How to add special characters to Data Source paths for iManage and Exchange.
Introduction
ActiveNav Cloud uses \ (backward slash), / (forward slash) and % (percent) to parse repository Data Source and Business Unit paths. For example: \\ks-nas01\finance\accounts is a path for a Windows File Share container. The backward slashes are used by ActiveNav Cloud as delimiters between the elements that define the path structure and hierarchy. Forward slashes are used for URL paths, for example SharePoint Online sites. Using slashes as delimiters is common for hierarchical repositories and helps users to understand and define the location of objects stored in the repository.
However, ActiveNav Cloud supports two repositories that allow special characters in container names. Both iManage Work and Exchange allow users to create containers with these three special characters as part of the container name. When Collectors encounter backward and forward slashes in a path these characters are interpreted as delimiters in the path. The Collector is then unable to access the location correctly.
Affected Repositories
iManage Work
Client IDs may contain backward and forward slashes. A Client ID might be stored as Peterson\Johnson. The Data Source or Business Unit path to that client would look something like:
work.prestteam.com/library/Peterson\Johnson
The forward slash would be interpreted incorrectly by the iManage Work Collector as a path delimiter, setting the Client ID as Peterson and the Matter ID as Johnson.
Exchange
User mailboxes are allowed to contain folders with special characters as well. For example, an ActiveNav Cloud path to a folder called Actions/ToDo would be defined as:
exchange/Maxine.Steele@prestteam.com/Actions/ToDo
The Exchange Collector would interpret this path as a folder called Actions with a sub-folder called ToDo.
Escaping Characters
To avoid this problem, ActiveNav Cloud requires backward and forward slashes to be escaped with URL encoding. This means replacing these single characters with a code. The code contains a % (percent) followed by two letters or numbers. Because this encoding scheme relies on % (percent), ActiveNav Cloud requires that this character (%) also be escaped with URL encoding.
- \ (backward slash): %5c
- work.prestteam.com/library/Peterson\Johnson
- work.prestteam.com/library/Peterson%5cJohnson
- / (forward slash): %2f
- exchange/Maxine.Steele@prestteam.com/Actions/ToDo
- exchange/Maxine.Steele@prestteam.com/Actions%2fToDo
- % (percent): %25
- exchange/Maxine.Steele@prestteam.com/10% Advantage
- exchange/Maxine.Steele@prestteam.com/10%25 Advantage