Decisions Talis Library Management Suite Setting up SMTP in Talis Decisions This document describes how to configure SMTP (Single Mail Transfer Protocol) in Talis Decisions. It is intended for system administrators or library staff responsible for maintaining the Talis Decisions server. Reports can be sent via email to a single mail recipient or to a group of recipients. Emails are sent via a SMTP host. It is vital, therefore, that your email system is configured to accept email from the Decisions server. The Talis Decisions system also needs to be configured to connect to the SMTP host in question and it is possible to set up default values for email messages. Configuring Talis Decisions servers for email distribution Please note that you must configure the Destination Job Server, the Desktop Intelligence Job Server, and the Web Intelligence Job Server. 1. Open a browser and navigate to the Central Management Console. 2. Login as the administrator. 3. From the Organize table click Servers. The list of servers is displayed. TD-300-TN-01 Page 1
4. Click on the name of the Destination Job Server that you wish to configure. Use the Type column to identify the type of server to configure. In the diagram above, the Destination Job Server is called desedu.destinationjobserver. 5. The server properties are displayed. If not already selected, click the Destinations tab. 6. Click the Email (SMTP) link. The Email (SMTP) Destination Properties tab is displayed. 7. Complete the tab using the following table as a guide: TD-300-TN-01 Page 2
Field Domain Name: Port: Authentication: SMTP User Name: SMTP Password: From: To, Cc, Subject, and Message: Add a placeholder from a variable property Description Enter the fully qualified domain of the SMTP server. Enter the port that the SMTP server is listening on. This standard SMTP port is 25. Select None, Plain or Login depending on the authentication required by the SMTP host. Most SMTP hosts will require a login. Provide the Job Server with a user name that has permission to send email and attachments through the SMTP server. Provide the Job Server with the password for the SMTP server. Be aware that if the password changes or expires, mail will stop working until the password is updated in Talis Decisions. Provide the return email address. Users can override this default when they schedule an object. Set the default values for users who schedule documents to this SMTP destination. Users can override these defaults when they schedule an object. This option is available for the email subject line, the email message and the attachment file name. Placeholders can be inserted in to a field, with other text. These placeholders will be replaced with the specific text for each individual document when the email is sent. Select the placeholder from the pull-down menu and then click Add to insert the placeholder. The options for all fields are: Title - %SI_NAME% ID - %SI_ID% Owner %SI_OWNER% DateTime - %SI_STARTTIME% User Full Name - %SI_USERFULLNAME% Email Address - %SI_EMAIL_ADDRESS% The Message Field can also hold a link to the document. By clicking on this a user can logon on directly to the document in InfoView without having to search for it. Viewer Hyperlink - %SI_VIEWER_URL% TD-300-TN-01 Page 3
Field Attach report instance to email message: Default File Name (randomly generated): Specified File Name: Add file extension: Description Clear this check box if you do not want to attach a copy of the document attached to the email. Users can override these defaults when they schedule an object. Select this option if you want Talis Decisions to generate a random file name. Select this option if you want to enter a file name. You can also use variables to the file name using placeholders as well as plain text. To add a variable, choose a placeholder from the variable property list and click Add for each placeholder. An additional placeholder is available for this field: File Extension - %EXT% Adds.%EXT% placeholder to the end of the Specified File Name. This is similar to selecting File Extension from the placeholder list and clicking Add. By adding an extension to the file name, Windows will know which program to use to open the file when users want to view the file. 8. Click the Update button. 9. Repeat steps 5 to 8 for the Desktop Intelligence Job Server, and the Web Intelligence Job Server. Once the changes have been applied to all servers, you should restart them using either the Central Management Console or the Central Configuration Manager. Restarting Talis Decisions servers 1. Navigate to the list of servers by clicking the Servers link in the navigation path. 2. Ensure that all modified servers are selected by clicking the checkbox at the start of the corresponding row. The following diagram shows the modified servers selected. TD-300-TN-01 Page 4
3. Click the Restart button to restart the selected servers. It can take a few seconds for the servers to be stopped and restarted. 4. Click the Refresh button to ensure that the servers are started and enabled. Sending attachments via email Sending a Web Intelligence report in Web Intelligence format as an attachment should not be done since such reports are not accessible outside of the Enterprise environment. However, there are differences between sending attachments via the Send menu and via scheduling. Using the Send menu allows you to check the tick box for an attachment and will enable you to attach a document in any format (other than Web Intelligence). Using the scheduled option, the attachment option is greyed out for Web Intelligence documents. What can be done at this point is to insert a placeholder in the message field called Viewer hyperlink (%SI_VIEWER_URL%) which will include a direct link to the report which can be accessed from the email. The user will still be prompted for a login. Please note that this option is not available from the Send menu. The other option is to change the format of the document from webi to PDF or Excel using the Format option as part of the scheduled job. The attachment option then becomes available. Again, this is not available from the Send menu. TD-300-TN-01 Page 5