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OPE - Setup with Microsoft 365

Maintain accurate and comprehensive contact records within your secure environment

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 365 Admin Center

  • Admin access to your organization’s Microsoft Azure

  • 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

  • If not using the appsetting.json for storing secrets, configure alternative Secret Storage

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

      • time.windows.com - port 123

  • Backups

    • Enable backup

    • Backup policy: (new) DailyPolicy

Download the On Premise Engine

  • Download the On Premise Engine using the link shared with you by the SigParser support team.

  • Turn on file extension support in the File Explorer on Windows

  • Extract it to a standard folder like c:/sigparser

    • Don't keep the version number in the file path

  • In the EmailParser folder rename the appsettings-template.json to appsettings.json

  • Open the appsettings.json file

  • You'll go through and fill in values in the appsettings.json file through the following steps.

    • Instance

    • EmailProvider - Set to Office365 if not already set

    • Uncomment the "Schedule" block

    • Proceed through rest of the file

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 Object ID to Notepad

  • Go to Microsoft Azure Groups

  • Select the newly created mail-enabled security group

  • Get the ID of the group

  • In the appsettins.json file under Office365 -> GroupObjectIDs put the ID of the group in the quotes.

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 Client Secret Value to appsettings.json

  • Get the Appliation Client ID and paste into Office365 -> ClientID value

  • Get the Directory ID (tenant ID) and paste into Office 365 -> DirectoryID value

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 appsettings.json

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

    • Office365 -> ClientSecret

Open PowerShell Application

  • Open Microsoft Azure Cloud Shell

    • Make sure you are logged into the correct user profile

    • You may need to start a Free Trial

  • Alternatively, open Microsoft Powershell on Windows.

Create an Access Policy in 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

  • Create a new user at SigParser. Stop when you get to the step where it asks you to connect your mailbox.

  • Click this link to go to the Developers page

  • Select "New API Key"

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

  • Paste the value into the appsettings.json file ApiExporter -> ApiKey value

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

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 Concurrency

In appsettings.json file configure the concurrency for the number of cores.

Uncomment and set these values:

  • MaxMailboxConcurrency - Set to 2x the number of real CPU cores.

  • EmailParserConcurrencyOverride - Set to the number of real CPU cores on the machine.

Setup the Windows Service

Register the Event Viewer source

Open a Powershell in Administrator mode

New-EventLog -LogName Application -Source "SigParserOnPremiseEngine"

Create Windows Service

Run in Command Prompt in Administrator mode

sc.exe create "SigParserOnPremiseEngine" binPath= "C:\sigparser\EmailFetcher\EmailFetcher.exe" DisplayName= "SigParser On-Premise Engine" start= auto
sc.exe description "SigParserOnPremiseEngine" "SigParser On-Premise Engine - fetches and parses email on a schedule."
sc.exe start "SigParserOnPremiseEngine"

To run under a specific service account instead of LocalSystem, add: obj= "DOMAIN\user" password= "the-password"

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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