What's new in Adaxes 2019.1

This release introduces the much awaited support for SAML-based single sign-on, adds a bunch of new features for Exchange, extends the automation capabilities of Adaxes and includes a long list of usability enhancements for the Web Interface.

Here's more about what's new in Adaxes 2019.1.

Single sign-on with SAML

By using SAML authentication you can integrate Adaxes with your corporate identity provider to enable single sign-on for the Web Interface. SAML-based authentication allows users to sign in with the same authentication mechanisms that you use within the rest of your organization.

Adaxes can communicate with any identity provider that supports SAML 2.0, including Okta, OneLogin, Auth0, Microsoft Entra ID, Duo, ADFS and others.

Learn how to enable SAML-based single sign-on  

Exchange

Exchange management and automation was one of the core areas we focused on for this release. We have added support for new mailbox types, enhanced the management of permissions in Exchange, improved mailbox provisioning and deprovisioning, introduced many other new features and enhancements.

Room and equipment mailboxes

The new version adds support for room and equipment resource mailboxes. For example, using Web Interface and Administration Console it is now possible to view or change how a room mailbox handles meeting requests, who can accept or decline booking requests, when the room can be scheduled, how long it can be reserved, etc.

Using Business Rules and Scheduled Tasks you can automate the management of resource mailboxes, and with the help of Custom Commands you can create a simplified user interface to let users quickly and easily perform complex operations on them with just a few mouse clicks.

With Adaxes you can manage room and equipment mailboxes in both on-premises Exchange and Office 365 (Exchange Online).

Shared mailboxes

We've added the ability to convert user mailboxes into shared mailboxes, and shared mailboxes into user mailboxes. The operations can be performed from the Web Interface and Administration Console.

It is also possible to convert mailboxes automatically using Business Rules, Scheduled Tasks and Custom Commands. For example, you can add the Convert to shared mailbox action to the list of the offboarding procedures executed by the Deprovision command. It can be especially useful when a mailbox is hosted in Office 365 and you want to have it available after all the Office 365 licenses have been removed from the user.

To simplify the management of shared mailbox permissions, we have added the Mailbox Members section where you can view and modify the list of users who can access the shared mailbox.

Linked mailboxes

The new version fundamentally changes the way you work with linked mailboxes in Exchange. You no longer need to manage master user accounts and the mailboxes they are linked to separately. Now, if a user account has a linked mailbox, all the Exchange properties and operations are available for the user account, as if it had a regular mailbox.

Also, now you can create linked Exchange mailboxes automatically from within Business Rules, Custom Commands and Scheduled Tasks. For example, you can create a linked mailbox as a part of the user provisioning process in a Business Rule triggered after user account creation in Active Directory.

Out-of-office replies

Changes applied to the Out-of-Office feature include three additional options available while configuring automatic replies for a user:

• Block the calendar for this period
• Automatically decline new invitations for this period
• Cancel all meetings during this period

The new options are supported by Exchange 2019 and Office 365 (Exchange Online) only.

Cancel meetings organized by a user

Adaxes now allows you to cancel future meetings organized by a user in room, equipment and regular mailboxes. For example, when a user leaves the organization, you can remove all the meetings organized by the user as a part of the deprovisioning process.

The feature is supported for Exchange 2019 and Office 365 (Exchange Online) only.

Calendar permissions

We've also added the ability to set calendar permissions for users in Exchange and Office 365. It can be done both manually via user interface and automatically via Business Rules, Scheduled Tasks and Custom Commands.

The latter option enables you to, for example, automatically grant the Delegate permission to the user's manager as a part of the deprovisioning process.

Mobile devices

Now, using Adaxes you can manage the mobile devices that are used to access Exchange mailboxes in your on-premises Exchange and in Office 365.

Mailbox auto-mapping

Now you can enable or disable the mailbox auto-mapping feature for users who have Full Access permissions to a mailbox. When auto-mapping is enabled for a mailbox, Outlook automatically opens it in addition to the user's own mailbox.

Inherited Full Access permissions

Now you can configure the Full Access section not to display the users and groups with the full control permissions granted at the mailbox database level. By default, such permissions are granted to Exchange system groups, like Exchange Servers and Exchange Trusted Subsystem.

Exchange tasks visibility

It is now possible to configure the visibility of each Exchange operation individually. For example, now you can remove the Exchange properties operation from an object view, if the view contains the Exchange Properties section.

Exchange properties configuration

Now you can configure what to display in the Exchange Properties section separately for each recipient type. For example, you can leave the Alias field for user mailboxes and hide it for groups and contacts.

Exchange properties load time

We've significantly decreased the time it takes to load Exchange properties in the user interface. Now data is loaded four times faster!

Web Interface

In the new version we have added a bunch of new features and improvements to make the Web Interface even better and more user-friendly. Here are the main highlights.

Dialogs

We've redesigned the majority of dialogs in the Web Interface to make them more convenient to use. Now the dialogs occupy the entire height of the screen, which is especially handy when working with long forms and lists.

Members, Member Of and Child Objects

We have increased the default height of the Members, Member Of and Child Objects sections and added the ability to resize them. Also, now it is possible to group items and add columns to the sections.

Resizable left pane

We have made the left pane and sliding bars in the Web Interface resizable. This capability can especially be useful for those users who have Custom Commands and actions with long names.

Quick search history

The Quick Search bar in the Web Interface and Administration Console now has search history that pops up every time you set focus to the search box. It allows you to navigate to the objects that you have searched previously in just a few mouse clicks.

Also, now you can open search results in a new browser tab.

Grouping, sorting and columns

Now you can configure which columns to display and how to sort and group objects by default in various Web Interface components. For example, you can configure the Members section to display by default the Department column and to group objects displayed in the section by their name.

Objects displayed in the Members and Member Of sections are now sorted by name by default.

Mouseover popups

Now, users can switch what to display in the mousover popups - object path or object description.

Also, we've added the ability to configure what information to display in the popups individually for each object type, and now you have the option to disable the feature completely or only for specific types of AD objects.

Quick Select and Quick Filter

Adaxes Web Interface allows users to quickly select and filter objects in lists with the help of the predefined filtering options available from the Select and View menus. In the new version you can configure which options are visible to users, change their order and specify which ones you want to be hidden under the More menu.

Updating user pictures

Now it is possible to modify user pictures right from object views, without the need to switch to the Edit mode.

Password change configuration

For the Change Password operation you can now specify how to generate the new password, disallow users to modify the password generated by default and configure whether the Generate, Spell Out and View Password Policy actions are available to the user.

Access control

Using the Deny access for all users option you can now completely disable access to a Web Interface. It can be useful if you have a Web Interface available from the outside that is used for password self-service only. With this option enabled, users will not be able to sign in to the Web Interface and at the same time it can be used for password self-reset.

Access to Web Interface Configurator is now allowed only to users who have the permissions to modify the configuration of the Web Interface.

Action copying

We have added the ability to copy actions in the Web Interface Configurator.

Automation

The new version gives you the ability to automatically create Active Directory objects, introduces three new conditions and enhances the Enable for Skype for Business action for automated workflows.

Active Directory object creation

Using the Create an Active Directory object action you can now create AD objects from within Business Rules, Custom Commands and Scheduled Tasks.

For more details, see Create multiple AD objects in one operation  

New conditions

In the new version we have added the following three conditions:

• If <object> exists
• If the object is <specific object>
• If the object belongs to <Business Unit>

Skype for Business policies

We've added the ability to assign the Dial plan and Voice policies when enabling users for Skype for Business.

And more

• Using the Multi-Server Environment dialog it is now possible to view all Adaxes services that share common configuration.

  
• Enhanced operation descriptions in approval notification emails.
• Added the ability to copy parameters between Reports and Custom Commands in Administration Console.
• All the options selected in the Export Report wizard are now persisted.
• Now you can use the $Context.GetDomainController method in PowerShell scripts to get the domain controller the Adaxes service is currently connected to.
• Added new icons for Custom Commands and Web Interface actions.
• Enhanced the way Custom Commands are selected in Web Interface Configurator.
• Dropped the support for the German language in Administration Console.
• Enhanced the support for the French language in Web Interface.

Update 1

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This update brings multiple bug fixes and stability improvements.

• Enhanced the way we determine which operations to show in the Web Interface based on the permissions of the logged in user.
• Fixed the No such host is known error that occurred during Adaxes installation when DNS reverse lookup was not configured.
• Now, the Exchange Properties menu item is available in Administration Console when multiple linked mailboxes are selected.
• Fixed the Value cannot be null error that occurred when a Business Unit with a Query Results rule was used in a scope of assignment.
• Fixed the The signing algorithm is weaker than the minimum accepted algorithm error that occurred if Adaxes Service was running on a computer with Microsoft .NET version less than 4.6.2.
• Improved stability and performance.

Update 2

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• Fixed the <server> is not operational error that occurred when moving mailboxes.
• Now it is possible to add two If <parameter> <value> conditions with identical arguments to one set of actions.

Update 3

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• Fixed the issue with execution of Custom Commands that require approval.
• Fixed the Access is denied error that occurred while creating a new Web Interface configuration.
• Fixed the issue with stopping the Adaxes service when a managed AD domain is not available.
• Fixed occasional crashes of Administration Console when editing Exchange properties via the Properties pane.
• Added the $Context.IsApprovalRequiredException and $Context.LogException methods to simplify exception handling in PowerShell scripts executed by Adaxes.

Update 4

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Fixed the vulnerability that resulted from special characters not being escaped when value references are resolved. For example, the vulnerability made it possible to inject PowerShell scripts in custom command parameter input fields if value references were used to get the parameter values.

Update 5

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This update extends the previous security update and addresses the same vulnerability. The previous fix can be bypassed, which was discovered recently. As a result, we've reinforced the fix by escaping all possible double quote characters ("„“”) when value references are resolved.