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MessageStats 7.8 - Reports User Guide

Viewing, Creating, and Editing MessageStats Reports My Reports and Corporate Reports Exchange Executive Summaries Reports Exchange Organizations Reports Exchange Server Reports Exchange Content Analysis Reports Exchange Mailboxes Reports Exchange Mail Contacts Reports Exchange Distribution Groups Reports Exchange Public Folders Reports Exchange Storage Reports Exchange Internet Reports Exchange Inventory Reports Migration Reports MessageStats Gathering Reports Appendix A: How to Read the Reports Report Filter Definitions

Viewed from a Mailbox Perspective

The mailbox perspective is captured in Mailbox Activity reports that provide the message counts and volumes of messages that flow into and out of a specific mailbox. Since a mailbox can send a message to multiple recipients (who can be spread across an organization and outside of the organization), MessageStats must use a unit smaller than the message when providing counts of internal and external messages.

For a message, MessageStats treats each recipient as a separate entity for the purpose of counting. Taking the originator/recipient pair as the base information for determining internal and external counts, the message direction determines how MessageStats views an address.

For sent messages, MessageStats looks at the recipient. For received messages, MessageStats looks at the originator. The determination of whether an address is internal or external is based on two factors:

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If an address in the Exchange tracking log is in the form of a legacy distinguished name, the address is considered internal.
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If an address is in the form of an SMTP address, then an additional check is required. The check retrieves the domain name from the address and looks up the domain in the MessageStats Internal SMTP Namespace list.
About the Internal SMTP Namespace list

The MessageStats Internal SMTP Namespace list is an internal database list of namespaces that is used to determine internal and external messages from the mailbox perspective. The list is maintained automatically through two MessageStats gathering tasks and manually using a property page:

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The Internal Namespace gathering (run at the Exchange organization level) reviews the SMTP Recipient Policies, extracts the domain and adds it to the list. It is assumed that if there is a policy for an SMTP domain, the domain is an internal address.
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The Exchange Mailbox gathering reviews the main SMTP address for a mailbox as well as the additional SMTP address. It takes these domains and adds them to the list. It is assumed that if there is a SMTP address for a mailbox, it is internal.
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You can also manually identify internal SMTP namespaces using the Organization property page titled SMTP Namespaces. In this property page, you add the namespaces that you want to categorize as internal. For details see To identify additional internal namespaces .

Using the Internal SMTP Namespace list, MessageStats checks a domain address to see if the domain is in the list. If it is, the address is considered internal. If is not in the list, the address is considered external.

For example, suppose a mailbox sends a message that has four recipients. Three of the recipients are other mailboxes in the company and the fourth recipient is the SMTP address for a family member. Assuming that the SMTP address of the family member is not in the Internal Namespace list, MessageStats would count three internal messages and one external message.

Removing SMTP Namespaces from the Internal List

In some cases, domains may be added to the internal SMTP namespace list that actually should be counted as external domains. You can use the SMTP Namespaces property page to remove a domain from the list.

To clear SMTP namespaces from the list
1
In the MessageStats console, expand the Exchange Organizations node in the treeview and select an Exchange organization.
2
Right-click and select Properties.
3
Select the SMTP namespaces tab.
4
Click the column heading to sort the list:
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in alphabetic order
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ordered with unchecked namespaces first
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in reverse alphabetic order
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ordered with checked namespaces first
5
Select the SMTP namespace and click to clear the check box.
6
Click OK.

Other Factors to be Considered

Other factors to be considered are as follows:

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All messages sent to a distribution group are considered internal, regardless of the distribution group membership. MessageStats counts the message as a single message. Since there is significant overhead in distribution group expansion, it is not done a part of the MessageStats tracking log gatherings.
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When a message is sent to a mail contact, MessageStats checks the SMTP address for the mail contact and uses that address when determining whether the message is internal or external.
If an SMTP message is submitted from an external IP address but has a “From Address” that matches an internal Exchange mailbox, is it counted against the sender in reports?

No. Even though the “From address” matches an Exchange mailbox, since the message was submitted through SMTP from an external IP address, it is assumed that the message is SPAM and it is not counted against the sender’s mailbox.

The message is counted against the recipient mailboxes and recipient distribution groups.

Internal and External Messages - Frequently Asked Questions

The following are frequently asked questions about internal and external messages in MessageStats reports.

What information is provided by the Server Internal vs. External report?

This report shows the number of times that messages that are routed (sent and received) through an Exchange server. By totaling the values at the organization level, MessageStats provides a value that is the sum of the volume of messages that have passed through the Exchange organization.

This report does not take unique messages into consideration. The same message can pass through many Exchange servers in the organization and this routing of the message copies is included in the totals on this report.

What are the definitions of Internal and External in the Server | Server Activity | Internal vs. External report?

The report shows the mailbox activity on a server and the number of messages that are sent to and received by the mailboxes:

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Internal is defined as any messages that are sent within the Exchange organization.
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External is defined as any messages that are sent outside the Exchange organization to the Internet.
How can I see all the external messages sent by an organization?

Using the Server Internal vs. External report, you can view the total of all the physical external sent messages.

Regardless of whether all external mail is going through one Exchange server or several Exchange servers, this total shows all external messages sent by the organization.

How do I create a custom report for All External Messages Sent and Received?

The following steps show you how to create a report for all external messages sent and received. System Messages are not counted in the report, but you can add a field for system messages to the Server Report.

1
On the main page of MessageStats Reports, select File | New | Custom Report and click Next.
2
Select Datasource = Servers - Server Activity Details.
3
Select Fields = Date | External User Messages Received | External User Messages Sent.
If you also want to report on System Attendant Messages & System Messages, add the fields.
4
Select Filter = Date and provide the date or date range you want.
5
Select Group = Date.
6
You can configure Sorting, if you want, but it is not required.
7
Under the Format page, select Advanced Summary Calculations.
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Clear Show Detail Records.
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Under the Count Column select External User Messages Received and External User Messages Sent and click OK.
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Click Finish.
11
Save the report by selecting the File | Save As.

Differences Between Messages Submitted, Delivered, and Transferred In and Out

Why are message counts different for messages delivered and submitted, and for messages transferred-in and transferred-out?

The following definitions explain what the different terms mean:

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Message Submission is an operation in which a mail client (such as Outlook) creates new messages and sends them to Exchange to be routed and delivered. In MessageStats, the count is equal to one message each time a user clicks Send on the message.
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Message Delivery is an operation in which a routed message is put into the mailbox of a specific recipient. In MessageStats, the count is equal to one message for each recipient of a message.
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Message Transfer-In is a routing operation in which a message is received by an Exchange server. The message can come from other Exchange servers or from the Internet. In MessageStats, the count is equal to one message per message received, regardless of the number of recipients.
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Message Transfer-Out is a routing operation in which a message is sent out by an Exchange server. The message can be sent to other Exchange servers or to the Internet. In MessageStats, the count is equal to one message per message sent, regardless of the number of recipients.

Exchange minimizes the number of messages that are routed through an Exchange organization by creating a copy of a message only when necessary. This process is called bifurcation.

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