Enable Email Notification

Before using the email integration features (email notification triggered by actions performed on a record, alerts, and discussion messages), you must first perform some basic configuration.

The steps for enabling email notification are:

• Configure Your Mail Server
  The SMTP Mail Server that you plan to use with Tracker needs to be configured to allow forwarding or relaying from the machine where Tracker is installed. For most mail servers, this can be done by entering the IP Address of the machine where Tracker is installed into the list of machines allowed to relay or forward through the mail server. Check with your mail server administrator to configure this. If the Tracker server is not allowed to relay through your mail server, Tracker will be unable to generate email notification messages.

• Set the Mail Server Configuration
  Enter the Mail Server information to be used when generating the outgoing email messages.

  To reach the Mail Server Configuration options:

  1. Login to the workgroup as Admin (or another user who is a member of the Admin user group)
  2. Click on the Admin icon
  3. Click on the Email Configuration link
  4. Select the option Set Mail Server Configuration, then click on the Continue button
     

  5. In the SMTP Mail Server field, enter 127.0.0.1 to use a mail server located on the same machine as Tracker and reference it by IP address. "127.0.0.1" is a special IP address which is interpreted by the IP protocol to mean the local machine and does not require a host name lookup. By having a local mail server (dedicated to Tracker), you can significantly speed up Tracker operations which send email notifications (Add, Edit, Task, and Delete). If you do not have a mail server installed on the same (web server) machine as Tracker, we recommend installing the Microsoft SMTP Service (which is included with Internet Information Services on Windows Server operating systems). Then, configure it to forward email to your main mail server for distribution to the recipients. Detailed steps for configuring the Microsoft SMTP service on Windows and setting up a smart host to route to your main mail server can be found in the following Knowledge Base article:

     http://kb.nrtracker.com/Item.asp?id=237

     NOTE: Please ensure that the mail server you enter for this option is set such that it allows the IP address of the machine where Tracker is installed to forward or "relay" messages through your mail server. Most mail servers are set to not to allow such forwarding or relaying by default to prevent forwarding of spam. This is especially important if your mail server is on a separate machine from Tracker.

     Alternatively, you can enter the name of the mail server you would like to use in the SMTP Mail Server field. You can enter the name of the mail server as a host name (e.g. smtp.mydomain.com) or as an IP address (e.g. 192.168.22.118). However, the local mail server configuration described above is the best practice for optimal performance.

  6. In the Reply-To Email Account, enter the email address (e.g. admin@mycompany.com) that should be used when users attempt to reply to an email message generated by Tracker (or when a destination mail server rejects an email for some reason and sends a delivery failure notification). If you wish to include a name with the email address, enter the information in the form "Name" <email address> (with a space between " and <) as shown in the example above. The double quotes around the name are required unless there is no blank space in the name. The less than and greater than symbols are required around the email address. If you include a name and the double quotes and less than/greater than symbols are not used, Tracker may not be able to send the email or you users may not be able to receive it. Without a valid email address entered into this field, Tracker will be unable to send email notification messages. It may also be a good idea to tell your users to make sure that their spam filters allow all email from this address (put it on their "white list").

  7. In the From Email Account, enter the email address (e.g. admin@mycompany.com) that should appear in the From field of the email message sent by Tracker. If you wish to include a name with the email address, enter the information in the form "Name" <email address> (with a space between " and <) as shown in the example above. The double quotes around the name are required unless there is no blank space in the name. The less than and greater than symbols are required around the email address. If you include a name and the double quotes and less than/greater than symbols are not used, Tracker may not be able to send the email or you users may not be able to receive it. Without a valid email address entered into this field, Tracker will be unable to send email notification messages. It may also be a good idea to tell your users to make sure that their spam filters allow all email from this address (put it on their "white list").

  8. Select the type of Email Header Encoding you would like to use in the pulldown menu. The encoding that you choose for this option should be based on the characters that will be used in this workgroup. In general, email headers must contain only US-ASCII characters. Headers that contain non US-ASCII characters must be encoded so that they contain only US-ASCII characters. This process involves using either "B" (BASE64) or "Q" (Quoted-Printable) to encode certain characters. The "Q" encoding is recommended for use when most of the characters to be encoded are in the ASCII character set; otherwise, the "B" encoding should be used. If you are not sure what type of encoding is compatible with your mail server, choose Auto Select for this option.

  9. Choose a format for the email content in the Multi Part Email pulldown menu. This option determines whether the email messages generated by Tracker will contain only Text or Text and HTML. For example, if the character set for your workgroup is UTF-8, email from Tracker may also contain UTF-8 characters. If your email client cannot display UTF-8 characters, selecting Text and HTML for this option might help. If your email client can display HTML format, the UTF-8 characters in the email message can be displayed correctly.

  10. Select the type of Authentication that should be used when generating email notification messages. By default, Anonymous authentication is selected. Anonymous authentication will generate email messages using Tracker's anonymous user account, PUSR4<hostname>, as the effective user. This anonymous user account is configured automatically by the installation setup program.

      If you wish to use Basic authentication, an Authentication User Name and Authentication Password need to be provided in the corresponding fields. Up to 80 characters can be entered for the Authentication User Name and up to 250 characters can be entered for the Authentication Password. This user account will be used to authenticate Tracker's request to the mail server when generating email messages.

  11. Click on the OK button to save your Mail Server Configuration settings

• Set the Global Email Options
  The Global Email Options section allows you to choose whether the contents of Text and TextArea fields should be truncated when displayed in the email messages generated by Tracker.

  To reach the Global Email Options section:

  1. Login to the workgroup as Admin (or another user who is a member of the Admin user group)
  2. Click on the Admin icon
  3. Click on the Email Configuration link
  4. Select the option Set Global Email Options , then click on the Continue button
  5. Select No if you wish to display the entire contents of the Text and TextArea fields when they are configured to be included in the email notification messages. Selecting Yes for this option will truncate the Text fields to 55 characters and the TextArea) fields to 250 characters when displayed in email notification messages.
  6. Click on the OK button to save your selection

• Configure Email Content and Rules
  The content included in an email notification message is determined by several different components:
  • Email Common Content
    Email Common Content is information included in the body of email notification messages (Greeting, Introduction and Signature) based on the form used to submit a record. Email Common Content is configured in the Workflows section.
  • Email Rules
    Email Rules determine when and to whom email notification messages will be sent. Email Rules are configured per workflow in the Workflows section.
  • Email User Group Privileges There are a set of user group privileges which determine which pieces of email content users receive based on their user group membership. Email user group privileges are configured in the User Accounts - Privileges section.

• Enable and Configure Alerts (Enterprise Edition Only)
  Information for enabling and configuring the Alerts feature can be found in the Alerts section.

• Discussion (Enterprise Edition Only)
  Information on enabling and configuring the Discussion feature can be found in the Discussion section.

Disable Email Notification

If at any time you wish to turn off all email notification, remove the information from the SMTP Email Server setting in the Mail Server Configuration section mentioned above.