A feature that has been given a face lift in SP1 Beta control panel (ECP) is “Multi-mailbox search”. Though it is possible to search for keywords across all mailboxes in an organization in 2010 RTM, the feature has been improved with more options in SP1 Beta.
Let me explain based on my lab environment. First things first, even an administrator doesn’t have rights to perform a multi-mailbox search by default. The account has to be a member of “Discovery Management” group for the options to be visible in ECP. I have added the administrator account to the Discovery Management group.
This brings a new tab in ECP named “Discovery”.
Clicking the “New” button open a “New Mailbox Search” window. I will only highlight the new options available in SP1 Beta, as creating a search query is pretty easy.
Estimate search result: provides an estimate on the number of items in the result set before an email located in the search are copied to the designated discovery mailbox. This gives an idea regarding how big the search result will be and how much space the discovery mailbox will take.
Enable de-duplication: When this option is checked, it will only copy one instance of a message to the discovery mailbox. This can help you reduce the amount of email you need to review following the search.
