Export discrepancies

[philrodo]

Here's an interesting question. I have a case where Intella tells me it contains some 300,000+ items (several PSTs and OSTs from the same custodian were added to this case). So I select all the items and de-dupe them. Intella reports that there are 109,000+ unique items. 

 

So I select all the unique items and I export them to one PST file. Intella exports 107,000 items (it reported a few errors but no more than 10 or 20 errors).

 

So the question is, what happened to the 2,000 or so files that were not exported? If there are 109,000+ unique items, shouldn't I expect that Intella would export a similar number, minus any items that generated errors? 

 

Sometimes I feel like I'm dealing with black magic... <sad smile> 

[AdamS]

embedded items perhaps?

 

If you have a power point presentation with 20 pictures I imagine Intella will identify that as 21 unique items, but when it comes time to export it only needs to export 1 item to encompass them all...?

 

Not sure if that's the way it works but it could be something like that.

[Chris]

When you try to export a file to a PST, Intella will export the parent mail/meeting request/contact/... instead, unless you modify the default export settings. See the "PST options" section of the user manual for more information.

 

Any items that cannot be exported are always listed at the end of the export report, together with an error message.

[philrodo]

Thanks for the replies, but the numbers still do NOT make sense. Here's a countdown (the default export to PST settings were used):

 

1. Total items in dataset: 300,000+

2. Unique items in dataset: 109,000+

3. Exported items (all unique items selected): 107,000+

4. Total Communications in Type Facet: 62,000+

5. Total Scheduling in Type Facet: 3,000+

6. No tasks or notes reported in Type Facets

7. Reported Export Errors: 10 or 20 (I don't recall the exact number, as shown upon conclusion of export)

8. Reported Export Errors in export report: 900+

 

So if we assume that the difference is being caused because Intella counts all items exported from the dataset, the 2,000 item difference between items No. 2 and No. 3 above, doesn't make sense. As far as unique Outlook items go (e.g., emails, contacts, tasks, calendar and notes), the total exported should be about 65,000+ (i.e., the total between items No. 4 and No. 5 above). 

 

But worse, when I export all the 109,000+ items of which Intella reports there ought to be 62,000+ (emails/contacts) and 3,000 (scheduling) for a total of 65,000+, Intella only exports 38,000+ items as counted by Outlook (when exporting everything into the same folder). OK I understand that by dumping all items into one folder, I'm excluding folders which are counted by Intella, but these only comprise of about 2,000+ items, so we're only up to about 40,000+ Outlook items. Whereas Intella says I should be getting some 62,000+ in emails alone. 

 

Sure wish we got more explicit reports of exactly what takes place during export. For example table that gave all the relevant stats of what was exported would be a great start and how individual items relate to emails, calendars, etc. as counted by Outlook. The CSV, HTML, & PDF export reports report various items as counted by Intella but there is no way to match these to the items that are exported to the PST as seen by Outlook. 

 

Furthermore, when saving the export report to CSV, long email lists are not delimited property and mess up the CSV import into Excel, (e.g., two or three rows of emails show up under an export record). 

 

Bottom line is that I never feel comfortable with what Intella is exporting because when exporting large items counts, there is no way to easily verify the output. Am I missing something or are we to assume that everything works as designed and not worry about the validity of the exported counts? 

[Chris]

Hello Philip,

 

An email data set usually contains a fair amount of forwarded messages, added as an attachment to their parent mail. These forwarded messages are counted as separate items in the Intella case. When you export all items to a PST with the default PST export settings, the forwarded mail will be replaced by its parent. As the parent is already in the set of items to export, it will not be added twice. Therefore Intella will report two exported emails, whereas Outlook at first glance only shows you one - you need to open the parent mail to see the attached forwarded mail.

 

The same applies for all items nested in any attachments, which is why the unique item count can still be a lot larger than the number of messages visible in Outlook.

[philrodo]

Thanks, that makes some sense. However, I still think that my point is valid. That is there is no way of knowing exactly what was exported and how it relates to the items that are stored in the PST. We really need to be able to correlate the items exported as counted by Intella to the items found in the PST. Right now, I don't know of a way to do that and I don't believe it's possible. 

 

Also, the fact that we're talking about a 20,000+ difference in emails (i.e., emails as reported by Intella in the Communications Type facet) and the total emails and other items exported to the PST, I'm having a hard time assuming that some 20,000+ items involve forwarded messages. 

 

In other words, we have to assume that everything Intella does when exporting various items is done correctly, with no independent means of verifying what it did. Am I missing something?