This topic is contained in the PDXpert help file: select Contents from the application's Help menu.

Email management

Open the window by selecting Tools | Email Management...

Settings tab

To send a workflow notice, the PDXpert Application Server uses the email account on this window.

To receive a workflow notice, each recipient must have a valid email address entered into the Persons member record.

The email account setup and queue can be managed by anyone with administrator permissions.

If user activities create notifications before your email account is entered here, the queue may contain unsent emails. Before configuring the email notification account, review the Queue list and delete any obsolete notifications.

1. Create a new email account for your notifications, such as PDXpert.PLM@MyCompany.com or possibly use a third-party email service like PDXpert.MyCompany@gmail.com.

   Ensure that the email account can forward all outbound notifications. SMTP servers may place restrictions on the number of emails that can be forwarded. Ensure that emails passing through the account do not fill up the account storage and prevent new emails from being forwarded.

   To help recipients manage their email notices, use a dedicated email account rather than use a personal email account. However, for testing purposes, you can click the Import Local Settings button: your local email account will be copied, and then you enter your account password.

   PDXpert does not handle any inbound email traffic, and will not directly respond to replies by email recipients. Consider adding an auto-responder message on the account. A "forwarding only" account can be used, but you'll not be able to receive test confirmations at the end of this setup process.

2. On the Settings tab, enter the email address into the Email address for sending notifications textbox.

3. Click the Auto Configure button. You'll be prompted to provide the account password, after which the PDXpert Application Server tries several typical settings for sending email notifications. If useful settings are discovered, a test email will be sent from PDXpert to your email account, using your email server and account credentials.

4. If the email account settings cannot be discovered automatically, you must manually enter the appropriate email account values. You should first specify the Outgoing mail server (SMTP) of your outbound email (SMTP) server. An SMTP server DNS name looks like a normal Internet URL, often with a sub-domain prefix, such as mail.mycompany.com or smtp.gmail.com, or an IP address which is four numbers, like 64.233.161.107.

   1. You can obtain the SMTP server name from your IT administrator, or look in your email client (such as Microsoft Outlook) for the server you currently use.

   2. If the PDXpert Application Server is installed on a computer that has a local Windows SMTP server enabled, you can use the value of localhost.

   3. You can enter the IP address of your Microsoft Exchange server. If you don't know the Exchange server's IP address, but you do know its machine name, you can determine its IP address by "pinging" it from the Windows command line: Start > Run..., and then type ping servername where you substitute your Exchange server's computer name for servername (for example, ping msexchange or ping mailserver). The screen shows the IP address for that server in the first line, between the square brackets. In the following example, the IP address of myserver is 192.168.1.105:

   Microsoft Windows [Version 6.1.7601]

   Copyright (c) 2009 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

    

   C:\>ping myserver

    

   Pinging myserver [192.168.1.105] with 32 bytes of data:

   Reply from 192.168.1.105: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=128

   Reply from 192.168.1.105: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=128

   Reply from 192.168.1.105: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=128

   Reply from 192.168.1.105: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=128

    

   Ping statistics for 192.168.1.105:

      Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),

   Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:

      Minimum = 0ms, Maximum = 0ms, Average = 0ms

5. If your outbound email server does not use the default port 25, enter the preferred Port number.

6. If your email server requires an encrypted connection, mark the Use SSL for encrypted connection checkbox.

7. Specify the account Name for the email account that will be used to send notifications to PDXpert users.

8. Enter the account Password for the email account name provided in the Name textbox, and re-type it in the Confirm password textbox.

9. Click on the Test Settings button. An email notification will be sent from the email account you've specified to that same account. A new email in the account's in-box confirms that these settings are correct.

   Test emails are relayed from the SMTP server to the same email account. To verify that the test notifications are being correctly received, you must be able to view the inbox of the notification email account. If the receiving POP account is unable to store and display the test emails (for example, it's a forwarding-only account and there's no inbox), then you won't be able to directly verify the entire process.

Queue tab

You may notice that email notifications cannot be sent because, for instance, the email SMTP server is unavailable due to system maintenance, network interruption or other issue. The PDXpert Application Server will hold the email notifications in a queue and attempt to re-send these every 10 minutes.

The list displays the status of each unsent notification:

 Email ready: The email notification is in the queue and will be sent during the next connection to the SMTP server. If the email remains unsent for more than 10 minutes, then the email settings specified in the Settings tab should be reviewed for correctness.

 Email blocked: The email notification has not been sent, typically because the SMTP server is unavailable. The system will continue to attempt to send blocked notifications for up to 24 hours.

 Email failed: When all attempts have failed, the system will stop trying to send the notification. A failure often occurs because the user's email address is blank or invalid in the Persons collection member.

If the email server has been unavailable for a while, unsent email notifications may no longer be useful to their intended recipients. In this case, delete selected (or all) notifications from the email queue before re-enabling the email server.

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Help topics describe the most current PDXpert PLM software release, and may differ from earlier releases.