Unified Communications Analytics 8.7 - Release Notes

UC Analytics automatically updates custom settings in configuration files during upgrades. In addition to the .dll.config files that were previously updated, UC Analytics now updates the settings in the following files: UC.Analytics.Insights.DataEngine.Service.exe.config (8.4.1 and later) or Dell.UC.Insights.DataEngine.Service.exe.config (8.4 or earlier)

In summary, UC Analytics automatically updates the custom settings in the following files:

If upgrading from 8.4 or an earlier version:

When upgrading from 8.4.1 or a newer version:

198705

PowerShell streaming, manual query, and server-side calculation features are now enabled by default for new installations. If you are upgrading from a previous version, UC Analytics will keep your existing settings for these options.

PowerShell streaming is used in the Exchange Online (Hybrid and Native) data sources. The option can be found in Advanced Settings under the Exchange Online PowerShell Connection Parameters section. For information, see the section titled “About PowerShell collection method options” in the UC Analytics Deployment Guide.

Manual query is an option that you can set in your user profile to delay the immediate loading of data in an insight. In cases where there is a lot of data, the default settings for an insight could cause the insight to take a long time to display. Using the manual query option allows you to apply filters or reduce the time period for the data, then click Query on the right top of the insight and load the data. For details, see the section titled “Disabling automatic loading of data in insights” in the UC Analytics User Guide.

Server-side calculation is used to shift the data calculation that is done before displaying an insight from the client side (user interface web site) to the Data Engine (server-side). For large amounts of data, this improves the situation in which an insight takes a long time to display or times out with an error. You can set the option in the Admin Settings | Queries tile. For details, see the section titled “Setting where data calculation for insights is performed” in the UC Analytics Deployment Guide.

164367

The Exchange Configuration and the Exchange Online Native/Hybrid Mailbox Configuration data sources now collect the following attributes for mailboxes: TotalDeletedItemSize, RecoverableItemsQuota and RecoverableItemsWarningsQuota. You can add the Total Deleted Item Size, Recoverable Items Quota At, and Recoverable Items Warnings Quota At columns to insights such as Mailboxes - Inventory or Mailboxes - Activity Summary or filter insights by the new fields.

For example, to add the column to the Mailboxes - Activity Summary insight, select the Customize icon, click Manage field columns and select Show advanced fields. Search for Deleted and select Exchange Mailbox | Total Deleted Item Size.

190791

The Exchange Tracking Logs, the Exchange Mailbox Contents, and the Exchange Online Mailbox Contents data sources now collect the Message Class for messages. In an on-premises environment, use the Exchange Mailbox Contents data collection to collect the Message Class for messages sent from external domains. You can add the Message Class columns to insights such as Email – Details or filter insights by the new fields.

For example, to add the column to the Email – Details insight, select the Customize icon , click Manage field columns and select Show advanced fields. Search for Message Class and add the fields that you want.

176402

The Skype for Business / Lync CDR Database data source now collects the following attributes for conferences: ServerCollectedFrom, SessionDateTime, and SessionSequenceNumber. You can add the Server Collected From, Session Date Time, and Session Sequence Number columns to insights such as Skype for Business / Lync Conferences - Details or filter insights by the new advanced fields.

Also, a new parameter is added to the lyncCdrDatabaseJobSettings section and to the lyncQoeDatabaseJobSettings section in the UC.Analytics.Insights.DataEngine.DataCollector.dll.config file. The new parameter, named initialDataCollectionDays, is used to set the number of collection days that are initially collected for the associated Lync / Skype for Business data sources. The parameter has a default value of 30.

182979

A new configuration setting to explicitly set the "Resolve Targets" output queue length for Exchange Online Mailbox Configuration data sources (hybrid and native) is added in the UC.Analytics.Insights.DataEngine.DataCollector.dll.config file. Previously the output queue length was calculated from other settings in the config file. The new setting can be used by Quest Support to adjust the Exchange Online Mailbox Configuration data source queue lengths, used in resolving the names of DLs and User mailboxes, when troubleshooting data collection time.

186989

A visible filter "Mobile Device | Mailbox | Owner | Name Is set" is added to the Mobile Devices - Inventory insight to filter out the devices that are not registered in the organization but have been logged in the Exchange IIS Logs and collected by the IIS Logs data collection job.

Also, to determine the corresponding logon user in Exchange IIS Logs collection, UC Analytics now compares the user logon name in the ActiveSync event with the "mail" attribute in AD. Previously, only SamAccountName, DownLevelLogonName and UserPrincipalName attributes were used in the comparison.

193817

The date range that was selected for an insight is now included in the email subject for a subscription when the insight is exported to email. Also, the date range and filters that were selected for an insight are included in the email body for a subscription when the insight is exported to email if an attachment type of subscription is selected.

Two new configuration settings: subscriptionEmailSubjectIncludeDateRange and subscriptionEmailBodyIncludeDateRangeAndFilters are added in the UC.Analytics.Insights.DataEngine.InsightLogic.dll.config file. By default, these features are enabled.

To disable the settings, you can edit the UC.Analytics.Insights.DataEngine.InsightLogic.dll.config file and restart Data Engine service. For details, see Appendix F in the UC Analytics Deployment Guide.

177041

Previously, when exporting and importing insights, you could only import an insight from the same version of UC Analytics. Now you can import insights from a different version of UC Analytics. For details about exporting and importing insights, see the section titled “Exporting insights from and importing insights to an insights home page” in the UC Analytics User Guide.

164846

Fixed a leak in PowerShell sessions when the final flush of data to the Query Engine Service would fail in the following data sources:

The data sources that use PowerShell are updated to add creator information to the PowerShell sessions to allow Quest Support to trace the origin of leaked PowerShell sessions in memory dumps. Creator information includes the data source, execution ID, and the time the PowerShell session was created.

184845

UC Analytics did not correctly handle a situation in the Exchange Online Mailbox Configuration data collections when mailbox information had been partially collected. Now the Exchange Online Native Mailbox Configuration and the Exchange Online Hybrid Mailbox Configuration collection jobs can perform an ongoing collection for mailboxes in which the mailbox entities logged an exception in the last run for the day.

185646

Customer received an error from the Exchange IIS Logs collection job 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". The error could be caused by leading NUL characters that remained after the IIS service shut down. Now, leading NUL characters are ignored if they are in a comment line that starts with the '#' character.

191170

In release 8.6.1, UC Analytics introduced a powerShellSecondsAfterTransientServerProblem setting for the UC.Analytics.Insights.DataEngine.DataCollector.dll.config file. The default value was 0, which would create a new PowerShell session if the "An error caused a change in the current set of domain controllers" exception occurred. However, some customers reported that the immediate reconnection could cause Office 365 throttling.

Now the default value of powerShellSecondsAfterTransientServerProblem is increased to 30. If you have modified this setting since the 8.6.1 release, it remains unchanged after you upgrade. Otherwise, the setting is automatically changed to 30.

186080

To help identify an Office 365 throttling issue, the PowerShell session ID and runspace pool ID are now logged in the following data source logs.

187794

In the Exchange and Exchange Online Mailbox Contents data collections and Exchange and Exchange Online Calendar data collections, the job status message is updated to indicate the number of failed mailboxes and skipped mailboxes.

190396

Performance logging is enhanced in the UC.Analytics.Common.Core.PerformanceStatistics.log file to allow better investigation of performance issues with insight exports.

188503

Fixed the handling of the following three errors. Now the errors do not cause the Exchange (Online) Calendar jobs to fail:

177459

Significantly improved performance for insight exports and subscriptions.

193351

The Exchange Online Native and Hybrid Mailbox Configuration data collections did not efficiently handle the situation in which a mailbox had been recently moved, slowing the collection process. Now, in the data collections when UC Analytics encounters the error “The mailbox may have been moved recently”, the mailboxes in that specific batch are queued for the next round and the collection immediately continues to the next batch of mailboxes.

The maximum number of rounds is determined by the powerShellMaxAttempts setting and the time to pause between two rounds is determined by the powerShellSecondsBetweenAttempts setting in the UC.Analytics.Insights.DataEngine.DataCollector.dll.config file.

185645

When a customer configured a target to be a group. such as a dynamic group, in the Exchange Online Native/Hybrid Mailbox Configuration and Exchange Online Mailbox Contents data sources, the resulting collection might resolve additional users that were not part of the target group. This issue could occur if users had duplicate display names. The data sources are updated to use the unique user GUID to resolve group members when retrieving user information using PowerShell.

176393

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

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

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

When you export an insight that shows a date range for the displayed data at the top of the insight, the date range time zone does not appear in the exported file.

121562

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

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 executing 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