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Once the Collaboration Services instances are configured in each of the forests, you can publish a test collection from each forest. The test collections should be published a week before publishing all users objects.

When creating the test collections, you should specify the same synchronization type you are planning to use with regular collections. Depending on your license type, you can create collections of mixed type, Active Directory-only collections, and calendar or free/busy-only collections. For descriptions of these types, see the Collections section of see “Data Synchronization” on page 3.

Synchronization Settings

By default, the Active Directory synchronization intervals are configured so that Collaboration Services does not impose too much load on Active Directory. To make test collections objects update faster, you can set the Collaboration Services to the "Synchronize Now" mode, so that all timeouts are reduced to the minimum on both publisher and subscriber. To do that, select the Publication node and click Synchronize Now. This mode automatically turns off in 2 hours.

Alternatively, you can reduce all timeouts manually. Use the options on the Synchronization page and its sub-pages of the Collaboration Services Properties dialog box.

When creating collections, you can select the attributes that should be published to the other forests. A predefined set of attributes have been pre-selected for each type of object. The following can also be synchronized:

• Minimum: Only object attributes required to create a valid mail-enabled or mailbox-enabled Active Directory object are published.

• All Attributes: All object attributes (except security–related attributes) are published. • Add Attributes: Add object attributes to the default attributes to be published.

You can also individually select the attributes to be published for each object class by expanding the object listed in the wizard.

Object Selection

Several users from each forest should be included in the test collections. It is recommended that you explicitly specify 5–10 users in the collection settings.

• To test automatic conflict resolution, include a couple of conflicting users in the test collection by manually creating conflicting contacts or user accounts to match into on the subscriber side.

A Collaboration Services administrator in each branch and in the HQ forest must subscribe to the test collections manually in order for the collection objects to be applied to their forests.

Each explicitly-specified object is added to a collection using the object's distinguished name (DN), but the DN is converted to an object GUID during the first collection membership scan. As a result, moving such an object to another OU will changes its DN but will not actually remove the object from the collection.

• To test group membership synchronization between forests, make a few stub objects from another forest members of the group that you publish. You can use the Active Directory Users and Computers snap-in to do this.

• To test free/busy or calendar synchronization, be sure that test users have their free/busy or calendar information populated.

Monitoring

Verify that the stub user accounts are created in the proper location, and that users are published in the Exchange GAL. The stub objects for each collaboration partner are created in the dedicated OUs (within the OU specified during the setup).

You can monitor the stub objects as follows:

• Using the Active Directory Users and Computers MMC snap-in (you need to select the Advanced Features from the View menu to be able to view this OU).

Or

• Using Microsoft Outlook or Outlook Web Access to view their appearance in the GAL.

You can monitor the creation of free/busy and calendar information using Microsoft Outlook or Outlook Web Access.

You can also use Collaboration Services statistics and events to view the current state of the service and the synchronization status. The following Collaboration Services statistics sections will be most helpful when monitoring the initial synchronization:

• Publication shows overall information about all published collections, as well as detailed information for every collection.

• Subscription shows the overall information about all collections your forest is subscribed to, as well as detailed information for every collection.

• The Synchronization Partners shows the information on quotas; the time, result, and status of the transport service’s last operation; and detailed information for every synchronization partner, including its status.

Testing

Once the stub user accounts are created, the corresponding users appear in each Exchange

organization’s GAL. However, you cannot consider the test collection successfully published until you test the mail flow between the Exchange organizations.

To verify that users can collaborate, send a test message to a stub user created by Collaboration Services. Make sure the user in the other forest receives the email and is able to reply.

With the default synchronization settings, it may take up to half an hour for test objects or updates to be replicated to another forest. Use the "Synchronize Now" mode to reduce this time to a few minutes.

Emails coming from the other forest appear as if it were sent by a user in the same Exchange organization.

Verify that the calendar or free/busy information is applied and available to all users from both the current and other Exchange administrative groups.

Modify several properties of the test user accounts included in the collection and their calendar or free/busy information (if it was published), and make sure the changes are replicated to other forests. For example, you can add or change a description or a phone number.

If you have chosen to automatically resolve conflicts, pay particular attention to the following:

• The stub object created by Collaboration Services has the x.500 directory address of the initial conflicting object. This is to ensure that other users can reply to the old email messages from the user represented by this stub. Verify that you can answer an old email from such a user. • The stub object created by Collaboration Services is automatically included in the same groups

as the initial conflicting object. Verify group membership, and try sending an email to a group that includes such a user.

• Stub group objects created by Collaboration Services preserve membership of the original conflicting group objects. If you have included any groups in the collection, verify that the group membership is preserved.

• The attribute synchronization for objects you choose to use matching for is working as expected.