Introduction

This article describes how to create a global connection to a Microsoft® Office 365® account to process BPA Platform notifications and alerts, or emails sent from the Send Email (SMTP)Closed The Send Email (SMTP) tool sends messages to any SMTP compliant mail server. This tool is capable of sending multiple messages in either text or HTML formats, incorporating data from Input and Format steps to any number of recipients. If recordset data being used from an Input step includes a column containing email addresses, then this can be used as a "dynamic" recipient address. tool.

Prerequisites

The following must be met before you can configure the connection to the Office 365 account:

Minimum build of BPA Platform (formerly "TaskCentre") version BPA 2020 update 1 or BPA 2021 for Oauth2.

Creating the Connection to the Office 365 Account

Although the same interface is used to configure the connection, at the time of writing, configuration for the Send Email (SMTP) step is accessed and held separately to the notifications and alerts configuration.

Opening the Send Email (SMTP) Global Configuration Interface

(missing or bad snippet)
  1. Click Add to create a new connection.
  2. Enter a unique Connection name — it is recommended "Office 365" forms part of the name, especially if you have global connections for other SMTP servers.
  3. Finish the configuration as detailed in Adding the SMTP Configuration.

Opening the Notifications and Alerts Global Configuration Interface

Note: If running BPA Platform 2020, you must use the BPA Platform Client (classic) to make any changes to the notifications and alerts global configuration.

Only System Administrators can configure system notifications.

  1. Go to Manage > Options > Notifications tab.

    BPA Platform - Global Options - Notifications tab

  2. Enable the relevant notification types — for more information, go to How to Set Up System Notifications on BPA Platform.
  3. From the SMTP panel, enter a "From" name and email address into Display Name and From Address. This is who the emailed notification will look to be from, and must be a valid email address from your organisation's Office 365 account.
  4. Click Server Configuration and add the configuration as detailed in Adding the SMTP Configuration.

Adding the SMTP Configuration

The following screenshots show the configuration required to connect to the Office 365 services to send emails. Replace the example Username and Password and Domain with valid credentials from your Office 365 account.

Main Tab

SMTP Configuration for Office365 Accounts - Main tab

Advanced Tab

SMTP Configuration for Office365 Accounts - Advanced tab

Note: Office 365 imposes a "10,000 emails only per day" restriction on BPA Platform. If your requirements are likely to exceed that restriction, it is recommended you look at deploying a local SMTP server using IIS for delivery.

Article originally published 03 December 2015 — Article updated 23 June 2017