Meeting request going to someone else

Question

I have a user who is using Entourage on Mac OS 10.4.11 with MS Exchange 2003. The setting on the Mac are all correct and the under the delegates tab user "A" is there. But for some odd reason a user "B" receives all the Calendar invites to the user.

User "B" doesn't have permission to view the Mac's Calendar.

Under user "B" outlook it doesn't show the Mac user any where in outlook.

Also the Mac doesnt have any rules set with in Entourage at all.

Answer 1

I've had a similar problem where users who used to be in a specific Entourage-users's delegates list 6 years ago were still getting forwarded meeting requests, even though they'd been removed years ago. These particular users lived with this annoyance for quite some time before reporting the problem, and it was only after we moved to Exchange 2007 and the Entourage user had some other problems that they mentioned it to me.

During the troubleshooting process I learned some things. First of all, if you have any Entourage in your environment it is a very good idea to download MFC MAPI from Microsoft. This Windows utility gives you a pretty raw view of a user's Mailbox, and is the only way to fix some problems.

When you set a delegate, it creates a hidden rule to handle the forwarding of the meeting requests. What I didn't know is that earlier versions of Exchange put that in a different spot than Exchange 2007 does, but Exchange still runs the old rules if they are still present. In my case, there was a delegate rule still present in the old location that was still being run.

In MFC Mapi you get a top level view of a user's mailbox. One of the items in there is called "Schedule". If you open "Top of information store", the rules are kept on "Inbox". In each folder there is a Rule property that contains the rules for that user. The one at the top of the mailbox is the old one, the Inbox in the "Information Store" is the new one. In my case, the rule was hiding in the old location. One that Even Outlook 2007 couldn't find. In this screen shot you can see a rule called "PR RULES DATA". This is the actual rules data. To decode it, select the 'Schedule' item and click "Actions" on the MFC MAPI menu. There is an item there called "Display Rules Table". If your problem is like mine was, there should be a rule in that top-level Schedules directory. Hidden rules start with an underbar. Right-click on the offending rule, and click "Delete'.

Like Regedit, you can do serious damage in MFC MAPI if you're not careful.

A second more obscure possibility for your problem is that User B has User A's X500 address associated with it. I'd be surprised if this would be the case, but it could happen. Entourage is more sensitive to that sort of thing than Outlook is.

EDIT: Adding more screen-caps.

I no longer have a user in this state so I can't go step by step.

Launch MFC-MAPI

Pick Logon and Display StorageTable

Pick the MAPI profile that contains the mailbox you're looking in to.

This displays the mailboxes visible in this MAPI profile. This one includes Public Folders since we have public folders. If this profile has any attached mailboxes, they will also display.

Right-click on the mailbox you want to go into and select Open Store. This will bring up a new window.

This is the window that will come up. The bad delegate rule I described above will be in the "Schedule" folder. Select Schedule.

Then go to Actions and select Display Rules Table

The delegate rule will have no name. For Exchange 2007 (and almost certainly Exchange 2003), there should be no rules in "Schedules". They should all be in folders under "Top of Information Store". It is safe to delete all of them. Right click on the rile, and select "Delete"