Configuring outgoing e-mail

The <Mail> section of the configuration file OutboundEmail.xml allows you to handle outgoing e-mails.

Procedure

  1. Open OutboundEmail.xml located by default in the config subdirectory of your Content Manager root location in a plain-text editor or XML editor.
  2. Locate the <Mail> section, for example:
    <Mail>
        <QueueFolder>C:\inetpub\mailroot\Pickup</QueueFolder>
        <MaxEmailsInQueueFolder alternativeFolder="">10000</MaxEmailsInQueueFolder>
        <BatchSize>1000</BatchSize>
        <PollingInterval>15</PollingInterval>
        <TriggeringInterval>15</TriggeringInterval>
        <TestEmailPriority>20</TestEmailPriority>
        <ConfirmationEmailPriority>30</ConfirmationEmailPriority>
        <MaxEmailsPerPeriod>0</MaxEmailsPerPeriod>
        <LimitingPeriod>30</LimitingPeriod>
        <ArchivePersonalizedEmails enforce="false">false</ArchivePersonalizedEmails>
        <RequireAllFieldsDefault>false</RequireAllFieldsDefault>
        <FixedEncoding></FixedEncoding>
        <FixedEmailAddress></FixedEmailAddress>
        <DefaultSenderAddress></DefaultSenderAddress>
    </Mail>
  3. You need to specify the following setting to get outgoing mail up and running:
    <QueueFolder>
    The folder where Outbound E-mail queues e-mails. You need to configure your SMTP Server to fetch e-mails from this folder.
  4. Specify the following configuration settings that influence performance and handle the size of mailings:
    <BatchSize>
    <BatchSize> defines the number of e-mails the Mailer Service picks up each round trip. This setting influences the memory used by the Mailer Service; if the <BatchSize> is set too high in relation to the size of the e-mails, you may experience out-of-memory errors.
    <PollingInterval>
    The time in seconds the Mailer Service waits, after a polling action has completed, before polling the Mailing Queue for e-mails to send again.
    For example, if 20,000 e-mails are in the queue, the BatchSize is 1000 and PollingInterval is 30 seconds, the Mailer Service first performs 20 iterations of sending out e-mails and only then start polling every 30 seconds.
    <MaxEmailsInQueueFolder>
    To prevent sending more mails than your SMTP server can handle at any given time, you can set a maximum number of e-mails for the folder where Outbound E-mail queues e-mails. If you set a maximum, Outbound E-mail adds e-mails to the folder until the max is reached and will only add e-mails to the folder as the SMTP server starts emptying the folder.

    Set the <MaxEmailsInQueueFolder alternativeFolder=""> attribute if, for example, your SMTP server moves e-mails to another work folder for processing (note that the default is defined by the <QueueFolder> element).

  5. You can also specify the following settings:
    <ArchivePersonalizedEmails>
    The default for the Archive personalized e-mail check box when you create a new Mailing:
    • true selects the check box
    • false deselects the check box.

    Set the enforce attribute to false to allow users to select or deselect the check box, or true to prohibit changing the default.

    <ConfirmationEmailPriority>
    The priority of notification e-mails, such as confirming subscription (these should have the highest priority). The higher the number, the higher the priority.
    <FixedEmailAddress>
    For testing or demo purposes, you can send all outgoing e-mails to a single e-mail address instead of the Contact's e-mail address.
    <DefaultSenderAddress>
    The default value added to the E-mail sender address field when a user creates a new Mailing.
    <FixedEncoding>
    The encoding used in e-mails (optional). You can use Unicode, iso-8859-*, windows-*, utf-7, utf-8, utf-16, utf-32, Shift_JIS, gb2312, ks_c_5601-1987, big5, iso-2022-*, euc-jp, euc-kr, x-mac-*, asmo-708, ibm*, dos-*, koi8-*.

    For the complete list of supported charsets, refer to the Chilkat C# Charset Class Reference documentation.

    <LimitingPeriod>
    A period of time during which a Contact may receive no more than a set number of e-mails as specified by the <MaxEmailsPerPeriod> setting.
    <MaxEmailsPerPeriod>
    The maximum number of e-mails a Contact may receive within a given period of time as specified by the <LimitingPeriod>setting. 0 indicates unlimited.
    <RequireAllFieldsDefault>
    The default for the Send Mailing and Send all Mailings Only send e-mail to Contacts with all required merge data check box. true selects the check box by default, false deselects it.
    <TriggeringInterval>
    Fill in the number of seconds you want Outbound E-mail to wait before checking if new Contacts have joined a Distribution List that triggers a Mailing.
    <TestEmailPriority>
    The priority of e-mails sent out for testing purposes (these should have a higher priority than regular Mailings). The higher the number, the higher the priority.
  6. Save and close OutboundEmail.xml.