From:
http://www.proexchange.be/blogs/exchange2010/archive/2011/08/26/applying-housekeeping-retention-policies-to-the-end-users.aspx
In my
previous blog post I wrote about a basic retention policy for doing some basic housekeeping using Exchange 2010 retention policies. The last sentence of that post post reads:
All there’s is left to do is applying the policy to the remainder of the user base, but don’t forget to skip the CEO’s mailbox ;-)
Right now you’re probably thinking “
Get-Mailbox |
Set-Mailbox” does the trick. Obviously it does the trick; but I’ve got a couple more requirements.
Lets go over the different sections of the script:
First of all we start with defining the list of excluded mailboxes. I chose to use a lengthy way of doing so. This way I could add sufficient comments to ensure it’s really clear which VIPs we’re dealing with (as there is no logical connection between the alias and the user).
# Defining the mbx to be excluded from the retention policy
# You can add to the list as needed
# However make sure you use the alias, not SamAccountName!
$Exceptions = @() # Define array
$Exceptions += "ABC123" # Casper
$Exceptions += "DEF456" # Melchior
$Exceptions += "GHI789" # Balthazar
After Some more variable definitions, we convert the exclusion list form an array of strings to an array of mailbox object (needed later on in the script). Afterwards we print a list on screen showing the list of excluded mailbox.
# Set more variables
$RetPol = "Remove old deleted items and calendar entries"
$TableCols = "Alias","DisplayName","RetentionPolicy"
# Display Exclusions
Clear-Host
Write-Host "Retention Policies will NOT be changed for:" -ForegroundColor Red
$Exceptions = $Exceptions | Get-Mailbox # Convert array of strings to array of mbx objects
$Exceptions | ft $TableCols
The next section does a query for mailboxes for which not Retention Policy has been set yet.
# Exclude mbx which already have the retention policy set
Write-Host "`nBuilding the list of mailboxes without a Retention Policy set" -ForegroundColor Green
$MBX = @() # Define array
$MBX += $(Get-Mailbox -ResultSize Unlimited | where {!$_.RetentionPolicy}) # Exclude mailboxes which have already a retention policy set
$MBX | ft $TableCols
Write-Host "`nPlease check if these counts seem realistic to you." -ForegroundColor Green
Write-Host "# of mbx on the exclusion list:" $Exceptions.Count
Write-Host "# of mbx without retention policy:" $MBX.Count
We compare the array of mbxs without retention policy with the exception list. We converted the exception list earlier on to be able to compare of objects of the same type. The delta is the list of mailboxes we need to update. The PassThru-parameter is need to ensure our command returns mailbox objects because the
Compare-Object command returns “difference objects” by default. The SideIndicator property on the other hand excludes results that are in $Exceptions but not $MBX, which can happen if you do some creative testing.
# Exclude mbx on the exclusion list
$MBX2Set = @() # Define array
$MBX2Set += $(Compare-Object $MBX $Exceptions -PassThru | ? { $_.SideIndicator -eq "<="})
$MBX2Set | ft $TableCols
Last but not least we need to actually set the Retention Policies for the remaining mailboxes.
#Setting RetentionPolicy
Write-Host "`nSetting retention policy" -ForegroundColor Green
if ($MBX2Set) {
Write-Host "# of mbx to set retention policy for:" $MBX2Set.Count
$MBX2Set | Set-Mailbox -RetentionPolicy $RetPol
} else {
Write-Host "No mailboxes to set!" -ForegroundColor Yellow
}
Screenshots of scripts don’t always offer a lot of added value, especially if they read “nothing to change” but at least one can admire the colors ;-)
