Email Configuration - Workflow notification

Email Configuration - Workflow Notification:

Many clients ask for Email notification through a workflow or alerts, as managers or HOD’s or CFO’s only require to have the authority for approval or to verify the transaction which is performed by the end-user.

From this blog you can be able to configure Email functionality in Microsoft Dynamics AX and receive notification email via workflow.

Following diagram show the steps in the process for configuring the email functionality in Microsoft Dynamics AX.

1.   Set up SMTP & Configure mail Server

          To install SMTP Server, follow the below steps:

• Goto Start > Administrative Tools > Server Manager.
• In the Features Summary area, click Add Features. 

• The Select Features page is displayed. Click the SMTP Server check box.

• A window is displayed that asks whether you want to add role services and features for the SMTP server. Click Add Required Role Services.
• The Select Features page is redisplayed. Click Next.
• The Web Server (IIS) page is displayed. Click Next.
• The Select Role Services page is displayed. Click Next.
• The Confirm Installation Services page is displayed. Click Install

          To Configure SMTP Server, follow the below steps:

• Click on Start button and goto Administrative Tools.
• Click Internet Information Services (IIS) 6.0 Manager to open IIS Manager.
• In the left pane, select the name of your server.
• In the right pane, right-click [Your SMTP Server] and then click Properties.
• The [Your SMTP Server] Properties window is displayed. Click the Access tab.
• Click the Authentication button.

• The Authentication window is displayed. Select the Integrated Windows Authentication check box. Click OK.

• The Access tab is redisplayed. Click the Relay button.

• The Relay Restrictions window is displayed. Select the Allow all computers which successfully authenticate to relay, regardless of the list above check box. Click OK.

• The [Your SMTP Server] Properties window is redisplayed. Click OK to close the window.

Build Connection between Microsoft Dynamics AX and SMTP Server

• Open the Microsoft Dynamics AX client.
• Goto System administration > Setup > System > E-mail parameters.

• In the Outgoing mail server field, enter the name of the computer on which you installed the SMTP server.
• In the Local computer name field, enter the name of the local computer.
• In the SMTP port number field, enter the port number to use with SMTP. The default port number is 25.
• If the SMTP server requires authentication, enter a valid username and password.
• Select the Use NTLM check box.
• In the Attachment size limit (MB) field, enter a size limit for email attachments.
• The maxbuffersize registry key also limits the acceptable size for email attachments. If the size that you enter in this field exceeds the maximum buffer size, the maximum buffer size limit will apply.
• In the Allow embedded data and attached files from field, enter or browse to the location where email attachments or other embedded data in an email is stored.

2.  Enter Email Address of each user:

•       Click System administration > Common > Users > Users.
•       Select a user.
•       Click Options.

•       In the E-mail field, enter the email address of the selected user.

•       In the left pane, click on notification.
•       In the right pane, select the checkbox of send notification in email.

•       Click close.

3.  Batch processing:

            Batch processing is used to send email messages that are generated from Microsoft Dynamics AX.               We can create new batch for email messages or can use the existing batch. Following are the step to             create batch job:

• Click System administration > Setup > Batch group.
• Click New to create a new batch group.
• In the Group field, enter a unique name for the batch group. For example, enter Email.
• In the Description field, enter a description to help you identify the batch group.

• Click the Batch servers tab.
• The Selected servers list displays the AOS instances that the batch group runs on. The Remaining servers list displays the remaining AOS instances that are available as batch servers.
• Use the arrow buttons to add servers to the Selected servers list or to remove servers from the Selected servers list

To configure the email distributor, we need to run batch job:

• Click System administration > Periodic > E-mail processing > Batch.
• Select the Batch processing check box.
• In the Task description field, enter a description for this batch job.
  

• In the Batch group list, select the batch group that you created in the previous procedure.
• Select the Private check box if you want to restrict other users from running this batch job. A private batch job can be run only by the user who specified it and only on the computer where the user is logged on.
• Click Recurrence to specify how often this batch job will run.

• Click Alerts to send notifications when this batch job ends, has an error, or is canceled

4.  Configure Email settings for specific features:

     Microsoft offers 3 different options to receive an email, which are:

• Workflow – notification email
• Alert rule – Alert Email Message
• Retail – email Receipt

      Today I will explain Workflow – notification email.

      To send an email via workflow notification, we need to define email templates, to do so follow the below        steps:

• Click area Organization administration> Setup> Email templates

• Create new email template (Ctrl + N), enter email description, select language, sender name, and sender email.
• In the lower pane, create new line (Ctrl + N), select language, enter subject, and layout (HTML, or XSLT) here I will use HTML
• Click on e-mail message button
• Email editor form will pop up here you can enter the message that will appear to the user, it could be HTML code in order to enter hyperlinks in the message body.

Configure Workflow as per email notification:

• Goto Procurement and sourcing> Setup> Procurement and sourcing workflows
• Select any workflow, like Automatic purchase requisition approval

• Click on blank screen and then click on basic settings
• Select/Define the email template which we have configured earlier.

• Close/save and activate it.

5.  Verifying email messages:

     Microsoft allows you to check/monitor the email message that has been sent or its still in waiting via            “status”.

• Click System administration > Periodic > E-mail processing > E-mail sending status.

• If you want the form to list all email messages—including the ones that have been sent successfully—select the Also show sent e-mails check box.
• View the status of each email message in the Status column.
• When a message has been sent, its status is Sent.
• When a message is waiting to be sent, its status is Waiting.
• The Waiting status is followed by a number "n" in parentheses, such as 1. This number indicates the number of attempts made to send the email message. The number cannot be more than the number of retry attempts specified in the retry schedule. (For more information about the retry schedule, see the following section.)
• When a message wasn't sent successfully—and no retry attempts are scheduled—its status is Failed.
• If you’d like to try to resend this message, click Restart send. The retry schedule will be followed when attempting to send this message.

       That's it for today. Thank you for your time. Stay tune for more blogs..!!