Error 80040154 when PST migration using GAMME and Outlook 2013

Hi guys! It's been a while since I posted something I encountered or stumbled upon that can help anyone... so here it goes.

Prelude...

I recently got a stint to migrate a client of mine to Google Apps for Work. Their old email set-up was relatively simple, and they asked me to migrate their old email data that was stored in their desktop-installed Outlook 2013 client. Although they're using a 64-bit Windows 7, I'm not quite sure if it was also a 64bit Office 2013 that was installed as they're the ones who did it. Once I exported their data with the "export to file/PST" function of Outlook 2013, I was about to make my move.

What I initially did...

I used one of their workstations (that already has Outlook 2013) and installed GAMME (ver. 5.0.25 to this writing) to be my migration staging area. I then followed and executed the necessary pre-requisites (API and json token permission and service certs). Once I was ready and prepared the userlist file and PST folder structure, I proceeded to start-estimate-migrate using the GAMME tool.

Everything went well initially and passed the testing and estimation. Once I reached the migration part, all the user accounts failed to migrate, with an "Error 80040154" kept showing up for each user.

What wrong?

Initially I thought it was the network but I was easily able to rule that out after some cable management and connected directly to our broadband modem/internet. I also checked if the Outlook 2013 was up-to-date, which apparently it was. I tried and looked for quite a long time across various support materials, forums and How-To manuals of Google for the GAMME tool but to no luck or even a mention of that particular error code.

It led me to conclude that the culprit might be the Outlook 2013 itself as I already had experience in the past that the migration tools Google provides only behaves correctly on legacy (or not a recent release) Microsoft products. Despite the GAMME website saying it supports Outlook 2013, it's not the first time I didn't believe in Google as they have a reputation on not properly maintaining any support/admin tools nor keeping their documentations up-to-date.

My Solution

I used a different workstation without the Outlook 2013 installation and then installed an Outlook 2007 (32bit) and downloaded the Office 2007 SP3 standalone patch since the GAMME tools requires Outlook 2007 SP2 at minimum. Once that's done, I installed again the GAMME tool and made the necessary set-up requirements... then it now works.

Hope I'm able to help anyone out there who might face (or currently in) this same dilemma. Cheers!

GAM: basic scripting for Google Apps Admins

Hi everyone! It has been a while since I posted something useful in this blog site of mine...

I'm currently kept busy by one of my on-the-side projects recently, in particular deploying Google Apps for Education. One thing that I noticed is a need by some admins to automate some bulk task in managing and keeping up-to-date user accounts management in their respective domains. Since time is usually at the essence, and also a luxury, for most IT administrators... they don't have too much time to develop their own robust apps to deal with this kind of work.

One solution that I suggest that you guys can try out is using something called the "Google Apps Manager" (or GAM). It similarly works like the provisioning API of Google Apps but already ready for CLI usage (in my case, it works like a charm in linux).

To sum what GAM is, it is a python based library/command that you can use to connect to your Google Apps Admin Console and make the necessary administrative or user management work. Now the good thing with this is if you combine this with some basic scripting magic, you can now automate some bulk tasks like massive user creation or moving a huge amount of people to a mailing list.

For more info or to check what the Google Apps Manager can really do, check this link out.

O&B is now an Authorized Google Apps Reseller Partner

Google has formally recognized and authorized Orange and Bronze Software Labs to be its Google Apps Reseller Partner here in the Philippines this May 2010.

This has been in progress since the Q4 of 2009, when Google has been starting to penetrate the market of hosted mail services, particularly here in the Asia-Pacific region. It targets companies who are looking into alternatives on upgrading their current Microsoft Exchange or Lotus Notes (with Exchange 2010 just officially released on Nov. 2009) and following a growing trend where companies are outsourcing some IT-related services that they use.

In a nutshell, Google Apps Premier Edition is Google's business solution for communication and collaboration for the corporate setting. Quoting a portion from the Google Apps Official website, "Google's web-based messaging and collaboration apps require no hardware or software and need minimal administration, creating tremendous time and cost savings for businesses.", which is basically it's main selling point... reduced cost but still a powerful tool for your business. To know more about Google Apps Premier Edition, visit the product's homepage.

For those interested, most especially companies here in the Philippines, do not hesitate to forward your questions or inquiries to this email address. If you wish to know more information about Orange and Bronze and other services that are offered, visit their website.