Easier reporting on Exchange Online archive mailbox usage

Mailbox usage information is readily available in the Mailbox Usage report in the general admin center. It should be noted that this report data, just like the data in the other usage reports, may be 2 days old. However, this report does not include Exchange Online Archive Mailbox statistics.

If you need or simply prefer fresher values, you can look up mailbox usage information for each user in the general Microsoft 365 Admin Center and in the Exchange Online Admin Center. You should be aware that usage values and ratios are displayed differently depending on where you look. In the general admin center, the usage ratio is based on total available space (100 GB in the image below) which is labeled as ‘Prohibit Send/Receive Quota (Byte)’ in the Mailbox Usage report (shown in the previous image). While in the Exchange Online admin center, the usage ratio is based on the ‘Prohibit Send Quota (Byte)’ (99 GB in the image below). (not sure of the difference?)

You’ll also find information about the space available in Archive Mailboxes in the Exchange admin center. Just like for the usage information of a regular mailbox, you must select one user at a time and click through to it via the ‘Other’ section.

Manually aggregating all this information into a report is not only tedious and ineffective but it can also introduce errors into the report. Just like for most large-scale Microsoft 365 reporting challenges, admins turn to PowerShell as a solution.

The commonly used cmdlet Get-Mailbox can be used to retrieve quota limits for both the regular mailbox and the Exchange Online Archive Mailbox.

For example, the following retrieves the maximum storage for each regular mailbox (ProhibitSendReceiveQuota), and the maximum allowed for the Archive Mailbox (ArchiveQuota).

Get-Mailbox | Select DisplayName, ProhibitSendQuota, ProhibitSendReceiveQuota,ArchiveQuota

To retrieve information about how much space in an Exchange Online Archive Mailbox is currently used (TotalItemSize), you can use the PowerShell cmdlet Get-MailboxStatistics to query a single mailbox. You must specify that you want it for ‘Archive’.

Get-MailboxStatistics -Identity adelev -Archive | Select DisplayName, TotalItemSize

You then simply remove ‘Archive’ to get the storage used for the regular mailbox.

All the data you need for your report is available via PowerShell but collating it into a single report requires strong PowerShell scripting skill.

So why not try the alternative, sapio365. It will save you precious time and there is no scripting required!

sapio365 is a third-party software tool that enables IT admins to perform daily tasks without using PowerShell, saving a lot of time and effort. One of the key benefits of sapio365 is that it gives you a full visibility of all your users in one place, without pagination issues or having to wait until more data loads. With this extensive view, you can drill down into the details you need then filter, sort and organize the information using the many user properties that sapio365 offers. With sapio365, you can preview all your modifications before you make any permanent changes.

What’s more, sapio365 leverages automation in all of its features. This powerful admin tool allows you to save your pre-configured views for the next time you need to run the same report or schedule the report to run however often you want, saving you lots of precious time. You can even have the report emailed directly to your inbox.

With these features in mind, let’s look at how easy it is to create a customized report on regular and Exchange Online archive mailbox storage information using sapio365.

Usage reports in sapio365 consist of the same data as the usage reports in the Microsoft Office 365 admin center. However, in sapio365, you can combine several reports together, add extra properties and even schedule them to run recurrently.

It’s easy to create a mailbox usage report in sapio365 that also includes information about Exchange Online Archive Mailboxes, because you can choose to add user properties like Archive Mailbox limit and used space to any usage report before you create it.

With just a few clicks, you get a customizable report that you can organize the way you want and then have it automatically emailed to whomever you want.

You can further customize your report by hiding unnecessary columns, moving them around, sorting, grouping or applying filters. The image below shows the removal of the ‘Item Count’ column, and the ability to change the number filter that was applied in the original view before saving it as a new view.

Once you’ve created your custom view, you can send an email with the report attached or you can schedule it for later. You can also save the total Usage Report configuration for later. This includes the types of usage reports you want to combine, the cache information you want to add, the view you want to apply and the data time range.

Microsoft native tools can always be used to report on Exchange Online archive mailbox usage but it takes time and patience. While PowerShell is also an option, good coding skills are required to make sure the scripts function as intended and no errors are introduced. Third-party solutions like sapio365 represent a faster, easier and safer way to accomplish many of the common IT tasks facing admins. You can read about other types of mailbox reporting here. Why not discover all the other common IT tasks that sapio365 can handle and see how many hours you can save every day.

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