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On Premises Engine - Setup with Microsoft 365

Maintain accurate and comprehensive contact records within your secure environment

Updated over a month ago

Implementing the SigParser On-Premises Engine can enhance your organization's ability to maintain accurate and comprehensive contact records while ensuring data remains within your secure environment; all email and calendar data is processed within your organization's network.

Note: You must coordinate with the SigParser team before proceeding with these steps. They will enable the On-Prem functionality for your account and schedule a call to guide you through the setup process.

Overview

  1. Virtual Machine Deployment: Install the On-Premises Engine on a virtual machine within your network. This VM will handle the processing of emails and calendar data.

  2. Configuration: Adjust settings to connect the engine to your Microsoft Exchange or Microsoft 365 environment. This includes setting up necessary permissions and specifying which mailboxes to monitor.

  3. Security Group Management: For Microsoft 365 setups, create a mail-enabled security group to manage which mailboxes the engine will access.

  4. Scheduled Tasks: Configure tasks to run the engine at desired intervals, ensuring continuous and up-to-date data extraction.

Estimated Time to complete: 1 hour with help from SigParser team.

To Start

You must have access to the following:

  • Access to your organization's SigParser account

  • Admin access to your organization’s Microsoft Azure

  • Admin access to your organization’s Exchange Admin

  • The ability to run Powershell commands

  • A list of email addresses you wish to connect and scan in SigParser

  • Prepare a Windows Virtual Machine to run the SigParser application

Create a Windows Virtual Machine

Create a new Windows virtual machine (VM). The VM is where all the scanning and processing of emails and calendar meetings will be done.

See Virtual Machine Sizing for more information.

Configure Virtual Machine Settings

  • Operating System

    • Windows Operating System

    • OS-orchestrated patching: patches will be installed by OS

  • Network Access

    • Outbound:

      • Amazon AWS

        • US: logs.us-west-2.amazonaws.com - port 443

        • EU: logs.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com - port 443

      • ipaas.sigparser.com - port 443

      • serialkeymanager.com - port 443

      • app.cryptolens.io - port 443

      • time.windows.com - port 123

  • Backups

    • Enable backup

    • Backup policy: (new) DailyPolicy

Open a Notepad file on the VM to temporarily store ID values

  • Create a new Notepad file

  • Copy and paste the following into the file

    • GROUP MEMBER EMAIL ADDRESS:

    • GROUP OBJECT ID:

    • APPLICATION (CLIENT) ID:

    • APPLICATION (DIRECTORY) ID:

    • APPLICATION CLIENT SECRET:

    • SIGPARSER API KEY:

  • You will fill in these values in the following steps. These values will be used to create and test the MS365 connection and configure the On Premise engine settings.

Create a Mail-Enabled Security Group

  • Go to Microsoft 365 Admin Center

  • Select Mail-enabled security > Next

  • Name the group: SigParser Mailboxes

    • Description is optional

  • Assign Group Owner(s)

    • Group Owners will have the ability to add or remove members from this group

    • Group Owner mailboxes will not be scanned by SigParser

  • Once you have added Group Owner(s), select Next

  • Add Group Members

    • This is the list of mailboxes to be scanned by SigParser

  • Once you have added Group Members, select Next

  • Add Group Email Address

    • Example: sigparsermailboxes

  • Under Approval

    • Select Require owner approval to join the group

  • Select Create Group

Add Group Member Email Address to Notepad

  • On your Notepad file, paste a Group Member email address in the corresponding field

Add Group Object ID to Notepad

  • Go to Microsoft Azure Groups

  • Select the newly created mail-enabled security group

  • On your Notepad file, paste the “SigParser Mailboxes” Group Object ID in the corresponding field

    • GROUP OBJECT ID: xxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxx-xxx

Register SigParser App in Microsoft Azure

  • Go to Microsoft Azure App Registration

  • Select + New Registration

  • Enter the following info:

    • Name: SigParser Mailboxes App

    • Supported account types: Single tenant option

    • Redirect URI: (leave blank)

  • Select Register

Add App Registration IDs to Notepad

  • Select the newly added SigParser Mailboxes App.

  • Copy and paste the Application (client) ID and the Directory (tenant) ID from your Azure page on your notepad in the corresponding fields

    • APPLICATION (CLIENT) ID: xxx-xxx-xxxx-xxx

    • APPLICATION (DIRECTORY) ID: xxx-xxx-xxxxx-xx-xxxx

Grant API Permissions for SigParser App

  • Select API permissions from the menu on the left

  • Select + Add a permission > Microsoft Graph > Application permissions

  • In the search bar, enter each of the following permissions and select the checkbox next to the permission:

    • Calendars.Read

    • Contacts.Read

    • GroupMember.Read.All

    • Mail.Read

    • User.Read.All

  • When you have selected all of the permissions, select Add permissions.

  • Select ✔ Grant admin consent

Create and Enter SigParser App Client Secret

  • From the menu on the left, select Certificates & secrets > Client secrets

  • Select + New client secret

  • Enter the following details:

    • Description: SigParser Mailboxes Secret

    • Expires: 24 months

  • Select Add

Add Client Secret Value to Notepad

  • Copy and paste the Client Secret Value (NOT Secret ID) from Azure into the corresponding field on the notepad.

    • APPLICATION CLIENT SECRET: xxx-xxx-xxxx-xxx

Create an Access Policy for SigParser App

  • On Windows, open Microsoft Powershell

  • Copy and paste the following command and press enter. This will install the Exchange Online Manager Powershell module.

    • Install-Module -Name ExchangeOnlineManagement -Scope CurrentUser -Repository PSGallery -Force; Import-Module ExchangeOnlineManagement

  • Copy and paste the following command and press enter. You may need to authenticate your 365 login. This will connect to your Microsoft 365 account.

    • Connect-ExchangeOnline

  • From your notepad, copy the GROUP OBJECT ID and APP ID and paste to replace the corresponding fields below. Copy and paste the command and press enter. This will restrict access for Sigparser application to only the mailboxes in the mail enabled security group.

    • New-ApplicationAccessPolicy -PolicyScopeGroupId [your group object ID] -AppId [your app ID] -AccessRight RestrictAccess -Description "Restrict SigParser's access"

  • From your notepad, copy the GROUP MEMBER EMAIL ADDRESS and APP ID and paste to replace the corresponding fields below. Copy and paste the following command and press enter. This will test if SigParser can access the restricted email address.

    • Test-ApplicationAccessPolicy -Identity [test.mailbox@yourdomain] -AppId [your app ID]

  • Close Powershell window

Generate a SigParser Application API Key

  • Log into your organization's SigParser application at https://app.sigparser.com/

  • Go to Settings > Developers

  • Select "New API Key"

  • Name the API Key "On Premise Engine" > select all checkboxes > select Generate Key

  • Copy the API Key value and paste into the Notepad file

    • SIGPARSER API KEY: xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Note: The SigParser team must enable this functionality on your account.

Download On Premise Engine to Virtual Machine

  • Log into your Virtual Machine

    • Make sure that Google Chrome or Microsoft Edge are installed

  • In Windows Explorer turn on visibility of file extensions

  • Download the SigParser On Premise Engine zip file to the Virtual Machine

    • Right click on the Zip file > select Extract All…

    • Enter the following file location: C:\sigparser

    • Select Extract

    • Wait for the extract to finish

Note: The SigParser On Premise Engine zip file will be provided by the SigParser team.

Configure On Premise Engine Settings

  • Go to C:\sigparser\EmailFetcher folder

  • Rename the file appsettings-template.json to appsettings.json

  • Once renamed, open the file appsettings.json.

  • Within the file, input the following values into the corresponding fields. Values must be placed within the double quotes. Reference the values in your notepad.

    • EmailProvider: Office365

    • Instance: Enter your company name

      • Example: “Acme Corporation”

    • AllowedPatterns: Enter which email domains should be allowed.

      • Use * for all domains, which is best for most installations.

    • DenyPatterns: Enter which email domains will not be processed

      • Enter your own company domains here so internal emails aren't processed. Separate multiple domains with commas.

    • SubjectLines: Should subject lines be transmitted to SigParser?

      • If SendSubjectLines is true, update the SubjectLineType to "Meetings", "Emails", or "All"

    • AddressBooks: Transmit Address Book contacts to SigParser?

      • Disabled by default. To enable, update to true.

      • Note: if enabled, you will need to configure sync rules via the Connectors page.

    • SigParser API Key: [from notepad]

    • ClientID: [from notepad]

    • DirectoryID: [from notepad]

    • ClientSecret: [from notepad]

    • GroupObjectID: [from notepad]

  • Once the values are entered, Save the updated appsettings.json file.

Test Email Fetcher

  • Within the EmailFetcher folder, right click on the background > select Open in Terminal

  • Type cmd > select Enter

  • Type emailfetcher.exe > select Enter

  • Once the command begins running successfully, select Ctrl + C or close the Terminal

Configure Scheduled Task to Automatically Run On Premise Engine

  • Open Task Scheduler

  • Select Create Basic Task

  • Configure the task:

    • Name the task: SigParser Email Fetcher

    • Description: Optional > select Next

    • Task Frequency: Daily > select Next

    • Start: leave default date

    • Recur every: 1 days > select Next

    • What action do you want the task to perform: Start a program > select Next

    • Program/script: select Browse > select C:\sigparser folder > scroll down and select the EmailFetcher Application

    • Add arguments (optional): leave blank

    • Start in: C:\sigparser\EmailFetcher > select Next

      1. This must match the first part of the Program file path exactly.

    • Select Finish

Additional Settings

It is recommended to create a designated Service Account to run the task scheduler. This ensures that the task will run even if the employee is not logged in or leaves the company.

  • Right click on the task > select Properties

  • Select: Run whether user is logged on or not > select OK

  • Enter credentials for the designated service account

Test the Scheduled Task

  • Right click the task from the list > select Run

View Logging

  • Open Event Viewer > select Windows Logs > select Application

Setup Complete

The setup is now complete.

If you have any questions, send us an email at support@sigparser.com. You can also book a demo session HERE.

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