Currently, one of the more common questions coming into the Newforma Support team revolves around Project Email; more specifically Automated File Items.

In an effort to remain as pro-active as possible, Newforma Support would like to share some knowledge and tools to help you understand and better manage questions and concerns as they arise from your users.

The symptom most often seen with regards to Automated File Items is when messages in a user’s “Newforma – Items to File” folder do not appear to be filing for long periods of time.

This issue may be occurring for all users, or it may be happening for just a few users at a location.  The sections below address each case.

No user’s messages are being filed

If messages are not being filed for any user in the location, there is likely an issue on the Newforma Project Center Server to which those users connect.

A quick check in the Project Center Administration console can help you identify how the problem is affecting all of your users:

Each piece of data could indicate a specific problem, but here are a few specific lines to look at first.  The “Total items filed” will indicate how many items have been filed since the service started (likely at 5:00am that day).  If there have been messages filed, Automated File Items was working for someone.  The “LoggedOn” line indicates if the server thinks it is properly logged onto Exchange.  If this is false, you should check the Outlook profile in the service account on the server.  If “Last scan completed” is not fairly recent, then the service may have terminated unexpectedly.  Look on the server to see if the Newforma processes are still running.  The “Email accounts successfully processed” indicates how many users the Automated File Items process was able to process without error.  If this is greater than zero, the problems are related to specific users rather than with the entire server.

Although there are several possibilities on what might be going on in these cases (e.g. MAPI issues on the server… don’t install Exchange System Manager on your NPCS, the NPCS service account’s email address being configured incorrectly, Redemption.dll conflicts), there is one which is fairly common and simple to check.

1. While logged into the Newforma service account on the Project Center server, open “Control Panel”
2. Select the “Mail” tool to set-up or configure Email Accounts
3. Select the “Email Accounts…” button

4. Choose to “View or change existing e-mail accounts”
5. Select the NPCS Exchange account configured for the Newforma deployment
6. Chose to “Change…” this account
7. Make sure the “Use Cached Exchange Mode” option is not checked and accept the changes

8. Navigate to C:\Documents and Settings\\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\Outlook. 
9. Create a temp folder and then move all of the files in the Outlook folder (with the exception of any .pst files) to this temp folder to effectively delete the cached data.
10. Stop and start the Newforma Project Center Server service.

Individuals’ messages are not being filed

If the server looks like it is doing what it should be doing and individuals are still not getting their items filed, the issue may be on the individuals’ machine(s).
There are a few simple things to check which can resolve several issues:

1. The user may simply not have the “Automated File Items” option turned on.  Even if the option is turned on, you can turn it off and turn it back on again, which should alert the server that this user is enabled for Automated File Items:

2. While Automated File Items will file messages related to Action Items, it will not file messages related to Submittals and RFIs.  These must be filed manually using the “File in Project” button on the Newforma toolbar so that the user can create a Submittal Reviewer Response or RFI Answer if necessary.

3. There have been times when emails actually do file from a users “Newforma - Items to File” folder, but they are not cleared from the folder by Microsoft Outlook.
To test to see if this is the case, perform a search in Newforma or browse the Newforma Email Activity Center to see if a message which appears to not have filed is, in-fact, in Newforma.
The most likely cause for this scenario is an out-of-date cache folder on the client’s machine.  Although Cached Exchange Mode is highly-recommended on the client side, there are times when the server data and the client cache do not perfectly match.  Changes made by the Automated File Items process are not reflected in the client cache for unknown reasons.  Microsoft’s cache implementation never revisits these messages, so it will never update the cache correctly after this problem has occurred.  In these cases:

a. In Newforma Fifth Edition:

• Exit Outlook
• Navigate to C:\Documents and Settings\\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\Outlook. 
• Create a temp folder and then move all of the files in the Outlook folder (with the exception of any .pst files) to this temp folder to effectively delete the cached data.
• Restart Outlook

b. In Newforma Sixth Edition:

• Click the “File Items” button from the Newforma toolbar in Outlook to re-file the messages in the cache and clear them from the “Newforma – Items to File” folder.

4. Newforma only supports certain types of Outlook objects.  The issue may be as simple as the user is expecting the service to manage objects which it simply cannot.  In this case a bit of re-education or training may be required to properly set the expectations of users experiencing this “problem”:

a. Newforma Fifth Edition supports the filing of:

• email messages
• tasks
• posts
• appointment/meetings
• meeting requests

b. Newforma Sixth Edition supports the filing of most Outlook Item types including all of the above as well as:

• contacts
• distribution lists
• journal items
• reports (e.g. non-delivery receipts)

Items not on the above lists will not be filed via automation.  Items not on the above lists can sometimes be filed by using other methods, but Newforma can’t guarantee anything about how they are displayed or behave within Newforma Project Center.  Sixth Edition likely supports all of your project-related email.

Conclusion

This document has outlined some common problems in Automated File Items, but there are other problems that can occur on both the client and server related to filing your email messages.  If these suggestions do not solve your problems, first search the Support Knowledgebase for other solutions.  If you continue to have problems, contact Newforma Support and we will diagnose and resolve any problems you still have.