Microsoft Exchange Integration - EWS API

Introduction

When configuring the Synergy SKY platform for Microsoft Exchange, an Exchange service account is required. Additionally, there are some exchange commands that have to be executed in order to allow this behavior. These commands provide the service account that will be configured in Synergy SKY to read the room calendars' meeting invitations and process the meetings accordingly.

This guide will explain how to:

• Create a Service account that will be configured in Synergy SKY
• Provide Mailbox Access to the room(s) Calendar
• Amend Calendar Permissions for the room(s) Calendar
• Set the Calendar processing rules

Prerequisites

Configuration Reference

• Integration Settings

Step-by-Step Guide
Configuring the On-Prem Service Account

The Synergy SKY service account is the account that will be used for operations performed by the software. This account will update users' calendars, and notify internal and external participants about a meeting status.

You are not required to create a new account. It is possible to use an existing service account that exists in your organization however if you would like to create a new service account, we have steps on how you can achieve this below:

Option 1

1. Log In to Exchange Admin Center
2. Go to Recipients > mailboxes and click New User mailbox
3. Fill in the Display name, Name, Email address and a Password
4. choose Save

Option 2

Alternatively, you can log on to the Exchange Management Shell and use the below command to create a service account that will be used with Synergy SKY.

Command (may vary depending on the version) :

"New-Mailbox -Name "SynergySKY Meetings" -DisplayName "SynergySKY Meeting Manager" -Alias meetingroommanager@company.com"

Now that you have created/selected the service account, copy this alias and paste this in as the EWS Username in your Synergy SKY configuration

Provide the Service Account with access to view the rooms Calendar

When the service account has been created, you have to provide the account with access to the room calendar as per the below instructions.

Option 1

1. Log In to Exchange Admin Center
2. Go to Recipients > Resources and select the room that you would like to provide access to
3. Go to Mailbox Delegation and choose the + under Full Access
4. Search for the recently created (or already existing) service account and add this to the Permitted list.
5. Choose Save

Option 2

Alternatively, you can log on to the Exchange Management Shell and use the below command to provide the service account access to the resource calendar

"Add-MailboxPermission -Identity room_australia@company.comm -User meetingroommanager@company.com -AccessRights FullAccess"

Enabling forwarding of external meeting invitations

Microsoft will only process meeting requests for meetings booked by external users if the settings ProcessExternalMeetingMessages is set to “$true”. Enabling this setting potentially exposes your meeting rooms from being booked directly by external users, but can be mitigated in one of two ways:

• Either stop direct emails from external users from ever reaching the room mailboxes; which can be done by a transport rule in the Hub Transport server in Microsoft Exchange. The rule can be set to stop emails from external users from reaching the mailboxes in a specific distribution list like the list of meeting rooms
• Alternatively, you can change the alias of the rooms to a domain that is only available internally in the Exchange environment; i.e. changing boardroom@acme.com to boardroom@acme.local. The acme.local domain should not be reachable from the outside, but will be available for internal users.

Either of these changes will enable users to forward invitations they receive from the outside to their meetings rooms, while hindering any external users from booking their meeting rooms directly.

NOTE. Enabling ProcessExternalMeetingMessages does not in any way expose the information of existing meetings to external users.

Next: Mailbox permissions