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Exchange Online Receiving Enhanced Message Trace
Microsoft has announced the public preview of its enhanced Message Trace feature in the Exchange admin center (EAC) for Exchange Online.
A message trace provides visibility into emails sent to, from and within an email organization through the Exchange admin center. It allows IT to track the status of all emails involving your users, including whether they were successfully delivered.
Admins can now query up to 90 days of historical email data in near real-time, though queries are limited to 10 days at a time. Initially, only 30 days of historical data will be available, gradually increasing to 90 days. New filter options, including by subject and delivery status (like "quarantined") will also now be available.
The rollout has already begun and is expected to complete by the end of the month. Admins can access the new Message Trace by navigating to Exchange admin center > Mail flow > Message Trace. Enabled by default, the feature can be turned off as needed (as seen in the image below)
[Click on image for larger view.] Figure 1.
Microsoft said it is also making a handful of UI updates, based off of user feedback. These include:
- Customizable Columns: For your search results, we’ve introduced customizable columns and added additional column options that you can select from. Please refer to the image below for the new columns that have been added.
- Persistent Column Widths: You will be able to customize your column-widths, and these changes will be sticky per logged-on admin account, so they will not have to be reset every time you run a new message trace query.
- Wider Flyout Option: An option for a wider flyout for the Message Trace detail is now available.
- Time Zone Consistency: Message Trace will now default to the time zone set in the Exchange account settings of the logged-on admin.
Microsoft is also making the following cmdlet changes:
- Subject Parameter: A new subject parameter allows for more precise and targeted Message Trace queries.
- Extended Query Range: Admins can query up to 90 days of historical data, but each query is limited to a 10-day range. Initially, only 30 days of historical data will be available for near real time queries, gradually increasing to the full 90-day range.
- Pagination Removal: The new Message Trace cmdlet does not support page numbers or page size parameters.
- Result Size Parameter: By default, queries will return up to 1,000 results, with a maximum of 5,000 results configurable via the -ResultSize parameter. This update improves system performance and ensures fair resource allocation by eliminating pagination.
- StartingRecipientAddress Parameter: This parameter facilitates retrieving subsequent data while reducing duplication in results.