Recipients Test

The people and resources that send and receive messages are the core of any messaging and collaboration system. In an Exchange Online organization, these people and resources are referred to as recipients. A recipient is any mail-enabled object to which Exchange Online can deliver or route messages. Exchange includes several explicit recipient types, namely:

Recipient Type	Description
Dynamic distribution group	A distribution group that uses recipient filters and conditions to derive its membership at the time messages are sent.
Equipment mailbox	A resource mailbox that's assigned to a resource that’s not location-specific, such as a portable computer, projector, microphone, or a company car. Equipment mailboxes can be included as resources in meeting requests, providing a simple and efficient way of using resources for your users.
Linked mailbox	A mailbox that's assigned to an individual user in a separate, trusted forest.
Mail contact	A mail-enabled Active Directory contact that contains information about people or organizations that exist outside the Exchange organization. Each mail contact has an external email address. All messages sent to the mail contact are routed to this external email address.
Mail forest contact	A mail contact that represents a recipient object from another forest. Mail forest contacts are typically created by Microsoft Identity Integration Server (MIIS) synchronization.
Mail user	A mail-enabled Active Directory user that represents a user outside the Exchange organization. Each mail user has an external email address. All messages sent to the mail user are routed to this external email address.
Mail-enabled public folder	An Exchange public folder that's configured to receive messages.
Distribution groups	A distribution group is a mail-enabled Active Directory distribution group object that can be used only to distribute messages to a group of recipients.
Mail-enabled security group	A mail-enabled security group is an Active Directory universal security group object that can be used to assign access permissions to resources in Active Directory and can also be used to distribute messages.
Microsoft Exchange recipient	A special recipient object that provides a unified and well-known message sender that differentiates system-generated messages from other messages. It replaces the System Administrator sender used for system-generated messages in earlier versions of Exchange.
Room mailbox	A resource mailbox that's assigned to a meeting location, such as a conference room, auditorium, or training room. Room mailboxes can be included as resources in meeting requests, providing a simple and efficient way of organizing meetings for your users.
Shared mailbox	A mailbox that's not primarily associated with a single user and is generally configured to allow access for multiple users.
Site mailbox	A mailbox comprised of an Exchange mailbox to store email messages and a SharePoint site to store documents. Users can access both email messages and documents using the same client interface. For more information, see Site mailboxes.
User mailbox	A mailbox that's assigned to an individual user in your Exchange organization. It typically contains messages, calendar items, contacts, tasks, documents, and other important business data.
Office 365 mailbox	In hybrid deployments, an Office 365 mailbox consists of a mail user that exists in Active Directory on-premises and an associated cloud mailbox that exists in Exchange Online.
Linked user	A linked user is a user whose mailbox resides in a different forest than the forest in which the user resides.
Discovery mailbox	Discovery mailboxes are used as target mailboxes for In-Place eDiscovery searches in the Exchange admin center (EAC).

To know which recipient types are supported by the Exchange Online organization and the number of recipients configured for each type, administrators can use the Recipients test. For recipient types that are mailboxes, the test additionally reports the total size of mailboxes of that type and the total number of emails in those mailboxes. This way, administrators can easily manage recipients and track the growth in size of the recipient mailboxes.

Target of the test : Exchange Online

Agent deploying the test : A remote agent

Outputs of the test : One set of results for each recipient type in the Exchange Online organization

Configurable parameters for the test
Parameters	Description
Test period	How often should the test be executed
Host	The host for which the test is to be configured. By default, this is portal.office.com
Tenant Name	This parameter applies only if you want the eG agent to use Azure AD Certificate-based Authentication for accessing and monitoring an O365 tenant and its resources. Azure AD certificate-based authentication (CBA) enables customers to allow or require users to authenticate with X.509 certificates against their Azure Active Directory (Azure AD) for applications and browser sign-in. When monitoring highly secure Office 365 environments, you can configure the eG agent to identify itself to a tenant using a valid X.509 certificate, so that it is allowed secure access to the tenant and its resources. By default, the value of this parameter is none. This means that, by default, the eG agent does not use certificate-based authentication to connect to an O365 tenant. On the other hand, if you want the eG agent to use this modern authentication technique to securely access a tenant's resources, you should do the following: Enable Azure AD Certificate-based authentication for the target O365 tenant; this can be achieved manually, via the Office 365 portal, or automatically, using Powershell scripts we provide. For the manual procedure, refer to Manually Enabling Certificate-based Authentication For an Office 365 Tenantunder Microsoft Office 365. For the automatic procedure, refer to Automatically Fulfilling Pre-requisites in a Modern Authentication-Enabled Environmentunder Microsoft Office 365. When enabling certificate-based authentication, an X.509 certificate will be generated for the target tenant. Configure the Tenant Name parameter with the name of the tenant for which certificate-based authentication is enabled. Using the tenant name, the eG agent will be able to read the details of the X.509 certificate that is generated for that tenant, and use that certificate to access that tenant's resources. To determine the tenant name, do the following: Log in to the Microsoft 365 Admin Center as an administrator. Under Setup, click on Domains. Find a domain that ends with .onmicrosoft.com - this is your Microsoft O365 tenant name.
O365 User Name, O365 Password, and Confirm Password	These parameters need to be configured only if the Tenant Name parameter is set to none. On the other hand, if a valid Tenant Name is configured, then you should set these parameters to none . For execution, this test requires the privileges of an O365 user who is vested with the View-Only Audit Logs, View-Only Recipients, Mail Recipients, and Mailbox Import Export permissions. Configure the credentials of such a user against O365 User Name and O365 Password text boxes. Confirm the password by retyping it in the Confirm Password text box. While you can use the credentials of any existing O365 user with the afore-said privileges, it is recommended that you create a special user for monitoring purposes using the Office 365 portal and use the credentials of that user here. To know how to create a new user using the Office 365 portal and assign the required privileges to that user, refer to Creating a New User in the Office 365 Portal under Microsoft Office 365. You can also use eG's proprietary PowerShell script to automatically create a new user, or assign the required privileges to an existing user. To know how to use this script, refer to theAutomatically Fulfilling Pre-requisites in a Basic Authentication-Enabled Environmenttopic.
Domain, Domain User Name, Domain Password, and Confirm Password	These parameters are applicable only if the eG agent needs to communicate with the Office 365 portal via a Proxy server. In this case, in the Domain text box, specify the name of the Windows domain to which the eG agent host belongs. In the Domain User Name text box, mention the name of a valid domain user with login rights to the eG agent host. Provide the password of that user in the Domain Password text box and confirm that password by retyping it in the Confirm Password text box. On the other hand, if the eG agent is not behind a Proxy server, then you need not disturb the default setting of these parameters. By default, these parameters are set to none.
Proxy Host, Proxy Port, Proxy User Name, and Proxy Password	These parameters are applicable only if the eG agent needs to communicate with the Office 365 portal via a Proxy server. In this case, provide the IP/host name and port number of the Proxy server that the eG agent should use in the Proxy Host and Proxy Port parameters, respectively. If the Proxy server requires authentication, then specify the credentials of a valid Proxy user against the Proxy User Name and Proxy Password text boxes. Confirm that password by retyping it in the Confirm Password text box. If the Proxy server does not require authentication, then specify none against the Proxy User Name, Proxy Password, and Confirm Password text boxes. On the other hand, if the eG agent is not behind a Proxy server, then you need not disturb the default setting of any of the Proxy-related parameters. By default, these parameters are set to none.

Measurements made by the test
Measurement	Description	Measurement Unit	Interpretation
Count	Indicates the number of recipients of this type.	Number
Mailboxes size	Indicates the total size of mailboxes of this type.	Number	This measure is reported only for recipients that are mailboxes.
Item count	Indicates the total number of mails in mailbox recipients of this type.	Number	This measure is reported only for recipients that are mailboxes.