cfexchangeconnection

Description

Opens or closes a persistent connection to a Microsoft Exchange server, or gets information about mailbox subfolders. You must have a persistent or temporary connection to use the cfexchangecalendar, cfexchangecontact, cfexchangemail, and cfexchangetask tags.

History

ColdFusion 8: Added this tag.

Syntax

open  
<cfexchangeconnection 
    required  
    action = "open" 
    connection = "connection ID"> 
    server = "Exchange server ID" 
    username = "Exchange user ID"> 
    optional  
    ExchangeApplicationName = "Application name" 
    ExchangeServerLanguage = "Language name" 
    formBasedAuthentication = "no|yes"> 
    formBasedAuthenticationURL = "URL"> 
    mailboxName = "Exchange mailbox"> 
    password = "user password" 
    port = "IP port" 
    protocol = "http|https" 
    proxyHost = "proxy host URL" 
    proxyPort = "proxy IP port" 
 
getSubfolders  
<cfexchangeconnection 
    required  
    action = "getSubfolders" 
    connection = "connection ID"> 
    name = "query name" 
    optional  
    folder = "Exchange folder path"> 
    recurse = "no|yes"> 
OR 
<cfexchangeconnection 
    required  
    action = "getSubfolders" 
    name = "query name" 
    server = "Exchange server ID" 
    username = "Exchange user ID"> 
    optional  
    ExchangeApplicationName = "Application name" 
    ExchangeServerLanguage = "Language name" 
    folder = "Exchange folder path"> 
    formBasedAuthentication = "no|yes"> 
    formBasedAuthenticationURL = "URL"> 
    mailboxName = "Exchange mailbox"> 
    password = "user password" 
    port = "IP port" 
    protocol = "http|https" 
    proxyHost = "proxy host URL" 
    proxyPort = "proxy IP port" 
    recurse = "no|yes"> 
 
close  
<cfexchangeconnection 
    required  
    action = "close" 
    connection = "connection ID">

Note: You can specify this tag’s attributes in an attributeCollection attribute whose value is a structure. Specify the structure name in the attributeCollection attribute and use the tag’s attribute names as structure keys.

Attributes

Attribute	Action	Req/Opt	Default	Description
`action`	all	Required		The action to take. Must be one of the following values: `open`: Open a new persistent named connection `close`: Close a named connection `getSubfolders`: Get information about the subfolders of a specific folder.
`connection`	all	Required for `open` and `close` actions		The name of the connection. You can specify this ID in any tag that you use with the open connection.
`ExchangeApplicationName`	`open` `getSubfolders`	Optional	`exchange`	The name of the Exchange application to use in the URL that accesses the server. Specify this attribute if your IIS server does not use the default name for your Exchange application.
`ExchangeServerLanguage`	`open` `getSubfolders`	Optional	`english`	The language of the Exchange server. If you are not sure, you can specify the empty string. For all values except english, including the empty string, the tag tries to get folder names from the server in the client’s local language. In some cases, such as when there is a large amount of data on the server, it might take significant time to get folder names from Exchange server in the local language.
`folder`	`getSubfolders`	Optional	The root of the mailbox	The forward slash (/) delimited path from the root of the mailbox to the folder for which to get subfolders. If a folder name contains a forward slash, use the _xF8FF_ escape sequence to specify the character in the name.
`formBasedAuthentication`	`open` `getSubfolders`	Optional	`no`	A Boolean value that specifies whether to display a login form and use form based authentication when making the connection. If the attribute value is `no` (the default), and the Exchange server returns a 440 error status when ColdFusion tries to connect, ColdFusion displays the login form and attempts to use form based authentication. Therefore, you can safely omit this attribute if you do not know if the server requires form based authentication.
`formBasedAuthenticationURL`	`open` `getSubfolders`	Optional		The URL to which to post the user ID and password when an Exchange server uses form-based authentication. Use this attribute only if your Exchange server does not use default URL for form-based authentication. The default URL has the form `https://exchangeServer/exchweb/bin/auth/owaauth.dll`, for example, `https://exchange.mycompany.com/exchweb/bin/auth/owaauth.dll`.
`mailboxName`	`open` `getSubfolders`	Optional		The ID of the Exchange mailbox to use. Specify this attribute to access a mailbox whose owner has delegated access rights to the account specified in the `username` attribute.
`name`	`getSubfolders`	Required		The name of the ColdFusion query variable that contains information about the subfolders.
`password`	`open` `getSubfolders`	Optional		The user’s password for accessing the Exchange server.
`port`	`open` `getSubfolders`	Optional	80	The port the server listens to, most commonly port 80.
`protocol`	`open` `getSubfolders`	Optional	`http`	The protocol to use for the connection. Valid values are `http` and `https`.
`proxyHost`	`open` `getSubfolders`	Optional		The URL or IP address of a proxy host, if necessary for access to the network.
`proxyPort`	`open` `getSubfolders`	Optional		The port on the proxy server to connect to, most commonly port 80.
`recurse`	`getSubfolders`	Optional	`false`	A Boolean value: `true`: get information on the immediate subfolders of the specified folder only. `false`: get information on all levels of subfolders of the specified folder.
`server`	`open` `getSubfolders`	Required		The IP address or URL of the server that is providing access to Exchange.
`username`	`open` `getSubfolders`	Required		The Exchange user ID.

Note: If you specify the getSubfolders action, you can specify the attributes that are listed as working for both the open and getSubfolders actions only if you do not specify a connection attribute.

Usage

The cfexchangeconnection tag can open or close a persistent connection with an Exchange server. If you use the cfexchangeconnection to open a connection before you use any cfexchangecalendar, cfexchangecontact, cfexchangemail, or cfexchangetask tags, you can use multiple tags to interact with the Exchange server without incurring the overhead of creating a connection for each tag.

Note: To establish any connection, the Exchange server must grant you Outlook Web Access. For information on how to enable this access, see Enabling access to the Exchange server in the Developing ColdFusion Applications. Also, you cannot establish a connection to an Exchange server if you require a special authentication step, such as requiring a VPN PIN or performing biometric authentication, on a server that is outside your firewall, and the authentication server then routes the messages to your Exchange server inside the firewall.

Use the cfexchangeconnection tag to close a persistent connection when you are finished accessing the Exchange server. If you do not close the connection, it remains open and does not time out.

The cfexchangecalendar, cfexchangecontact, cfexchangemail, and cfexchangetask tags also let you specify the open action connection attributes (but not the connection attribute) to create a temporary connection that lasts for the duration of the single tag’s activities, without requiring you to use the cfexchangeconnection tag to create the connection. In this case, ColdFusion automatically closes the connection when the tag completes processing.

The getSubfolders action can get information about the immediate subfolders of a specified folder (or of the top level of the mailbox), or information about all levels of subfolders. You must have a persistent connection to get the subfolders.

The query returned by the getSubfolders action has the following columns:

Column	Contents
FOLDERNAME	The name of the subfolder, for example, ColdFusion.
FOLDERPATH	The forward slash (/) delimited path to the folder from the mailbox root, including the folder name, for example, Inbox/Marketing/ColdFusion.
FOLDERSIZE	Size of the folder in bytes.

Note: The ColdFusion exchange tags, including cfexchangeconnection use WebDAV to connect to the exchange server. HTTP access must be enabled on the exchange server to use the tags.

Example

The following example opens a connection, gets all mail sent from spamsource.com, and deletes the messages from the Exchange server:

<cfexchangeConnection 
    action="open" 
    username="#user1#" 
    password="#password1#" 
    server="#exchangeServerIP#" 
    connection="testconn1"> 
 
<cfexchangemail action="get" name="spamMail" connection="testconn1"> 
    <cfexchangefilter name="fromID" value="spamsource.com">  
</cfexchangemail> 
 
<cfloop query="spamMail"> 
    <cfexchangeMail action="delete" connection="testconn1" uid="#spamMail.uid#"> 
</cfloop> 
 
<cfexchangeConnection 
    action="close" 
    connection="testconn1">