Sending Mail with Remote SMTP Server

Metastorm

The information in this article applies to:

Product: Metastorm BPM
Version: 7.x

Issue

• Is the SMTP service required on the server running the Process Engine?

Resolution

• There are 2 built-in techniques to send mail from a BPM procedure.

  1. Use the %Email function. This requires an SMTP service running on the same server as the Engine that executes the %Email function. This uses the configuration settings stored in the MailConnector registry key HKEY\_LOCAL\_MACHINE\\SOFTWARE\\Metastorm\\e-work\\Engine\\MailConnector.

     Note that this function uses the Microsoft library cdonts.dll, which has been deprecated by Microsoft. For this reason, option 2 below is recommended.

  2. Use the Mail.xel library. When this library is added to a procedure, it adds the category Mail Adaptor and the item Send an e-mail message... to the Integration Wizard (IW). Because the return type is text, this item is only available in the IW when an assignment is made to a text variable. The screen in the IW will allow an SMTP server other than the Engine host to be specified. There is no requirement to run the SMTP service on the Engine server. The MailConnector registry key is not used in this case as all configuration settings are specified within the procedure.

     For an example of using the mail library, see the SendMail sample procedure that can be found here: C:\\Program Files\\Metastorm BPM\\Designer\\Sample Procedures.