About MacroView Standardiser

MacroView Standardiser is a Windows application that automatically captures metadata for all emails in a given SharePoint location so they can easily be filtered and searched upon using MacroView DMF.

• Set and forget - Standardiser will automatically run and capture metadata for all emails stored in a given SharePoint location
• Standard naming convention - Standardiser will rename your emails to prevent duplicates being saved. By default, it will capture the name of the sender, sent time, date and subject of an email. For example, John Smith_01Jan18 12.59.59_Important Update.msg
• Consistent styling - Standardiser automatically creates MacroView columns and content types for storing email metadata and a custom view to display your emails
• Easy to use - Does not require any setup or manual configuration to your SharePoint tenancy
• Supports large environments - update email metadata in libraries exceeding the SharePoint list view threshold

Prerequisites

• MacroView Standardiser currently supports:
  • SharePoint Online / Office 365
  • SharePoint Server 2013, 2016 and 2019
• The account used must have Administrator or Owner rights to the site collection if you plan to provision site columns and content types.
• The account used must have the Manage List permission on the site if you plan to add content types or views to a library.
• The account used must have Edit rights to the emails being standardised.

Before starting: Download and install MacroView Standardiser

1. Download MacroView Standardiser:
   • If you have purchased a license, get the full version from the Downloads site.
   • If you do not have a license, a free trial is available. Contact MacroView Services for more information.
2. Double-click the downloaded file to open and run the installation wizard. Once the installation is complete a new shortcut to MacroView Standardiser will be placed on your desktop.
3. To open the application, double-click the MacroView DMF Standardiser icon on your desktop.

Step 1: Provide credentials and enter the SharePoint libraries to Standardise

1. Using MacroView DMF Explorer or the MacroView pane in Microsoft Outlook, right-click the parent site of the library/libraries to standardise, then select Copy as Link or copy the link to the site from the browser.
   • Note: The link should be in the following format and not contain any trailing information (e.g. /SitePages/Home.aspx):
     • SharePoint Online / Office 365: https://organisation.sharepoint.com/sites/sitecollection/sitename
     • SharePoint Server (on-premises): http://sharepointservername/sites/sitecollection/sitename

 Important: You must copy the URL of the direct parent, not the URL to the library itself to standardise. If you use the direct library link, the process will fail.

Above: To standardise the Emails, Emails 1, Emails 2 libraries, we must right-click the parent site and select Copy as Link

2. MacroView Standardiser will use SharePoint authentication to determine if the user has the correct permissions to standardise an area.

3. Then select the Standardise libraries in this site option, then click the Site URL text box and paste the URL.
   
   Note: If you want to run standardiser over more than a single site, select the Standardise the libraries in all sites in the following file option and select the CSV file containing the list of sites. You can generate a new CSV file if required using the 'Create a new CSV file' button then edit the CSV to add or remove required sites.
   
4. If this is the first time you have used Standardiser on the selected site collection, tick the Add default MacroView email columns, content type and view checkbox and specify the required name for the email view.

Above: By the end of this step, your Standardiser window should contain the SharePoint URL to the site containing libraries to standardise, and a ticked checkbox to add MacroView content to the site collection

You check the Only update library settings, no need to standarise email option to have Standariser add the  library columns, content type and views without processing any emails (at least one email must be present in the library to use this option).

Step 2: Select libraries to standardise

Standardiser provides two options when selecting libraries to standardise:

1. All libraries in this site (excluding) - By default, MacroView Standardiser is configured to automatically scan all libraries within a nominated SharePoint location (except those listed in the adjacent text box) and check to see if they contain emails to standardise. You are free to add additional libraries to this field or remove the libraries provided by default.
2. Specified libraries only - By selecting this option, Standardiser will only search for library names contained within the nominated SharePoint location and check to see if they contain emails to standardise. You are able to remove the default libraries provided and enter your own library names.

Following the example above, we want to standardise the document libraries titled Emails, Emails 1 and Emails 2.

To ensure we only process these libraries:

1. Click Specified libraries only.
2. Select, highlight and delete the default libraries listed in the adjacent text box.
3. Enter the name of the libraries to standardise, each separated by a new line. In this example, we will enter Emails, Emails 1 and Emails 2.

 Important: Each document library must be on a separate line. You will encounter an error if multiple libraries are on the same line.

Above: Three specific libraries have been given to Standardiser to process

 Important: Libraries must be indexed by SharePoint search to be discovered by Standardiser. To check if a library has been crawled by SharePoint, try searching for it using SharePoint search in the top right of the browser window. If your library is not returned in the results, you will need to run a search crawl before continuing. 

Step 3: Select files to standardise

Standardiser provides flexibility when selecting which emails to standardise within the nominated library/libraries. These options include:

1. All files in the above library/libraries - Once Standardiser selects a library to process, it will scan all files in the library, check to see which are emails, then process each email before moving onto the next library or stop if there are no other libraries to standardise.

2. Files in this ID range only (single library only) - This setting is designed to support SharePoint admins working with document libraries containing a large amount of files. It allows you to separate the standardisation of large document libraries into batches using SharePoint List IDs if you cannot run the process in one sitting.

To display the ID column in the default view in your SharePoint library:

• Using your web browser, go to the SharePoint library you are standardising.
• Click the Library tab in the ribbon and select Library Settings.
• Scroll down the page until you find the View subheading, then select your default view.
• Under your list of available columns, find the ID column, tick the appropriate checkbox, scroll down the page and click OK.

Once ID has been added to your view, you will now see every file's corresponding ID value in your library. This will be helpful in finding which files to process using the Files in this ID range only setting.

Once you have chosen which files to process in your library, click the Standardise button to begin the process.

Standardiser will now begin the process of validating your input, adding MacroView columns, content type and view (if applicable) then beginning the standardisation process.

Step 4: View your results

A progress report will be shown on the right-hand side of the window, detailing progress in real-time.

Standardiser will also create reports and store them in a results folder on your local machine (click the Results button for a shortcut to the folder location). These files include:

1. A direct copy of the progress report shown on the right-hand side in Standardiser, in a plain text file (.txt).
2. A CSV file of all emails processed along with information including processing time, library ID, file path, status and comments if the item failed to standardise. This file is extremely helpful for finding files that failed to standardise so that you can identify and fix the issue before running the process again.

For more information see: Viewing your Standardiser results.

Email conditions

Standardiser cannot process emails if:

• The email contains # or % in the subject/title
• The email does not contain a sender or a sent date (e.g. if you have saved a draft email to SharePoint)
• The email is 'checked-out' by you or another user
• The email content type contains required metadata columns

If any emails fail to standardise based on one or more of the above conditions, Standardiser will skip them and notify you in the result files that they have failed to standardise.

To be able to standardise them, you must manually remove the offending characters, then run standardiser over the files again.

Known limitations 

• If the MacroView Email content type exists in the library but is missing any columns, you must re-add them before starting the standardisation process.

To do this open Standardiser and tick the checkbox labelled: Add MacroView columns and content types.

• Currently does not support SharePoint 2010 Server (on-premises) or earlier.
• Standardiser does not currently support standardising custom email content types. The email content type must be called 'Email'. Support for custom content types is currently in development.
• Custom email naming conventions are not currently supported. Support for this is currently in development.
• Required checkout for editing must be turned off on the library you are standardising - since the standardisation process includes renaming the email .msg file.
• Logging will retain the newest 500 transactions. 
• Note MacroView Standardiser (Trial) - will require user intervention every 10 transactions.