Exchange Web Services Update Rollup 4 Roundup

We have just released update rollup 4 (RU4) for Exchange 2007 SP1. This rollup fixes some bugs in Exchange Web Services (EWS), and introduces some behavior changes to EWS to allow customers and partners the flexibility to accomplish some key scenarios. If you have written code against Exchange Web Services, we definitely recommend that you take a look at RU4. The following are the biggest changes that will be coming in the rollup:

- Item IDs are now returned after MoveItem/CopyItem calls.

- Unknown/unsupported item types are returned as Messages.

- Updating tasks can now have correct behavior for Start and Complete Date values.

ItemId of Item Is Returned After a MoveItem/CopyItem Call

Some of our observant developers have noticed that Exchange creates new destination item IDs for items when they are moved between folders. We created a place in the schema to return the destination ID of an item, and in the early stages of Exchange development, this ID was returned. We pulled it out late in the Exchange 2007 development cycle after we determined that the method of determining the destination ID was too resource-intensive. After consistent feedback from customers that this feature was needed so that items could be tracked as they were moved between folders, we implemented a much more performant solution. Now, if you call MoveItem/CopyItem, you’ll be able to identify the new item in the destination folder by looking at the destination ID that is returned by the MoveItem/CopyItem call.

Note: Cross-mailbox or mailbox-to-public folder CopyItem/MoveItem calls will not return destination IDs and RU4 must be applied to both the Client Access Server and the Mailbox Server Role for this feature to work.

Non-IPM.Note.* Items Are Returned as Messages

EWS in Exchange 2007 SP1 uses the <Item> type as the base class for items that are not strongly typed. This design has caused problems for customers who want to reply to item types that have a custom item class, or item types that EWS does not yet support, like IPM.Sharing or IPM.InfoPath. In RU4, all item types that we do not support natively in Exchange Web Services, like Journal, Sharing Requests, InfoPath forms, are returned as <Message> instead of <Item>. This means that you can see all the recipient information on the item, mark it as unread, reply to it, or forward it just like you would a normal item (assuming that the object supports forwarding/replying).

<Item> type still exists as a base class for <Message>, so most applications built on the auto-generated proxy classes will not be affected; however, applications that parse the XML directly could break if they are expecting <Item> rather than <Message>. To minimize the risk of breaking applications, this behavior is only applied when the Exchange2007_SP1 version header is specified.

We don’t take making changes in a rollup that could break applications lightly; our goal is to only change protocol behavior with the introduction of a new version header. However, we felt that this functionality is critical for some of our partners and customers, has a minimal impact on the majority of applications, is the way EWS should have worked in the first place, and can’t wait for the next service pack for Exchange, which could introduce a schema change for a new version header. For more details about this topic, see Robin’s June post that describes the proposed change and asks for feedback.

Updating Recurring Tasks Now Works Correctly

In Exchange 2007 and Exchange 2007 SP1, when a task is updated, such as by marking CompleteDate, the Client Access server shifts the date specified as the complete date according to the offset of its time zone. This is bad because clients are rarely aware of the time zone that the server is operating in. If the Client Access server and the client time zones are far enough apart, tasks could be marked as completed on the wrong day — not good!

The problem is that no time zone information is passed to EWS in tasks, yet a time zone is required when saving/updating/getting tasks to make sure that the task is marked as completed on the correct day. To fix this problem, with RU4, EWS can treat offset date times in a special way when they are the Complete Date, Due Date, or Start Date elements of a task. The offset, for example 10:00:00T-08:00 , is used to create a time zone for that offset. This time zone is used when the task is saved so that the date the task was completed is always the date intended.

This post only covers the changes in RU4 that we think are most interesting to Exchange Web Services developers. We will be posting this and additional information in KB articles shortly. We hope you find this information useful and as always appreciate your feedback.

Jason Henderson and Andrew Salamatov