Email Setup

The Unanet System has several capabilities that rely on the ability to send email.  If you intend to use any of these robust features, you'll first need to set a few properties to enable the use of email.

The topics covered on this page include:


Setting your Email Properties

In order for any Unanet email functionality to work, the following Unanet email properties must be set (via Admin >> Properties screen):

Enable Email  (unatime.email)
Mail Host (SMTP Server)  (mail.host) -- i.e. MAILSERVER.DOMAIN.com
Default From Email Address  (unatime.email.default_from_address) -- i.e. unatime_admin@DOMAIN.com
Static From Email Address  (unanet.email.static_from_address) -- i.e. unatime_admin@DOMAIN.com  -- This is an optional property that can be used to always set the From address to this value in an attempt to avoid having Unanet email messages identified as spam.  When using this property, note the Reply To attribute will be the end users' email address. If that doesn't exist or the email is system initiated, the value from the Default From Email Address will be used when replying to a Unanet message.

To temporarily or permanently disable the email capabilities, uncheck the Enable Email  (unatime.email) property.  

 

Enable Email Relaying

If the users in your Unanet system utilize various email addresses from other domains (i.e., aol.com, yahoo.com, etc.), you may want to check with your email server administrator with regard to the relaying configuration of the SMTP server.

Note:   Relaying has to do with an SMTP server's ability to accept messages and deliver them to third parties (perhaps outside your network).  

Typically, even though relaying may be allowed, it is coupled with restrictions or authentication so that the SMTP server cannot be used by other parties to send out spam messages.  

Depending on  the email used in your Unanet system, the administrator may need to change the restrictions currently in place to allow any necessary email relaying.  The administrator will likely need to know the domain, machine name and/or IP address of the Unanet server and perhaps the domains of the email addresses used in the Unanet system in order to verify the settings.


Testing out Email

Before sending any test email, make sure you have provided a valid email address on your test subject's Person Profile >> Profile tab.  You can log into your Unanet system as an administrator and navigate to the Admin >> Reminders screen and attempt to send out a "Broadcast" email template (to a subset of users).   You may need to make sure your Broadcast email template is enabled (via the Admin >> Setup >> Misc >> Email Reminders screen).   The user should receive an email containing the template from your Unanet system if all is configured correctly.

If you are experiencing email issues, check out the Email Troubleshooting Tips page.


SMTP Authentication

If your email service provider's SMTP server requires authentication,  there are a number of additional properties that can be configured to address this need.  In particular, the following three properties will minimally need to be set:

Warning: enabling Mail Authentication without setting both Mail User and Mail Password will generate start up errors related to email.

 

The Unanet email service will use these credentials to authenticate with the SMTP server when sending messages.

Note: Depending on your email service provider and whether you are using additional features (such as SSL), additional mail properties may need to be configured.

If you are using a hosted SMTP platform (e.g. Google Apps for Business), you will need to add the syntax below in your unanet.properties file in order to start TLS to relay messages. (These properties cannot be edited via the user interface).

In the unanet.properties file you would choose which transport you'll want to use (TLS or SSL), then configure the port. 

mail.smtp.ssl.enable=true
mail.smtp.starttls.enable=true 



Example to enable TLS (Office 365):

mail.host=MailServer.Domain.com
mail.auth=true
mail.smtp.starttls.enable=true
mail.smtp.port=587

mail.user=joeuser
mail.password=mypassword
#mail.debug=true

Example to enable SSL (Google):

mail.host=MailServer.Domain.com
mail.auth=true
mail.smtp.ssl.enable=true
mail.smtp.port=465

mail.user=joeuser
mail.password=mypassword
#mail.debug=true

You may need to contact Unanet support to work with you to identify which additional properties may be necessary.  Enabling the Mail Debug (mail.debug) property may be useful in troubleshooting mail authentication configuration issues.


Next Step

Step 8 - Finish the Installation

Once you have completed the email setup, you can proceed to step 8 to finish the installation process.