Overlooking the world of SBS2003 and Office Systems 2003

Beware the Mobius Belt! 

The concepts on this page are Hush Hush.  Someone could be watching you as you read this.  Do NOT subvocalize!

Some time ago, when Microsoft decided that they would employ a stronger unibody construction and extend the operating system into its major applications, they ripped out the old planetary DOS gears and installed a Mobius timing belt.  This meant that you could now get from any applications properties to any OS properties by navigating down the Mobius belt.  And you couldn't say where the OS left off and the Application started, or where one Application stopped and another started.  So, the Exchange Event Agent is access through the Outlook client properties, because that is the doorway to the Mobius belt.  We now have all the Exchange-centric pieces in place--The Exchange Event Service, the PubCal user with Calendar folder, and the PubCal profile on your workstation.  Lets now see how it works.

Logon to your workstation as the PubCal user, bring up Outlook, choosing the PubCal profile on the way, and you will see the PubCal Mailbox in your Folder Tree control.  Select the Calendar folder, right-click it, and choose Properties from the pop-out menu.  Up comes the multi-tabbed Properties Panel, with an Agent tab in the back row.  You don't see it yet, do you?  That's because Microsoft, in all its managerial wisdom, decided that the merely competent should not be allowed to muck about in such properties that are so close to being OS properties.  So they placed some additional properties, which should appear in this collection of properties on the other side of the Mobius belt.  Consequently, because there is no real "other" side of the Mobius belt, they have to show up somewhere else.  And you can't find them by yourself.   They appear in contexts unrelated to the access to Agent Scripts, that you ignore them, even if you see them.  If you do recall having seen one once, you can never find your way back to them,  even if you are running down the Mobius belt.  You have to have someone tell you how to get to any such property control when you need it.

Pulling the Event Agent Interface out of the Mobius Cloud  There is an Event Agent Interface.  It is located on the properties panel of PubCal's Calendar folder.  But if you blithely go to that folder and pull up its property panel, you will see nothing about the Agent.  But there is an Agent tab that constitutes the Agent interface.  It currently resides in what only can be called the Mobius Cloud--that great conglomeration of objects that have been placed on the other side of the Mobius belt for safe keeping, and which don't appear anywhere until you find the magic plungers on some set of controls, which when plunged, bring forth Froggie with a loud "sprongongongong" sound, or in this case, the Event Agent interface tab in the calendar's property panel.  

1) Making the Permissions of Mobius objects visible  My first hint about this feature came from Sue Mosher, who said "Somewhere on the Tools menu is a command that brings up some preferences, including a Security tab. On that tab is an option for "showing security for all objects." (Sorry to be so vague, but I don't have 5.5 server running.) Once you invoke that option, you will see a Security tab on every mailbox. This is where you set the NT account (s) that you want to allow User access to the mailbox."  Go to the Mobius Belt station known as the Exchange Administration Console on the server, click the Tools menu and look for something that brings up preferences.  The only likely choice is Options, which brings up a three-tabbed panel, one of which is labeled Permissions.  There, in the first checkbox below the NT Domain defaults, it says "Show Permissions page on all Objects."  No sound of "sprongongongong", but I think we are one step nearer.

2) Giving Agent 007 the permissions to run in the Event Service While still in the Exchange Administration Console on the server,  expand the Folders folder and then the Systems folder in the left-hand pane.  As you have already installed the Exchange Event  Service, you will see an Events Root folder, and under that,  an EventsConfig_<server name> folder.  Select the EventsConfig_<> folder, then click the Properties button above the right-hand pane.   A multi-tabbed panel opens to the General Tab. We are trying to give Agent 007 'Owner' permissions to make sure that this calendar folder can create and modify Microsoft Exchange Server Scripting and Routing scripts. We look at the tabs and see a Permissions tab--but that only allows you to set Roles, with the user role seeming most appropriate.  But on the General Tab there is a button labeled Client Permissions...  What has Client Permissions got to do with giving Agent 007 permission to ...?  Well, we don't really want to discuss the peccadilloes of an Agent, particularly 007!  So how is Agent 007 a client?  Agent 007 is going to start a CDO session, which is exactly what the real client--Outlook-- would do.  So 'Client Permissions...' is the covert code word that alerts you to the fact that this is one of those controls relating to your object of interest in the Mobius cloud.  Would you have guessed that if I had not pointed it out.  I think not.  So punch that magic plunger and see what happens.  What you get is a properties panel that allows you to select an account and give it 'Owner' permissions.  So, click the Add button and select the PubCal account name from the GAL, and don't ask a lot of questions.  (If you don't see the PubCal account name in the GAL, then you have to go back to the PubCal user account, and make sure that the user is not hidden from the GAL.  By default, it is not hidden, but the checkbox may have called to you, and you may have checked it without any reason at all.  These kinds of things happen all the time.)  Now, OK yourself out of the Exchange Administrator.

So now, thinking you had heard a "sprongongongong" when you clicked the Client Permissions button, you go back to the workstation and right-click PubCal's calendar folder again, call up the properties, and triumphantly look for the Agent Tab.  No dice!  It still is not there!  Siegfried Weber at this point says, "If you are not able to see the 'Agents' tab you may not have installed Microsoft Outlook 97 8.03 (or later), the Server Scripting add-on is not installed in Microsoft Outlook 97/98 or the permissions are not set properly. For more information please take a look at 'The Secrets of Exchange Server Scripting and Routing', Permissions and Security."  

3)  Meanwhile, back at the Client... Or, Where, Oh Where is the Add-on?  Dismiss the Properties Panel of the PubCal calendar folder, that has been glaring at you so triumphantly, and click Tools|Options in the Outlook Explorer.  This brings up the Outlook Application's properties panel.  Click the Other Tab, and then the Advanced Options button.  Crowded among the buttons on the bottom is the Add-in Manager button.  Click that.  There are a bunch of check boxes in a list.  Look for one labeled Server Scripting.  Since Agent 007 wasn't visible the last time you looked, it shouldn't be there.  Indeed, hope fervently, pray reverently, or sacrifice a chicken to whatever in hopes that it isn't there.  Or, if there, isn't checked.  In my case, it was not.  Now, click the Install button.  This brings up a list of add-ins that can be installed.  Look for the one named Scriptxtn.ecf and double-click it.  This puts the Server Scripting check box into the list on the Add-in Manager panel.  Check that.  That's when I heard the "sprongongongong" of Froggie the Gremlin popping into view.  Just to check, I OK'd all the property windows out to the Outlook Explorer, right-clicked PubCal's Calendar folder, chose properties, and Lo and Behold, there was the Agent tab.

4) For those poor souls, who do not now have the Agent Tab, its back to the hunt for the elusive final control that will cause the Agent 007 to appear.  You are on your own from here, because this worked for me and I haven't had to search further.  Start with the Secrets of Exchange Server Scripting and Routing, Permissions and Security page that you have downloaded from CDOLive before starting this hunt.  Review every setting Siegfried mentions.  Ask questions in the Exchange Applications newsgroup.  After you pull out your hair, post a question to CDOLive.  But, whatever, have faith that there is an Agent 007, and will someday appear for you.

Send mail to Hollis@outlookbythesound.com with questions or comments about this web site.
Last modified: October 31, 2003