Unified Communications Analytics 8.8.1 - Release Notes

Now UC Analytics creates a Windows scheduled task on the Storage Engine servers to protect the Storage Engine service from the corrupt commit log files in Cassandra database.

73515

The Domain Controller data sources now collect the C attribute (country code) for users and contacts from Active Directory. You can add a Country Code column to insights such as Users – Inventory, Rooms – Inventory, Equipment - Inventory, or Mail Contacts - Inventory and you can filter the insights by the new field.

For example, to add the Country Code column to the Users – Inventory insight, you would:

1	Select the Customize icon .

201209

In new installations, Azure AD Connect is now the default option for the AD synchronization method used by the Exchange Online Hybrid User Configuration and the Exchange Online Hybrid Mailbox Configuration data sources. If you are upgrading from a previous version, UC Analytics will keep your existing settings for the option.

208763

UC Analytics now collects custom attributes in AD for distribution groups. Previously, UC Analytics collected the CustomAttribute1 to CustomAttribute15 fields for AD users and contacts only. Now the following data sources will collect custom attributes for groups:

After you have collected the data, you can insert the appropriate columns in insights such as Groups - Inventory.

189286

UC Analytics supports entering multiple values, separated by semi-colons (;), in several fields in different data sources in which you enter LDAP connection parameters or targets. The UC Analytics Deployment Guide now includes details about where multiple value entry is supported in the section titled “Entering multiple values in a field”. The data source descriptions are updated in the user interface.

226601

To improve UC Analytics Query Engine performance, the default run interval is changed for data source jobs that collect and update data each time the job is run. Previously the default setting was to run the job every hour. Now the default is set to run the job every 4 hours. The change affects the following data sources:

192993

A new column titled Audio / Video Sessions Duration is added to the Skype for Business / Lync Peer-to-Peer Sessions & Conferences - User Activity insight. You can now view the duration for audio / video sessions that occurred within conferences separately.

199044

To group the insights by platform on your home page, you can select Manage insights in the top right corner and click Group by platform.

As of release 8.8, insights are grouped by platform by default for new installations. You can still use the Manage Insights function to group or ungroup insights by platform.

130202

When a customer created a mailbox rule that redirected email from one mailbox (User A) to another mailbox (User B), the same message with the distinct message ID would appear in both mailboxes in the UC Analytics insights. The customer requested a method to identify messages generated by the mailbox rule so that duplicate messages could be ignored.

Now when you customize an insight that shows email messages, a new insertable field is available under Exchange Email Message called Is Generated by Mailbox Rule. To find the new field, select Show advanced fields and search for "mailbox rule" or "generated".

The following data sources have been updated:

225321

To harden IIS security, now the "Allow unlisted file name extensions" option and the "Allow unlisted verbs” option are not selected by default in the IIS settings for the UC Analytics web application. Only the required file name extensions and verbs are added in the allowed list.

226816

Service provisioning status is added to the Office 365 User Licenses and Services insight.

81645

After customers installed the Microsoft security update KB5001779 (released April 2021) on their Exchange servers, the Exchange Configuration and the Exchange Public Folders data collection jobs would fail with the error “The syntax is not supported by this runspace. This can occur if the runspace is in no-language mode.”

255378

UC Analytics would fail to upgrade if the customer had used the FQDN (fully qualified domain name) as the server names during the initial installation.

189228

When running an Exchange Configuration data source job, the customer saw warnings in the data source status details such as “Unable to retrieve Exchange Mailbox database copy properties...the operation couldn't be performed because object ‘***’ couldn't be found on '****' ”. This warning was caused by UC Analytics attempting to get mailbox database copy status (Get-MailboxDatabaseCopyStatus) from mailbox servers that did not contain a mailbox database. Now UC Analytics skips collecting database properties from mailbox servers that do not contain a mailbox database.

131388

In the Exchange (Exchange Online) Public Folders collection job, when the job collected user permissions for the target public folders on a day in which the job experienced failed attempts, checkpoints could be incorrectly inserted into the database. The incorrect checkpoints caused user permissions for some public folders not to be regathered during the next run. Now, the checkpoints for the Exchange (Exchange Online) Public Folders collection job are correctly synchronized for the type of data being collected (permissions or statistics).

209786

When a PowerShell operation failed, UC Analytics would pause for a few minutes, disconnect the PowerShell session, reconnect a new session, and retry the operation. Also, when the connection attempts exceeded the maximum retry count, UC Analytics would skip the target and move to the next target without disconnecting the PowerShell session. Now UC Analytics disconnects immediately when a PowerShell session fails. This change helps to avoid Office 365 throttling and potential session failures when UC Analytics disconnects and reconnects within a short period of time.

The change affects the following data sources:

199877

Customer received an error from the Exchange IIS Logs data source collection such as: “Error: Unable to analyze the Exchange IIS log entries in the IIS log file. Details: Invalid IIS log file: Unexpected 20 fields, instead of 22, on line #5005”. However, the line number in the error was not the line number within the log file. Instead, it was a line number within a batch. Customer wanted to be able to identify the specific IIS log line that is missing fields in the IIS log file.

UC Analytics now displays the number of line within the IIS log file instead of the number within current batch.

193132

The error “Synchronization state data is corrupt or otherwise invalid” was logged in the Exchange Mailbox Contents data collection. A sync token (sync state) describes the status of a mailbox item at a given time. Sometimes a sync token can become corrupt or truncated, possibly if a bad token is sent by the Exchange server in a previous synchronization run. UC Analytics keeps sync tokens in the data collection checkpoints. Now UC Analytics will reset and log any corrupted checkpoints. UC Analytics will regather the specified folder in the mailbox in the next run of collection job.

193001

When calculating email average response times, UC Analytics does not include response times for auto-reply messages which provides a more accurate average. The following data sources are affected by the change:

192998

UC Analytics now has better handling of PowerShell throttling and the "domain controller change" error in the Exchange Online (Hybrid/Native) Mailbox Configuration data collections.

The credential used for resolving targets was not leveraged in the second round in the Exchange Online (Hybrid/Native) Mailbox Configuration data collections. Now the issue is fixed.

Also, when the user clicked Run Now on a data source that was set to run on a specific Data Engine collector, and if multiple Data Engine collectors were added in a production installation, the data collection would run on all the data collectors. Now the issue is fixed.

223579

UC Analytics retrieved mobile device statistics for all kinds of mailboxes in the Exchange Online (Hybrid/Native) Mailbox Configuration data collections. Now, mobile device statistics are collected for user mailboxes only.

224467

When the Exchange Online Native/Hybrid Mailbox Configuration job had been running for a long time using the same credential, the job would run more and more slowly. To prevent Office 365 throttling, UC Analytics disconnects the PowerShell connection after each round in the job. Now, to further improve collection performance, UC Analytics reconnects the PowerShell session periodically. By default, UC Analytics re-establishes the PowerShell session every 60 minutes.

You can modify the interval time by editing the powerShellConnectionReestablishMinutes parameter in the UC.Analytics.Insights.DataEngine.DataCollector.dll.config file. For details, see Appendix F in the UC Analytics Deployment Guide.

234190

During some data source collections, if users with an invalid license or users without mailboxes (not mail-enabled) were skipped during the collection, they were incorrectly reported as skipped mailboxes in the job summary and job details messages. Now UC Analytics maintains separate counts for skipped mailboxes and skipped users without mailboxes. The totals are reported separately in the job messages for the following data source collections:

159380

In situations in which the system time zone on the UC Analytics server was not in UTC (such as UTC +3), the Last Logon date in the Mailboxes - Inventory insight would be incorrect. Now UC Analytics converts the time zone setting correctly. The following data source collections are affected:

123803

After a user upgraded UC Analytics in a scenario in which multiple data collectors were deployed on the UCA servers, the job status page showed that some jobs had failed. However, no error messages were found in the log files. This issue is now fixed.

161388

In the Exchange Tracking Logs and Exchange IIS Logs data collection jobs, the jobs skip any previously gathered files and update the job status to show progress. Also, the data source log file and the job status data table are updated.

If an Exchange server log folder or IIS server log folder contained many files that were previously gathered, the jobs would skip the files and continuously update the job status records. For example, there could 64 status updates in one second. Since job status cannot be refreshed that quickly and the updates imposed excessive load on the Query Engine and Storage Engine, UC Analytics has reduced the intensity of job status updates when skipping log files in the Exchange Tracking Logs and Exchange IIS Logs jobs.

175077

When a customer exported the Mailboxes - Inventory insight with added columns (such as Owner City or Owner Country) in CSV format and opened the CSV file in Microsoft Excel, some cells in the Size column showed country information instead.

For some AD users, the AD attribute "City" contained a carriage return or line feed character which resulted in a line break, and the attribute that followed, Owner Country or Region, was moved to the next line. UC Analytics now handles any special characters when generating CSV or TSV files.

215582

Resolved a defect in which an internal error would occur when a user launched a company insight that had been customized by multiple users.

200976

When two users had customized the same company insight and one of them removed the insight, the company page would become non-functional. This issue is fixed. Also, when a subscription fails due to the subscribed insight having been removed, the resulting error message is updated to provide information about the removed insight.

225765

Previously, when you exported an insight that showed a date range for the displayed data at the top of the insight, the date range time zone did not appear in the exported file. This issue is now fixed.

121562

If the Messages Sent column and the Volume Sent column were removed from Mailboxes / Mailbox Activity / Daily insight, the error message "Internal error occurred during the query request execution" would appear in the export file. Now the issue is fixed.

240586

It is not recommended that you use the built-in domain Administrator account for installing or for accessing UC Analytics. If you have a child domain in your environment, or if you have two root level domains, you will be unable to install the product.

NA

Typically, when you uninstall the product, the Storage directory is removed. If the specified directory cannot be removed (for example, if the directory is on a network drive) an error message appears. You can work around the error by clicking “Ignore”. You can manually remove the directory after the uninstallation process is complete.

504453

After installing the Storage Engine on a separate computer with multiple network cards, the customer is unable to access the web site (“Application failed to start.”) and nothing seems to work. In this case, an incorrect IP address may have been registered for the Storage Engine.

NOTE: If you are installing multiple Storage Engines on a separate computers that have multiple network cards, the installation may not complete.

Cause

On servers that have more than one IPv4 address, the UC Analytics installer selects one of the IPv4 addresses and registers that as the IP address for the UC Analytics component on that computer. The selected IP address may not be the IP address you want for the UC Analytics Storage Engine.

Workaround

Disable the network cards that have undesired IP addresses, run the UC Analytics installer for the Storage Engine, and re-enable the disabled network cards. If you need to disable a network card that is used for Remote Desktop access to the server, you must install UC Analytics using the physical console instead of Remote Desktop.

654123

In the Autorun.exe, the Download buttons for the software prerequisites may appear to be not working. An error is displayed about a script error on the page.

Cause

On some computers, an iexplore.exe process lingers for about 30 seconds after Internet Explorer is closed. Until the iexplore.exe process exits, the Javascript window.open() call for the Download buttons fails to launch a new Internet Explorer window.

Workaround

Launch the Task Manager and wait until the iexplore.exe process has exited. The Download buttons work correctly.

NA

In a deployment with multiple Data Engine collector roles installed, if you modify your deployment configuration properties using the Deployment Manager, and you clear the Data Engine configuration and reset it, an issue can occur in which the Primary Data Collector cannot be identified. The following error is displayed “You must have one collector role for the Data Engine designated as the primary collector.”

Workaround

774682

If an Office 365 account is added as a product administrator in the Deployment Manager, the account is not granted full access to the Admin Settings.

Workaround

In the UC Analytics web site, in Admin Settings | Security, add the Office 365 user account under the Access to Tenant Configuration heading to grant full access to Admin Settings. You must have already added an Office 365 target environment.

774770

On the Admin Settings - Data Collection page, under Data Sources, you cannot remove data sources if you are viewing the page using iPad or other mobile platforms.

NA

In the Classifications | Threshold Classification page, you can set thresholds for Skype for Business and Lync QoE quality metrics. The page has the recommended thresholds set for Skype for Business 2015 and Lync 2013 by default. Most of these thresholds also apply to Lync 2010.

However, if you add a threshold classification that is specific to Lync 2010 only, and you have a mixed environment, the threshold will also be applied to Lync 2013 and later even though the threshold may not be applicable to those versions.

NA

When setting security access to insight data in the Admin Settings | Security page, if you add an Active Directory (AD) user in email address format when the user does not have an associated mailbox, the security access is not set. For example, if you granted unrestricted access to that user, the user would see the error "You do not have the required access rights to view the insight” when attempting to view an insight such as the Mailboxes - Inactive insight.

Workaround

You can add the user and grant data access if you enter the user SAM account name.

128425

In the Exchange Online (hybrid and native) data source collections, if the same PowerShell credentials are used for more than one data source, there can be overlapping Azure AD plug-in credential incompatibility. You might notice authentication errors with Azure AD PowerShell cmdlets such as the following:

Though UC Analytics recovers from these errors, it is recommended that each Exchange Online data source be configured with its own set of PowerShell credentials.

701364

Previously, UC Analytics might collect incorrect data for mobile devices if a mailbox display name contained a / (forward slash) or a \ (backslash). For example, if there were two mailboxes, /AB and AB, and if mobile device #1 connected to mailbox /AB, and mobile device #2 connected to mailbox AB, UC Analytics would incorrectly match both mobile devices #1 and #2 to mailbox AB. This issue existed only for mailboxes that were migrated from on-premise Exchange to Exchange Online. Though this issue was corrected in version 8.4.2, incorrect mobile device data that was collected previously and stored in the database is not changed. All new collected data will be correct.

700497

UC Analytics does not distinguish between discovery mailboxes and system mailboxes. Discovery mailboxes are collected and recorded as system mailboxes. In insights, there is no indication that a mailbox is a discovery mailbox. You cannot filter on discovery mailboxes.

701077

There can be partial ActiveSync data on the day that a user first starts using a mobile device. For example, ActiveSync activity is shown but not associated with a user in the Exchange ActiveSync / Users / Email Activity / Summary insight. This situation occurred when a user started using an ActiveSync device for the first time after the Exchange Configuration collection had successfully run for that day. ActiveSync activity for subsequent days will be correctly associated with the user.

612851

If you have configured the Exchange Configuration data source for a resource forest implementation, if you later add an LDAP connection for more account forests, the data collection does not automatically run to update the data. You must wait until the next day’s data collection run to see the new information from the account forest.

644161

In a hybrid environment (Exchange Online and Exchange on-premise), Azure AD Connect (formerly Azure AD Sync) synchronizes on-premises users with Office 365 cloud services for single identities. If the synchronization process is stopped, UC Analytics can double-count users. When the Azure AD Connect synchronization resumes, all new data collections will show the correct user count.

NA

In the Exchange DLP Matches - Details insight, the text in the Justification for Override (insertable) column will appear incomplete if the justification text that was entered by the user contained a semicolon (:) or a single instance of single (‘) or double (“) quotation marks.

605889

605908

The Exchange IIS Logs data collection cannot associate ActiveSync events to a user for some ActiveSync clients with users that have spaces in their Windows logon name (such as MYDOMAIN\N Wong). This issue affects ActiveSync events from the ActiveSync client in Windows Mail. It does not affect the ActiveSync clients in iOS or in Android.

456921

When collecting Exchange data from an Exchange resource forest deployment, there are certain limitations when an active (master) user account has more than one Exchange mailbox, or has more than one archive mailbox, in more than one forest.

The master account of the linked mailboxes and of the linked archive mailboxes is correctly recorded. However, only one of the mailboxes that belong to the master account will be reported as its mailbox. Similarly, only one archive mailbox that belongs to the master account will be reported as its archive mailbox.

NA

For any back-end ActiveSync events that have an Exchange server as the authenticated user, the Exchange IIS data collector cannot associate the event to a device and user. The ActiveSync events are gathered but are shown in the insights without a device or a user.

456614

To collect data for personal archive mailboxes (using the Exchange Configuration, Exchange Online Hybrid Mailbox Configuration, or Exchange Online Native Configuration data sources), you select the following two options:

If you do not select both options for the same data source collection, the Storage Limit Status column is not populated in the Personal Archive Mailboxes - Inventory and Personal Archive Mailboxes - Summary insights.

775039

When entering an organizational unit (OU) when configuring certain data sources, if the user enters an OU in the correct format but with an invalid value, the data collection jobs do not issue a warning or error but resolve 0 targets for the invalid OU. Data will be missing from the insights. Data sources in which you can specify an OU as a target are as follows:

773630

In the Exchange Online data sources, during target expansion, batch size configuration is implemented to improve gathering performance. To ensure that the complete membership of dynamic distribution groups is collected, the batch size values set in the Data Engine collector configuration cannot be less than 1000, and must be greater than or equal to 1000.

The batch size settings for the Exchange Online data source configuration are located in the UC.Analytics.Insights.DataEngine.DataCollector.dll.config file, on the computer that hosts the Data Engine (Collector):

Do not change these values except under guidance from Quest Support. If you reduce these values to a number less than 1000, some members of the target dynamic distribution groups will not be included in the Exchange Online data collections.

775273

The received messages count does not include the number of messages sent to an Office 365 mail contact.

In an Exchange Online hybrid environment, an Office 365 mail contact can be paired with an on-premises dynamic distribution group to distribute messages internally. When an email message is sent to the Office 365 mail contact, the message is delivered to the dynamic distribution group so that group members receive the message.

However, if the Exchange Tracking Logs data source is configured and run in UC Analytics, the "Received Messages" count for the member user will show 0 in insights such as Mail Activity / Internal vs. External insight, even though the user received the message.

Workaround

Disable the Exchange Tracking Logs data source. Use only the Exchange (Exchange Online) Mailbox Contents data source to gather email activity.

236991

In a production installation, where the UC Analytics website role is not deployed on the first UC Analytics server, the Exchange Online collection jobs might fail with the error “Invalid Powershell authentication type settings in config file” after you upgrade UC Analytics from a version older than 8.6.1 Hotfix 1. However, the next run of the data collection will succeed.

Workaround

254023

In Exchange 2010, if the Microsoft OWA light version is used, the Outlook on the Web (OWA) insights will display the browser as "Unknown” for Internet Explorer 11, Edge, FireFox, Chrome, and Opera. The issue does not exist in other versions of Exchange or if Safari is the browser.

NA

If the time zone offset is negative (such as -5), and you apply smoothing to a graph, and the beginning of your date range is before the date when data collection initially started, the total for the smoothed graph is less than the total for the unsmoothed graph.

Workaround

Ensure that the date range does not include the days before data was collected.

694810

In the Mobile Device insights, the Device IMEI column shows <none> for iOS devices. UC Analytics uses the cmdlet Get-MobileDeviceStatistics (for Exchange 2013/2016/2019) and Get-ActiveSyncDeviceStatistics (for Exchange 2010) to get the device IMEI. Due to how the iOS device built-in mail app works, the information is not stored in the internal mobile device logs and is not available to PowerShell, and by extension, to UC Analytics.

704642

In the insight view, If the date range is set to a single day, any trend graph will change to a vertical bar chart but if you export the same insight, the trend graph does not display a bar chart but displays a trend line with a single point.

718893

On the home page, you cannot enlarge or shrink the insight tiles on iPad and other mobile platforms.

NA

After installing Quest UC Analytics and attempting to open the Analytics web site (http://<server>/Analytics), the user sees the following error: “The application failed to initialize.”

This issue may be caused by a bug in IIS 7.0 in handling extensionless URLs. See the following link for details: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/980368

Install the Microsoft patch to fix this issue.

NA

If the Date format that is set in your UC Analytics user profile is in a different order than the Date and time format that is set in regional settings on your local computer, and you export an insight to .csv or .tsv format, when you open the exported file in Excel, Excel will incorrectly convert the date.

Workaround

Set the order for day/month/year for the user profile Date format to be the same as in the local Date and time format that is set in your computer’s regional settings.

For example, if the Data and time format on your computer is set to be mm/dd/yyyy, set the Date format in the user profile to also be mm/dd/yyyy.

For more information about setting the date format in UC Analytics, see the Unified Communications Analytics User Guide.

654748

When you export an insight to either .pdf or to Word (.docx) format, there might be discrepancies in how information is displayed:

NA

In the details browser, the Exchange server details are not shown in the Exchange ActiveSync / Servers / Server Sync Times insight.

This scenario can occur if you collect ActiveSync data for a time period from before you installed the product. The insight is populated with the historical ActiveSync data collected from the IIS logs (Exchange IIS Logs data source). However, the server detailed data is populated from the once-a-day “snapshots” collected from Active Directory (Exchange Configuration data source).

Since you had not run the Exchange Configuration data collection during that time period, there is no Exchange server detailed information in the database. This issue decreases over time as the server data is accumulated through daily Exchange Configuration data collections.

591123

In the Mailboxes - Folders Inventory insight, if there is a mailbox owner with many folders that span more than one displayed insight page, when you click a heading (such as Size) to sort the fields, sorting does not work.

773936

The total number or size of messages (Unique Messages, Total Volume) will not always equal the sum of sent and received messages. The reason is that the total includes messages that were “sent on behalf of” and messages that were “sent as”, while the total of sent messages does not include these types of message. For example, when user A sent a message on behalf of user B, the insight would show the total number of messages of user B is 1, while the number of sent messages is 0.

The following insights are affected:

163943

In the Servers / Server Activity / Summary insight, which shows message activity on your Exchange servers for user and system messages, the totals can vary from MessageStats reports for the following reasons:

121466

UCA might randomly encounter an “unlicensed” error though you have installed a valid license file. When the error occurs, you would see the following error message when you launch the UC Analytics website:

“No license found or your license has expired. Please apply the license file (.dlv) that you received from Quest or contact your sales representative.”

Workaround

168306

When configuring UC Analytics for subscriptions (Admin Settings | Subscriptions) you have the option to require authentication to the SMTP server that is used for email subscriptions.

UC Analytics cannot send subscription emails through Exchange receive connectors that meet all the following conditions:

605072

Subscriptions might not send long emails, such as insights with large tables, in MHTML or HTML format. Depending on message size limit set on the specified SMTP server for email subscriptions, a subscription in MHTML or HTML format with a long body might be blocked.

Workaround

If a user does not receive an email subscription in MHTML or HTML format, switch the subscription format to either .pdf or .docx format in which the size of the message is much smaller.

606221

For Insight Visibility and Security (data access settings), UC Analytics does not support a configuration in which specified users are in a separate forest from the forest in which UC Analytics is installed. For on-premise target environments that are configured for Authentication-enabled, all users that are entered for Insight Visibility and Security must be in the same target environment as UC Analytics.

775501

Time Zone Offsets: When you create a subscription, the current time zone offset (such as UTC -04:00) is captured and is used for the future subscription schedule. This captured time zone offset does not change with Daylight Saving Time (DST). You must manually change the existing subscription schedule when DST begins and ends.

Using a time zone offset override

Each time you log in, your user profile’s time zone offset is updated to the time zone of the client computer. The offset is used for running queries and affects the display of data, including scheduled insights.

If you want your data queries to always run using a particular time zone offset regardless of your current location or whether DST is active, you can set an override in your user profile page. To access your user profile, click your user name in the top right corner of the Analytics web site and select Edit Profile.

If you travel to a different time zone, or when the time changes due to daylight saving, the scheduled subscription emails still use the old time settings until you log in to UC Analytics in the new time zone or after the time switch.

NA

The UC Analytics Storage Engine service cannot start due to a failure to read a file descriptor in one of the commit logs. The Storage Engine tries to restart and fails because of a commit log replay issue, resulting in an error in the Cassandra.log file such as the following:

By default the log file is located in the following path:

C:\Program Files\Quest\UC Analytics\Storage Engine\bin\Cassandra.log

Workaround

Delete the corrupted commitlog file that is specified in the error message and restart the Storage Engine service.

642319

All the files in the Storage Engine directories must be available for reading and writing at all times. If you have any automated processes running on the Storage Engine directories that lock files, you might encounter problems. The Storage Engine, when it encounters one of its files that cannot be written to or deleted, stops running. You must restart the service to get the Storage Engine working again.

NA

The Data Engine does not communicate with the Query Engine when a proxy is enabled on the Data Engine server.

Workaround

Disable the proxy or ensure that the proxy allows direct communication to the Query Engine server (which can be the same server as the Data Engine).

NA