8.9 Planning for Outbound Email

Your OpenText Vibe site can be configured to send outbound email through an existing email system. Email from the Vibe site is useful for the following activities:

In order for your Vibe site to communicate with your email system, you need to gather the following information about your email system:

After installation, outbound email can be disabled and enabled again on the Vibe site, as described in Configuring Email Integration in VibeSite Setup in the OpenText Vibe 4.0.8 Administration Guide. However, you must configure outbound email in the Vibe installation program.

8.9.1 Outbound Email Protocol

IMPORTANT:Email systems communicate by using SMTP.

If you need to secure the email communications in Vibe, do not select SMTPS. SMTPS was proposed as an industry standard but never implemented.

For securing SMTP communications, select the Enable STARTTLS option.

For GroupWise, you can check how the Internet Agent is configured:

  1. In the GroupWise Admin Console, browse to Internet Agents > GWIA > Agent Settings.

  2. The SMTP row, SSL column indicates which protocols can be used. Note the setting for your system.

  3. Click Close.

    BASIC VIBE INSTALLATION SUMMARY SHEET

    Under Outbound Email Protocol, mark SMTP or Secure SMTP to match the email system that you want Vibe to communicate with.

  4. If the email system requires Secure SMTP, see Securing Email Transfer in Site Security in the OpenText Vibe 4.0.8 Administration Guide.

8.9.2 Outbound Email Host

In order to send messages to your email system, Vibe needs to know the hostname of your SMTP mail server.

The default SMTP port is 25.

For GroupWise, this is the hostname of a server where the Internet Agent is running. GroupWise always uses port 25, even when SSL is enabled.

When the Vibe site sends email notifications for scheduled events, the messages are time-stamped according to the time zone you specify here during installation. This setting allows you to use a time zone for email notifications that is different from the time zone where the server is located. The time zone list is grouped first by continent or region, optionally by country or state, and lastly by city. Some common selections for United States time zones include the following:

Time Zone

Continent/City

Pacific Time

America/Los Angeles

Mountain Time

America/Denver

Central Time

America/Chicago

Eastern Time

America/New York

BASIC VIBE INSTALLATION SUMMARY SHEET

Under Outbound Email Host, specify the name of the mail host, the SMTP port number it uses, and the time zone for the time stamp you want on scheduled event notifications.

8.9.3 Outbound Email Authentication

Many SMTP mail hosts require a valid email address before they establish the SMTP connection. Some email systems can construct a valid email address if you specify only a valid user name; other email systems require that you specify the full email address for successful authentication. You should provide a user name (email address) to ensure a successful connection. Email notifications from the Vibe system are sent using this email address in the From field.

Some email systems also require a password. Some do not. If authentication is required, you should also provide a password.

By default, the GroupWise Internet Agent does not require authentication in order to receive inbound messages. However, the /forceinboundauth startup switch is available for use in the Internet Agent startup file (gwia.cfg), in order to configure the Internet Agent to refuse SMTP connections where a valid email user name and password are not provided. The Internet Agent can accept just the user name or the full email address.

BASIC VIBE INSTALLATION SUMMARY SHEET

Under Outbound Email Authentication, indicate whether or not authentication is required for the Vibe site to communicate with your email system. If it is, specify the user name or email address, and if necessary, the password for the email account.

8.9.4 Outbound Email Send Restriction

By default, the Vibe site allows Vibe users to send messages to all Vibe users by using the All Users group on the Vibe site. On a very large Vibe site, this generates a very large number of email messages. If desired, you can prevent messages from being sent to the All Users group.

BASIC VIBE INSTALLATION SUMMARY SHEET

Under Allow Sending Email to All Users, mark whether you want users to be able to send messages to the All Users group.

8.9.5 Outbound Email From Address

You can specify an email address to be used as the From address of emails sent from Vibe.

BASIC VIBE INSTALLATION SUMMARY SHEET

Under From email address override, specify the email address to be used as the From address for emails sent from Vibe.

Under Use this from email address for all outbound email, mark whether you want this address to be used for all outbound email.