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Archive Services
About Archive Services
FirstClass Archive Services is an add-on server which provides archival/compliance features by storing:
• personal messages
• chat comments
• personal calendar events and tasks
• documents, wiki pages, and blog entries
• published conferences and conference messages.
Content is archived on a per-group basis for users and conferences.
It also provides an efficient single object backup-and-restore mechanism. Archive Services has its own store, known as the archive store. Archive Services appears as a service to your production server. A gateway connection is used to synchronize the users and messages to Archive Services.
Archive Services licensing
The license that comes with Archive Services supports five users and one Librarian. You can purchase additional archive user licenses.
The number of users your license supports (the archive license pool) is distributed by the server among the members of all groups with archiving permission. When this pool is exhausted, any other members of these groups are excluded from archiving.
Full audit summaries report all such exclusions, as well as diagnostics if containers aren't being archived.
Installing Archive Services
Install Archive Services on a separate machine from the production server. The minimum requirements for each scenario are listed in the Release Notes. The actual performance of your system will vary depending on how powerful your hardware is and on how busy your system gets.
 NoteWhile it may be possible to run the FirstClass Archive Server on the same computer as the FirstClass Core Server, this configuration is neither tested nor supported, and we strongly recommend against it.
To install Archive Services, run the installer on the appropriate machine and follow the instructions.
The installer will create an archive store on the hard drive.
Once Archive Services is installed, you will need to:
• create a gateway to it from your production server
• set up archiving for the appropriate groups on the production server
• test the gateway.
Logging into Archive Services
You log into Archive Services with the librarian account. This account has access to everything you need to manage Archive Services. It is a regular user account with some additional privileges. Using this account, you can:
• see BCC recipients on archived messages
• access the Reports and Core Services containers
• access the Session Monitor and System Profile
• use the List Directory to view user archives and conference archives
• use the Admin > Control menu to shut down Archive Services.
The first time you log into Archive Services, use the username and password "librarian" (no quotes). Change the password immediately for security.
Creating a gateway
To create a gateway to the archive server:
1 Open FC Update Service.
2 Select the Archive Services update.
3 Click Apply Update.
Archive Services automatically configures the domain name of the production server so that its gateway can connect on demand. This domain name is taken from the production server's System Profile. Make sure this is filled in and correct for this feature to work.
Leave the password field blank. FirstClass will automatically generate a secure password and update both the archive server and the production server when it connects for the first time.
Archive Services also configures the server serial number automatically. If you need to change this, the valid range is between 800000000 and 800000099.
When Archive Services connects to the production server for the first time, it automatically registers the server, sets the password, logs in, and begins archiving messages. By default, it is set to connect on demand when 50 personal messages are queued. You can keep it like this or assign a different schedule.
Setting up archiving for groups
User groups
 NoteDon't enable archiving for the All Users group. The best way to keep track of licensing is to use a custom group (or groups, if you need to set up different archiving practices for various groups).
To enable archiving for a user group:
1 Open its Group Privileges form on the production server.
2 Complete the "Archive Services" section on the Services tab.
You can change the archive retention period for the group at any time. If you make the retention period shorter, archived content that is now expired will be deleted with the next audit.
If you select "Use previous retention period for existing content", only new content will be affected by this change. Content that existed on the archive server at the time of the change will continue to respect the old retention period.
Conferences
To enable archiving of (published) conferences:
1 Create a container template for purposes of archiving.
2 Select "Archive containers" and specify a retention period.
3 Place the conferences to be archived in this group.
For each of these conferences, Archive Services will create a conference on the archive server during the next synchronization, and will archive subsequent messages posted to the conference.
Testing the gateway
To make sure the gateway is configured correctly:
1 Choose a couple of users with archiving enabled and send them some test messages.
2 Open the Gateway form and click Connect on Close.
This will start the gateway immediately without waiting for a set number of messages to be queued.
3 Log into the librarian account on the archive server and verify that the messages were archived in the correct accounts.
Setting a legal hold
If you don't want archived messages to expire at all for a group of users, you can place that group in legal hold status. Legal hold means there is no longer an expiry period for items in the group's archive accounts. Items are saved indefinitely until the group is removed from legal hold.
To set a legal hold for a group:
1 Open the applicable Group Privileges form.
2 Select "Never remove any content" on the Services tab.
This setting overrides all other settings on this form.
Archiving content
Once Archive Services is running, the gateway automatically distributes content into archive containers on the Archive Server.
Conferences
The gateway archives published conferences and conference messages into a Conferences container that is accessible using List Directory on the archive server. Archived conferences are named using the original name at the time they are first synchronized.
Archive Services creates a new subcontainer for every 1000 archived containers, or when a new year starts. These subcontainers will be named using the date at the time of creation.
Other content
The gateway distributes sent messages and mailed private instant messaging transcripts (treated as messages) to an archive container. FirstClass Web Services chats are archived with each chat comment sent.
The last modified date of a message in the archive is set to the time the message was delivered on the production server. Expiry periods on messages are disabled and replaced with the retention period.
The gateway adds personal calendar events and tasks, documents, wikis, and blogs to an archive container as documents.
Archive Services creates a new user archive whenever a new year starts or a container limit is reached.
Archive Services creates a new Mailbox container whenever the expiry period is changed.
Restoring content
You may need to restore content in situations such as these:
• a user accidentally deleted a message
• there is a legal requirement to provide copies of messages.
The librarian account is the only account that can restore messages.
NoteConference messages are restored to a user, not to the conference. It is possible to restore messages directly back to a conference, but we don't recommend it as a practice.
Restoring archived messages
To restore messages for a FirstClass user or conference:
1 Log into the librarian account.
2 Choose Admin > List Directory.
3 Search for the user or conference.
NoteMake sure you select "Conferences" if searching for a conference.
4 Select the desired user or conference from the list and click Open Archive.
5 Search for the archived messages.
You can search by date range to narrow the search.
6 Select the messages you wish to restore.
7 Choose Send to Recipient from the context menu.
A new message will open with the selected messages attached.
8 Type the recipient's first and last names, followed by a comma and the production server, or press Enter after the comma so FirstClass will attempt to multimatch.
9 Click Send.
10 Instruct the recipient to open the message and drag the attachments to their Mailbox.
Providing archived messages outside FirstClass
To provide archived messages to a non-FirstClass user:
NoteDepending on the nature of your organization, you may be asked to compile archived messages for someone outside FirstClass from time to time. For example, a lawyer may require hard copies of all of a user's or system's messages, or a summary of all of the messages for a particular user.
1 Log into the librarian account.
2 Choose Admin > List Directory.
3 Search for the user or conference.
4 Select the desired user or conference from the list and click Open Archive.
5 Search for the archived messages.
You can search by date range to narrow the search.
6 Select the messages you wish to restore.
7 Choose Export Documents from the context menu, or choose Summarize Selected, then choose File > Export Documents.
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