2.2. E-Mail And Text Messages (SMS)
The E-Mail And Text Messages
(SMS) section of SharePoint Central Administration provides the
communication between SharePoint components and Microsoft Outlook using
outgoing e-mail settings.
Settings made in this section also allow e-mail messages to be received
by SharePoint lists and libraries after you configure incoming e-mail
settings. New to SharePoint 2010 is the ability to utilize SMS (Short
Messaging Service) to deliver alerts and notifications to users,
including health and monitoring information to your administrators.
2.2.1. Configure Outgoing E-mail Settings
For any messages to be sent from SharePoint 2010, such as alerts, notifications, and site invitations, you need to configure an SMTP (Simple
Mail Transfer Protocol) server that will be responsible for routing the
messages. This server can be any SMTP-compliant server that you can
connect to using port 25 from the SharePoint 2010 server. The
identification of this server can be specified as either the IP address,
NetBIOS name, or a Fully Qualified Domain Name (FQDN) of the SMTP
server. However, if you are using a NetBIOS name or an FQDN, a method of
name resolution has to be available to locate the SMTP server.
Note:
Best Practices Firewalls between the SharePoint 2010 server and the outgoing e-mail server can cause outgoing mail to fail, so be sure to configure the firewall to allow SMTP traffic.
When you configure the outgoing e-mail server settings,
you can specify different From and Reply-to addresses for your e-mail
messages. For instance, you could configure the From address that will
display to mail recipients as [email protected], but then specify that users respond using the Reply-to address [email protected].
These settings are configured at the farm level and will be used by all
Web applications unless they are overridden at the Web application
level by specifying alternative values.
2.2.2. Configure Incoming E-mail Settings
SharePoint 2010 has the
ability to allow e-mail messages to be routed directly to a list or
library in a site so that the actual e-mail messages, along with any
attachments, appear in the list or library. The principle behind this is
very simple—you create a new list or library in a Team Site and enable
it for e-mail. This creates a new contact in Active Directory using the SharePoint
Directory Service, and people can send e-mail messages to the contact’s
mail address. When an e-mail message is sent to this address, it is
routed to the configured drop folder on the SharePoint 2010 server. When
it arrives in the drop folder, it will wait until the SPTimer service
checks the folder and then routes the e-mail message to the list
configured with that e-mail address.
Before configuring the incoming
mail settings, you need an SMTP server available on the local
SharePoint 2010 server to do mail routing. You add the SMTP service
using the server manager to install the SMTP Server feature. For added
security, you can add only the allowed mail servers in your organization
to relay through this local SMTP server. This is accomplished using the
properties of the SMTP service in IIS.
Generally speaking, you
must complete the following tasks to configure the server side of
incoming e-mail messages in SharePoint 2010.
Install the SMTP service using IIS.
In Active Directory, create an organizational unit (OU) in which the new distribution groups or contacts will be created.
In
Central Administration, click Configure Incoming E-Mail Settings and
specify the OU you just created in Active Directory settings for e-mail
Web services.
Note:
The name of the OU you create
must be in the format of the full distinguished name, for example,
OU=sharepointgroups,DC=contoso,DC=com.
Configuring Server Side Incoming E-Mail To configure server side incoming e-mail, first click the Configure Incoming E-Mail Settings link and then complete the following steps.
Select the Yes option to enable sites on this server to receive e-mail messages.
Leave the default option of Automatic.
Note:
Use the Advanced setting if you need to specify a drop box other than that of the default SMTP service.
Select the Yes option for the SharePoint Directory Management Service.
Note:
If you select the Use Remote
option, you can specify another SharePoint server that is configured to
manage the SharePoint Directory Management Service.
Enter the full distinguished name of the OU where you want distributions lists to be created.
Enter the name of the SMTP mail server.
Select the permission options for the tasks that the users can perform.
Specify the Incoming E-Mail Server Display Address.
Specify the Safe E-Mail Server Settings.
Configuring List or Library Side E-Mail Settings
Now that you have configured the server side e-mail settings, you can
now go to lists and libraries in SharePoint 2010 sites and configure
them to receive e-mail as well as specify which e-mail address each list
will used to receive e-mails. Use the following steps to configure
these options.
Navigate to a document library and select Library Settings on the Ribbon.
In the Communications section, select E-Mail Settings to open the Change E-Mail Settings page.
Configure any of the following options for incoming e-mail for that library.
Incoming E-Mail Select Yes to enable e-mail on the library and specify the e-mail address.
E-Mail Attachments
Choose how you want to group the e-mail attachments that will be stored
in the library. The default is for all attachments to be stored in the
root folder.
E-Mail Message Choose Yes to have the original e-mail message (.eml file) in the document library as an attachment.
E-Mail Invitations Choose Yes if you want this library to receive and display meeting request e-mails.
E-Mail Security
Select the level of security on the document library to specify who can
add items. By default, only those senders who have write access to the
library will be able to send e-mail items to the library; however, you
can change this to allow all senders of mail to populate the library.
After completing the e-mail
settings process, a contact is created in the specified OU in Active
Directory using the directory service manager. If you want to add
additional e-mail addresses to that contact to support external mail
addresses, you can use the Active Directory Users And Computers tool to
specify additional e-mail SMTP addresses.
2.2.3. Configure Mobile Account
A new feature in SharePoint
2010 allows administrators to configure a corporate SMS service that
can deliver alerts and notifications to the users. This would allow
administrators to receive system
notification or health and monitoring alerts directly to their Windows
Mobile device. SMS services can also be provided by third-party
companies that may require user credentials when accessing the SMS
provider. You can specify a user name and password if the service
requires them.
