Email Workflow and Troubleshooting
In several modules of ebs, users can communicate with contacts via email.
There are multiple technical steps that occur to send an email from ebs shown in the following diagram:
The flow can be described in the following way:
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The ebs user initiates the email communication with a contact.
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The workflow service generates the email.
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The workflow service passes the email to an SMTP server.
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The SMTP server 'sends' the email which is received by the recipient mail server.
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The recipient mail server forwards the email onto the intended recipient.
The following institution settings on the General (Cross-System) screen are used in this flow:
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From e-mail address - this is the email address that emails will be sent from. Where possible, this should be an actual mailbox that exists in the institution (for example: <mailbox>@<institute>.co.uk).
Some email communications can override this setting (for example: email templates).
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SMTP mail server for sending emails - this is the address of the institute's SMTP server that relays the emails.
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SMTP mail server port
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SMTP mail server username
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SMTP mail server password
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SMTP mail server uses SSL - defines whether the SMTP server uses SSL.
Possible email issues and resolutions are described in the following table.
Issue | Suggested resolution steps |
---|---|
No emails arrive for any recipients |
Carry out the following checks:
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Emails arrive for some recipients, but not all | As some emails have arrived, the email system is working. It is likely that the recipient mail server has either blocked the mail or marked it as spam and filed it into a junk folder. Try ensuring that the 'from' address set in ebs is a valid email address, as some mail systems block mails from unregistered addresses. |
Mail fails to arrive to a specific domain (for example: @gmail.com, @<institute>.ac.uk, and so on) |
Carry out the following checks:
|