Messaging Records Management - or MRM - is a set of new features in Exchange Server 2007 that allow better control of dealing with messaging compliance than was possible in earlier versions of Exchange Server. Some folks have referred to MRM as “Mailbox Manager on steroids”, and that is indeed a part of it, but MRM is also a whole lot more. Today, however, that is the piece I will discuss.

E-mail compliance is a slippery concept, but in general an e-mail compliance policy defines who can access what information (e-mail in this case), for how long, and what they can do with it. The Exchange administrator implements software rules and policies that enforce business policies.

More specifically, a MRM policy identifies a “Managed Folder”. Managed Folders can either be the default mailbox folders (such as Inbox, Deleted Items, Calendar, Contacts, etc. - a total of 14 standard folders) or any custom folder that the Exchange administrator identifies.

A managed folder has a number of attributes associated with it. These include a name, a description, and an optional size limit. Both the name and the description for the folder are visible within Outlook 2007 and Outlook Web Access 2007. MRM folders and policies will work with Outlook 2003 service pack 2, in a limited mode; but no older versions of Outlook are supported for use with MRM.

Once the managed folder is created and configured, another step is required to associate a group of content settings with the folder. One must wonder why Microsoft chose to make the creation of content settings a separate step, as each set of content settings may only be associated with a single folder. This is a step that always confuses people new to MRM.

With these content settings, the Exchange administrator will define the name of the content management settings, and the type of message to which these settings will apply. Further, retention settings will be defined, and the actions that occur when the retention period starts and ends will be defined. This is also the point that archiving and journaling for the managed folders may be specified.

Now, we are almost done. The next step is to create managed folder mailbox policies. A mailbox policy may contain as many managed folders (either default or custom) as the Exchange administrator wants. And that is basically all a managed folder mailbox policy is - a container that identifies a group of managed folders and the associated content settings.

The final step is to associate your policy to a user. Be aware that you can create an “infinite” number of mailbox policies, but any given user may only have ONE mailbox policy assigned to them. You can assign these policies on a user per user basis within the Exchange Management Console, or in groups by using Set-Mailbox within the Exchange Management Shell.

The final step of the initial configuration of MRM is to configure the Managed Folder Assistant. It must be configured on each mailbox server. Best practices says that the Managed Folder Assistant should execute at times when the mailbox server is NOT being backed up and when online maintenance is NOT running and otherwise idle times. In larger organizations, that might be a little difficult to find. The Managed Folder Assistant is the task that actually processes all of the mailbox policies.

In future articles, we’ll talk about message classifications, transport rules, and rights management; before concluding our investigation into MRM.