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Resource E-Mail Notification Process

The Resource E-Mail Notification process allows you to have Xytech automatically send e-mails to scheduling resources as transaction bookings are created and edited, notifying them of booking dates and times as well as relevant job and order details.

To use this process, you must first establish default settings in the following four locations: SMTP SERVER SETUP WINDOW, PREFERENCES – SYSTEM WINDOW, PREFERENCES – SCHEDULING WINDOW, and to each scheduling resource that you want to include in this process via the SCHEDULING RESOURCE MAINTENANCE APPLICATION.

REQUIRED SET UP

1. Establish one or more valid SMTP mail servers in the SMTP SERVER SETUP WINDOW.

For each new line item, assign a unique description and enter the server host IP or URL for the SMTP server.

IMPORTANT!

Enter either the server name without the domain qualifier or the internal server IP address in the Server Host Name (URL) Field. The most reliable attribute to use is the SMTP server’s internal IP address. Don’t use a domain qualified server name or the public IP address for the SMTP server, because more than likely this will not be routed outside of the network and the messages won’t be delivered to the mail server.

Having a qualified name in this field (e.g., atlas.xytechsystems.com) can cause a problem if the qualified name is not mapped to an IP address in the host file of the Windows server running the MPAppServer. The Xytech “send mail” function won’t resolve the server address; the e-mail message will appear to have been sent, but it wasn’t.

It may also be necessary to designate the Windows server that is hosting the MPAppServer as a “Relay” on the SMTP server in order for the SMTP server to process e-mail messages sent from Xytech. If the server hosting the MPAppServer and the server hosting the SMTP server are on the same network subnet and they have a “trust relationship” by nature of being in the same domain, this step should not be necessary.

2. On the PREFERENCES TAB PAGE of the Preferences – System Window, set values in the E-Mail and E-Mail Type Fields.

The E-Mail Type field must be set to SMTP to use the Resource E-Mail Notification process.
Enter a legitimate e-mail address in the E-Mail Field. The value in this field must be a fully qualified email address (address_name@domain_name.domain), for example, info@xytechsystems.com. The value in this field will populate the From Field of system-sent e-mails, so it should be an e-mail address that can receive responses, as appropriate.

3. Ensure that the E-Mail Booking Information Field is checked in the PREFERENCES – SCHEDULING WINDOW.

4. On the IDENTIFICATION TAB PAGE of the Scheduling Resource Maintenance Application, set values in the E-Mail Booking and E-Mail Address Fields.

You must set these values for each scheduling resource that you want to be included in the Resource E-Mail Notification process.

The E-Mail Booking field must be set to E-Mail to use the Resource E-Mail Notification process.

NOTE

If you are using the EXCHANGE SERVER INTEGRATION PROCESS, the E-Mail Booking Field must be set to the Exchange Server Meeting Request value. Those scheduling resources that are part of the Exchange Server Integration functionality cannot also be included in the Resource E-Mail Notification process.

Enter a legitimate e-mail address in the E-Mail Address Field. The value in this field must be a fully qualified email address (address_name@domain_name.domain), for example, info@xytechsystems.com. The value in this field will populate the To Field of system-sent e-mails.

PROCESS OVERVIEW

Once the system and the scheduling resources have been set up for the Resource E-Mail Notification process, the system will send e-mails based on the following conditions:

Only order transactions / bookings with appropriately set up scheduling resources will be included in the process. Quick holds, roster on, and other time off bookings will not be part of the Resource E-Mail Notification process.
Only order transactions / bookings set to a PHASE that has been assigned a Phase Type Field value of Second Hold, Hold, Firm, or Confirmed will be included in the Resource E-Mail Notification process.
When an order transaction / booking is added via the Schedule Book or the Order Transactions Window, the system will issue a message that allows the user to send a resource notification e-mail or not.

When an order transaction / booking is edited in the Order Transactions or Order Bookings Windows and the date / time is changed, the system issues the same Resource E-Mail Notification message as above allowing the user to send a resource notification e-mail or not (as long as the phase of the transaction is assigned one of the four applicable phase types: Second Hold, Hold, Firm, or Confirmed).
When an order transaction / booking is edited in the Order Transactions or Order Bookings Windows and the PHASE is set to a value that has been assigned a Phase Type Field value of Second Hold, Hold, Firm, or Confirmed, the system issues the same Resource E-Mail Notification message as above allowing the user to send a resource notification e-mail or not.
If an order transaction / booking is dragged and dropped to another date / time in the Schedule Book, a resource notification e-mail will be sent automatically without any system messages.

The resource notification e-mail that is sent by the system uses a hard-coded format as to what it includes in the body of the e-mail. The Subject Field of the e-mail will be Resource Notification.

The To and From Fields of the e-mail are established by the E-mail Address Field on the SCHEDULING RESOURCE and the E-Mail Field in the PREFERENCES – SYSTEM WINDOW respectively.

NOTE

When a booking is updated, an email will be sent to the Resource indicating the updated information. In this email, the ‘From’ address will be set to the primary email address from currently logged in User’s Contact, so the Resource receives the booking email as if it was sent from the person who made or updated the booking. If that User has no email address, the application will use the email address from System Preferences as the ‘From’ address.

The e-mail body format is:

Customer:
Job No:
Job Description:
Work Order:
Work Order Description:
Order Start:
Order End:
Phase:
(List of the scheduled resources):

When Xytech sends a resource notification e-mail, it writes the e-mail message metadata to the sys_email table in the Xytech database. You can inspect the contents of this table using a SQL query with the command: select * from sys_email. Here is an example:

The SENT_DATE column will initially be null. Once Xytech thinks it has sent the message to the designated SMTP server, this column will be updated with the date / time that the message was sent. If the SENT_DATE column remains null, this is an indication that the configuration may not have been correctly performed and that Xytech could not send the message. Again, please be aware that this only reflects that Xytech called the “SEND MAIL” function, it doesn’t reflect if the message was actually delivered to the SMTP server (or not) or any other error.