Who is this article for?

Mail Manager admin wishing to add a new auto discovered collection of locations

User must have access to the shared config folder

This article explains how to add an additional collection that uses the auto discovery system.

Initial file setup or moving to a new storage system

This article is aimed at users who already have an Auto Discovery set of locations in place on the same storage type. When initially setting up auto-discovered locations on a storage type, especially if you are going to use an integration based one like SharePoint, there are a number of considerations to take into account. The rate at which mail items can be indexed can be slower so there may be aspects, especially if you are looking to move from a file based on that is already populated with a lot of mail to a SharePoint one, that really need to be run through with our Implementation Team. They can make this process as efficient as possible so for any new Auto Discovery setup on a storage system it is important that you speak to your account manager to arrange a session with the Implementation Team to set this up.

Qualifying as Auto Discovery

Locations

For something to qualify as being something that should be configured using the auto discovery system, it needs to:

1. be more than location. 

For example:
M:\Project\Email

If this is where you want to store email then without other folders alongside this, this is just one folder, and this should be added to a manual collection. The collection can be stored in the shared configuration folder and the Collections.txt file can be edited to so that this collection name appears under [add on] and then the collection with this in will be added to all the users Mail Manager paths.

2. have a constant part of the location path that do not change

3. have at least one aspect of the location path that changes for each location in the same part

For example:
M:\Project1\Email
M:\Project2\Email
M:\Project3\Email

This is something that could be managed with Auto Discovery because there is a fixed path part "M:\", a variable and the Project1, Project2 and Project3 folder are an aspect that changes for location at the same part.

Auto discovery locations go down a number of folder levels (eg M:\Folder\Sub Folder\Another Folder\Email and the end folder name where the emails end up can also be a variable, it doesn't have to be Email, it can vary between Email, Mail, Correspondence, Comms, etc, so it is flexible, provided it is the same number of levels down. There can be multiple variable parts too. For example, this can be done using Auto Discovery too:

M:\Project1\Planning\Emails
M:\Project1\Building\Correspondance
M:\Project2\Planning\Emails

As an example of what would also not be suitable for a single auto discovery collection:

M:\Project1\Email
M:\Project2\Buidling\Correspondance
P:\Admin\HR\Email

These paths are too different. The destination folder is 3 levels down on the first one, but 4 levels down on the others. The 3rd path is on a different drive altogether. If there are other paths next to these that could fit into the qualifying patterns, this might be possible for one or more of these to be part of separate Auto Discovery collections but if is just those 3 paths alone, they would better suit a standard manually added collection file.

Permissions

Auto discovery configurations are stored in the shared configuration location and all users of Mail Manager pointing at this shared configuration folder will get this. This means that potentially all Mail Manager users there will have their Mail Manager trying to find emails in those locations. If the permissions are set that they are unable to access those locations, then the Auto Discovery will not find anything, and those collections will not appear. If the permissions allow them to access those locations, then they will appear for them. If you don't wish users to see those locations, then permissions need to be set correctly.

It's not possible to use auto discovery on an individual config basis. Only on a shared config basis.

How to

You should have an existing AutoDiscovery file for whatever storage system you are wishing to do this with, in the shared configuration folder. This location can be found in the Tools > User Preferences screen.

This will have templates for the various paths already on your system that make up the other collections. As long as all the aspects of the construction of the path are changing in similar ways, it should be possibly to extrapolate what the new version of the path should be for your new collection.

However, if you need help, you can contact Support who will be happy to help on this.

What Support will need is to know is at least 3 example locations you wish to use so we can work out the fixed parts and variable parts here.

If you are doing this with SharePoint, we need the full web address (NOT a shortened version you may get if you select to copy the address from a button inside SharePoint) of at least 3 locations as well as screenshots of at least one that includes the site name and one of the locations. Parts of the address, such as the site name can differ from the display name of the site slightly, such as having spaces for example, which may not appear in the address form, which is why we need the screenshot too.

If you can provide Support with 3 examples, we should be able to move this forward for you. In that case, please use the Support portal to raise this with us, providing these examples or if you have an existing ticket open with us that we directed you to read this article on, then you can reply to that.

Asking for support

If you still need support on this, we need 3 examples of the paths involved here. If this is in SharePoint, please screenshot the site home page as well as 3 example paths, including the address line of the browser too. For network file location, please provide the full paths but maybe screenshots could also help here. too