Applies to: Exchange Server 2010 SP3, Exchange Server 2010 SP2

Topic Last Modified: 2012-07-23

The Unified Messaging role enables administrators to manage Unified Messaging (UM) servers in an organization.

This role doesn't enable you to manage UM-specific mailbox configuration or UM prompts. To manage UM-specific mailbox configuration, use roles associated with the UM Mailboxes role. To manage UM prompts, use the roles associated with the UM Prompts role. For more information, see:

This management role is one of several built-in roles in the Role Based Access Control (RBAC) permissions model in Microsoft Exchange Server 2010. Management roles, which are assigned to one or more management role groups, management role assignment policies, users, or universal security groups (USG), act as a logical grouping of cmdlets or scripts that are combined to provide access to view or modify the configuration of Exchange 2010 components, such as mailboxes, transport rules, and recipients. If a cmdlet or script and its parameters, together called a management role entry, are included on a role, that cmdlet or script and its parameters can be run by those assigned the role. For more information about management roles and management role entries, see Understanding Management Roles.

For more information about management roles, management role groups, and other RBAC components, see Understanding Role Based Access Control.

Management Role Assignments

For this role to grant permissions, it must be assigned to a role assignee, which can be a role group, user, or universal security group (USG). This assignment is done using management role assignments. Role assignments link role assignees and roles together. If more than one role is assigned to a role assignee, the role assignee is granted the combination of all the permissions granted by all the assigned roles.

In addition to linking role assignees to roles, role assignments can also apply custom or built-in management scopes. Management scopes control which recipient, server and database objects can be modified by role assignees. If this role is assigned to a role assignee, but a management scope allows the role assignee only to manage certain objects based on a defined scope, the role assignee can only use the permissions granted by this role on those specific objects. The permissions provided by this role can't be applied to objects outside the scope defined on the role assignment. For more information about role assignments and scopes, see the following topics:

This role is assigned to one or more role groups by default. For more information, see the "Default Management Role Assignments" section later in this topic.

If you want to view a list of role groups, users, or USGs assigned to this role, use the following command.

Copy Code
Get-ManagementRoleAssignment -Role "<role name>"

Regular and Delegating Role Assignments

This role can be assigned to role assignees using either regular or delegating role assignments. Regular role assignments grant the permissions provided by the role to the role assignee. Delegating role assignments grant the role assignee the ability to assign the role to other role assignees. For more information about regular and delegating role assignments, see Understanding Management Role Assignments.

Adding or Removing Role Assignments

You can change which role assignees are assigned this role. By changing which role assignee is assigned this role, you change who is granted its permissions. You can assign this role to other built-in role groups, or you can create role groups and assign this role to them. You can also assign this role to users or USGs. However, we recommend that you limit assignment of roles to users and USGs because such assignments can greatly increase the complexity of your permissions model.

To assign this role to role assignees, the role must be assigned to a role group you're a member of, directly to you, or to a USG you're a member of, using a delegating role assignment. For more information about delegating role assignments, see the "Regular and Delegating Role Assignments" section.

You can also remove this role from built-in role groups, role groups you create, users, and USGs. However, there must always be at least one delegating role assignment between this role and a role group or USG. You can't delete the last delegating role assignment. This limitation helps prevent you from locking yourself out of the system.

Important:
There must be at least one delegating role assignment between this role and a role group or USG. You can't remove the last delegating role assignment associated with this role if the last assignment is to a user.

For more information about how to add or remove assignments between this role and role groups, users, and USGs, see the following topics:

Changing the Management Scopes on Role Assignments

You can also change the management scopes on existing role assignments between this role and role assignees. By changing the scopes on role assignments, you control what objects can be managed using the permissions provided by this role. You have several choices when changing the scope on a role assignment. You can do one of the following:

  • Add a new custom scope using the Set-ManagementRoleAssignment cmdlet. For more information, see the following topics:

  • Add or change an organizational unit scope using the Set-ManagementRoleAssignment cmdlet. For more information, see Change a Role Assignment.

  • Add or change a predefined scope using the Set-ManagementRoleAssignment cmdlet. For more information, see Change a Role Assignment.

  • Change the recipient, server, or database scope on a custom scope associated with a role assignment using the Set-ManagementScope cmdlet. For more information, see Change a Role Scope.

Enabling or Disabling Role Assignments

By enabling or disabling a role assignment, you control whether that role assignment should be in effect. If a role assignment is disabled, the permissions granted by the associated role aren't applied to the role assignee. This is convenient if you want to temporarily remove permissions without deleting a role assignment. For more information, see Change a Role Assignment.

Default Management Role Assignments

This role has role assignments to one or more role assignees. The following table indicates whether the role assignment is regular or delegating, and also indicates the management scopes applied to each assignment. The following list describes each column:

  • Regular assignment   Regular role assignments enable the role assignee to access the permissions provided by the management role entries on this role.

  • Delegating assignment   Delegating role assignments give the role assignee the ability to assign this role to role groups, users, or USGs.

  • Recipient read scope   The recipient read scope determines what recipient objects the role assignee is allowed to read from Active Directory.

  • Recipient write scope   The recipient write scope determines what recipient objects the role assignee is allowed to modify in Active Directory.

  • Configuration read scope   The configuration read scope determines what configuration and server objects the role assignee is allowed to read from Active Directory.

  • Configuration write scope   The configuration write scope determines what organizational and server objects the role assignee is allowed to modify in Active Directory.

Default management role assignments for this role

Role group Regular assignment Delegating assignment Recipient read scope Recipient write scope Configuration read scope Configuration write scope

Organization Management

X

X

Organization

Organization

OrganizationConfig

OrganizationConfig

UM Management

X

 

Organization

Organization

OrganizationConfig

OrganizationConfig

Management Role Customization

This role has been configured to provide a role assignee with all of the necessary cmdlets, and their parameters, to manage the features and components listed in the beginning of this topic. Other roles have also been provided to enable management of other features. By adding and removing roles to and from role groups, you can create a customized permissions model without the need to customize individual management roles. For a complete list of roles, see Built-in Management Roles. For more information about customizing role groups, see the following topics:

If you decide that you need to create a customized version of this role, you must create a role as a child of this role, and customize the new role.

Caution:
The following information enables you to perform advanced management of permissions. Customizing management roles can significantly increase the complexity of your permissions model. You could cause certain features to stop functioning if you replace a built-in management role with an incorrectly configured custom role.

The following are the most common steps to create a customized role and assign it to a role assignee:

  1. Create a copy of this role using the New-ManagementRole cmdlet. For more information, see Create a Role.

  2. Change or remove the role entries on the new role using the Set-ManagementRoleEntry and Remove-ManagementRoleEntry cmdlets. You can't add additional role entries to the new role because it can only contain the role entries on the parent built-in role. For more information, see the following topics:

  3. If you want to replace the built-in role with this new customized role, remove any role assignments associated with the built-in role using the Remove-ManagementRoleAssignment cmdlet. For more information, see the following topics:

  4. Add the new customized role to the required role assignees using the New-ManagementRoleAssignment cmdlet. For more information, see the following topics: