm registering the Availability service thus:Add-AvailabilityAddressSpace -AccessMethod InternalProxy -ProxyUrl https://externaldomain.com/ews/exchange.asmx -ForestName externaldomain.comMy assumption is that for any addresses which end in "@externaldomain.com", this new endpoint will be used to proxy a request for Free/Busy. I notice that this is not a per-CAS setting, but circulates (via AD) to all the CAS servers, so I guess I can only use one endpoint. Scalability may be an issue later, but for now, I'd love to just see this work. OWA reports 5016 and a hashed line indicating F/B information was not available. ("the attendee's server could not be contacted")Cranking up the tracing volume in the registry seems to be pointless. The Windows Application event log has nothing of interest. Does anyone have some suggestions about how to diagnose the problem here and how to get more details on "invalid configuration"???I can programatically call both web services and get successful results. I just can't get Exchange to call the registered URL... Please help!

Ok, I've made one more step of progress, by setting the regkeys:[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\services\MSExchangeOWA]"AllowInternalUntrustedCerts"=dword:00000001"AllowExternalUntrustedCerts"=dword:00000001 I've been able to remove the "invalid configuration" above. It would have been nice if the error made mention of the fact that it was really upset about the certs being self-signed, but that's ok... I'm past it. Now, Test-OutlookWebServices runs cleanly - however, as others before me have noted - still no Free/Busy. In fact, the endpoint that Test-OutlookWebServices happily reports as having successfully contacted for AS - does not even get called when OWA reports error 5016. (The attendee's server couldn't be contacted) in a fly-by on the availability grid. Autodiscover seems to work perfectly from the test cmdlet, the AS service is being pinged happily, and yet - the endpoint does not get called for GetUserAvailability(). What am I missing?

To be honest I gave up trying to get this working. I did the following: http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/exchangesvrgeneral/thread/ec8982ae-1ed5-4814-9037-f1d7eb2327b5#63ddb560-dd11-4c38-b4bf-93a1592881d6

I don't see how that helps Free/Busy, but I guess you just decided to solve mail flow and punt on F/B. I posed this same question to a slew of Exchange experts recently and received the same fanfare that we are receiving now - utter silence. Does no one know how to make this work?:(

It helped me because my only hard requirement was giving people in the other domain access to book the calendar in this domain - the ability to see the free/busy would have been nice but they can live without it. Its seems there are many 'ways' to do this but no one seems to know which way works best or what exactly you need to make it happen... If you can cut your loses and do it another way. I was even looking at 3rd party software... sad.

This should not be hard to set up, however as others have posted the steps are sporadic and there doesn't seem to be a clear cut way to set this up. I've been trying to do this from a 2010 to 2010 organization, and still not able to get it to work. I am doing this in a test environment and so far I think our issue is mention that : 2. The Exchange Server in forest A need to trust the certificate provided by Exchange Server in forest B. So does this mean that I need autodiscover working with a signed SSL cert, in order for the free/busy synchronization to work properly?