Automatic Discovery of Alternate Mailboxes

An electronic computing device comprising:

• a processing unit;
• a network interface that enables the electronic computing device to communicate via an electronic communications network with a client system;
• and
• a computer-readable data storage system that stores instructions that, when executed by the processing unit, cause the processing unit to:
• automatically receive, from the client system via the electronic communications network, an autodiscover request that instructs the electronic computing device to provide to the client system an autodiscover response document conforming to a schema;
• and
• automatically send, to the client system from the electronic computing device via the electronic communications network, an autodiscover response responsive to the autodiscover request, the autodiscover response containing the autodiscover response document, the autodiscover response document comprising:
• a first set of mailbox identification data that identifies a primary mailbox associated with a user, thereby enabling the client system to access message objects in the primary mailbox, and
• an alternate mailbox element that contains a second set of mailbox identification data that identifies an alternate mailbox associated with the user, thereby enabling the client system to access message objects in the alternate mailbox, the alternate mailbox being a peer of the primary mailbox.

A computer-readable data storage medium comprising instructions that, when executed by a processing unit of an electronic computing device, cause the processing unit to:

• automatically receive, from a client system via an electronic communications network, an autodiscover request that instructs the electronic computing device to provide to the client system an autodiscover response document conforming to a schema, the autodiscover request identifying a primary mailbox;
• automatically retrieve, in response to receiving the autodiscover request, a remote profile of a user associated with the primary mailbox from a Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) directory server that stores administrator-managed remote profiles of registered users of a messaging system;
• automatically use the remote profile of the user associated with the primary mailbox to determine whether a user of the client system is allowed to access the primary mailbox;
• automatically send, when the user of the client system is not allowed to access the primary mailbox, an error response via the electronic communications network to the client system;
• automatically generate, when the user of the client system is allowed to access the primary mailbox, a first set of mailbox identification data using the remote profile, the first set of mailbox identification data specifying a first extensible markup language (XML) element that specifies a first legacy distinguished name that identifies the primary mailbox, a second XML element that specifies a first mailbox database distinguished name that identifies a mailbox database that stores the primary mailbox, a third XML element that specifies a first mailbox server name that identifies a mailbox server that provides access to the mailbox database identified by the first mailbox database distinguished name, and a fourth XML element that specifies a first server distinguished name that identifies a computing device at which the mailbox server identified by the first mailbox server name operates;
• automatically generate, when the user of the client system is allowed to access the primary mailbox, a second set of mailbox identification data using the remote profile of the user, the second set of mailbox identification data specifying a fifth XML element that specifies a second legacy distinguished name that identifies an archive mailbox, a sixth XML element that specifies a second mailbox database distinguished name that identifies a mailbox database that stores the archive mailbox, a seventh XML element that specifies a second mailbox server name that identifies a mailbox server that provides access to the mailbox database identified by the second mailbox database distinguished name, and an eighth XML element that specifies a second server distinguished name that identifies a computing device at which the mailbox server identified by the second mailbox server name operates;
• automatically send, to the client system via the electronic communications network, an autodiscover response responsive to the autodiscover request, the autodiscover response containing an autodiscover response document that is formatted as an XML document, the autodiscover response document comprising the first XML element, the second XML element, the third XML element, the fourth XML element, the fifth XML element, the sixth XML element, the seventh XML element, and the eighth XML element;
• receive, from the client system after the autodiscover response is sent to the client system, a first request to access email message objects in the primary mailbox;
• and
• receive, from the client system after the autodiscover response is sent to the client system, a second request to access email message objects in the archive mailbox.