Email configuration

Symplectic Elements will interact with your institution’s email system in order to send reminder emails and other alerts. 

The following must be true for emails to be disseminated to a user:

1. The Symplectic Mail Service must be installed and running on the server.

2. The web.config file on the server must have email sending enabled <add key="enable-email-sending" value="true" /> 

3. The email host must be configured in Elements (below).

4. The notification email must be active in the Publications module. Note: if 'override' is not checked, the notification email 'active' setting is on each Primary Group.

5. The Emailer: Notification scheduled job has to be active.

6. The Synchroniser service must be running (to find new publications).

7. The user must to have access to the Publication module.

8. The user must be active.

9. The user must have search settings ("Is Academic=True").

Elements can connect to Google or Microsoft mail servers using OAuth authentication, or to any SMTP mail server using credentials.

Firstly, register Elements as an OAuth application with your email provider. The redirect URL must be the website base URL of your Elements instance with "/mailservice.html" appended to it, e.g.

https://elements.my-institution.edu/mailservice.html

Your email provider will generate a Client ID and Client Secret for the OAuth application (Microsoft may also provide a Tenant ID). You will need these in the next step.

In Elements, navigate to System Admin > Notifications & Actions > Email Configuration. In the "Connect to email provider" section, click the "Connect" button. Choose the appropriate email provider and enter the Client ID, Client Secret and Tenant ID (if applicable) your email provider generated previously. Click "Save".

In the "Manual settings" section, configure the emailer as needed to connect to your mail server: 

• Host: the host name of the SMTP mail server

• Port: the port to use when connecting to the SMTP mail server

• SSL Setting: specify the protocol to be used for negotiating encryption

  • None: send emails without encryption (not recommended)

  • SSL on connect: Always use a secure connection. If the server does not support a secure connection, email sending will fail.

  • StartTLS: After reading the capabilities of the server over an insecure connection, a secure connection will be used for sending emails. If the server does not support a secure connection, email sending will fail.

• Credentials: select which credentials to use for authentication with the SMTP server

  • Connect anonymously: send emails without authentication (not recommended)

  • Use default credentials: use the credentials of the Elements mail service application

  • Use default network credentials: use the network credentials of the current security context of the Elements mail service

  • Specify network credentials: use a specific username and password

• Timeout: The time, in milliseconds, that Elements will wait for a response from the SMTP server before terminating the connection.

If specifying network credentials, you will also have the following settings:

• Username: the username to connect with

• Overwrite password: select this if you wish to change the password

• Password: if changing the password, enter the new password here

• Domain: the domain name (if required)

Elements 6.22 and earlier

The system needs to receive the host name of your institution’s email system and (possibly) a set of user credentials provided by the administrators of the email system.

You can click on the link in the Summary section to check whether there are any unsent emails waiting in the system (or go to System Admin > Notifications & Actions >  Unsent Emails). This information is useful if, for example, you wish to investigate any apparent problems with the notification process.

For information about what kinds of emails Elements can send automatically, please see Publications Module - Manage Email Notifications.

You can click on the link at the top of the email configuration screen to send a test email (or go to System Admin > Notifications & Actions > Send a Test Email) in order to check that the links have been set up correctly. The link will take you to a new screen where you can choose to send the test email to any email address.