Configuring Email Settings

Summary

For TraceGains to send outbound email, or to automatically process COAs through the TraceGains AutoStreaming service, you will need to configure at least one publicly accessible email mailbox in your TraceGains instance. This email mailbox may be hosted on premise, in a cloud service, or one can be rented from TraceGains for an annual fee.

Your IT department can tell you what the appropriate settings are for each field needed in the configuration screens below. If the mailbox is configured within your TraceGains platform, contact your Customer Success Manager or TraceGains Support team and let them know you require an email test.

PART 1: What Your IT Team Needs to Know

• TraceGains will use the mailbox to send outbound messages from TraceGains and depending on configuration may download messages from the mailbox to process attachments in each email message that is delivered to the mailbox.
  • If TraceGains is configured to download messages from a mailbox each message is deleted after successfully downloaded so the mailbox does not fill the configured storage allocation.
• TraceGains will authenticate with and connect to the mailbox anywhere from 4 to 12 times per hour, depending on overall TraceGains system services workloads.
• Outbound email transmission rates can be rate limited to support low-cost mailboxes in hosted environments.
  • TraceGains queues outbound messages and will continue to retry a failed message up to 24 hours.
• Changes in mailbox configuration may be delayed up to 60 minutes before they are pushed to all TraceGains services.
  • Inbound mailbox configuration changes are only pushed to TraceGains services at the top of each hour then cached. Inbound configurations can be tested and validated prior to saving changes.
  • Outbound configurations are updated in real-time to the TraceGains mail processing queue. Outbound configurations can be tested and validated prior to saving changes.
• TraceGains recommended mailbox configuration:
  • Mailbox should be a single user mailbox where no other users routinely access the mailbox.
  • Mailbox should require credentials for access.
    • TraceGains does provide support to connect to mailboxes without authentication but is not recommended.
  • Port encryption should be enabled.
    • Port encryption should make use of the TLS protocol. TraceGains supports TLS 1.2, TLS 1.1, TLS 1.0, SSL 3.0, SSL 2.0 and SSL 1.0. Selecting TLS as the encryption protocol forces TraceGains to attempt a connection at TLS 1.2 first, then downgrade to TLS 1.1 and then TLS 1.0 if no connection can be made at the prior protocol version.
    • The SSL protocol is only provided for backwards compatibility support and is not recommended if the mailbox supports TLS encryption.
  • Restrict access to the mailbox to the FQDN services.tracegains.net or the IP address 52.176.58.31.

Special considerations

• TraceGains recommends mailbox access be restricted to the FQDN services.tracegains.net or the IP address 52.176.58.31.

These screenshots provide you the layout of the dialog boxes within the TraceGains platform which the user may configure upon receipt of the required data from IT.

PART 2: After Consulting Your IT Department

Using the data provided by your IT team, log in to TraceGains:

Step 1: Click the Configuration Icon on the top-right corner.

Step 2: Select 'Email Accounts' on the lefthand side of the screen under the 'Notifications' section. 

Step 3: In the 'Name' field, you can use any verbiage to identify the purpose of the mailbox for easy reference. For example: "Outbound Email", "XYZ Company"

Step 4: In the 'Inbound Configuration' dialog box, click the 'Email Address' field and type in the data provided by IT.

Step 5: Continue to place data provided by IT in each appropriate field.

Step 6: The 'Reply to Sender', 'Auto Attach', and 'Match Suppliers' toggle settings will depend on the function of the mailbox (see Part 3 below). Be sure to click the 'Activate' toggle (if appropriate) at far upper-right in the dialog box.

Step 7: In the 'Outbound Configuration' dialog, paste the data provided by IT in each appropriate field.

Step 8: Set the 'Use for Notifications' toggle and the Rate Limit drop-down depending on the module being utilized. (See Part 3 below). Be sure to click the 'Activate' toggle (if appropriate) at far-upper-right in the dialog box. Click 'Save' at upper-right in the page.

Step 9: Select the 'Success & Error Alert Setup' tab. Add an email address to the 'Notify on Error CC' field. This email address should be the email address of someone who can alert the IT team if there is an error or the mailbox connectivity fails for any reason.

Step 10: Select the 'Miscellaneous' tab. Add an email address to the 'Account Contacts' field if desired. This is the email address of someone who can alert the IT team if there is an error or the mailbox connectivity fails for any reason. Your Customer Success Manager at TraceGains may be a good entry here.

Step 11: Click 'Save.'

PART 3: Toggle Switches Defined

Inbound Configuration:

• Reply to Sender: The Inbound Configuration settings will be used to send all success and error messages to the "From" email address of the incoming email message that contained the processed document.
• Auto Attach: The Inbound Configuration screen will be used to accept an incoming document that we could not process successfully using an OCR Import Template, a Digital Import Template, an ActionForm Import Template, or by reading the document as row data. This means that if Auto Attach is enabled, and a document fails, we accept the document anyway but put no Supplier or Item references on the  Documents  tab.
• Match Suppliers: This feature works with Auto Attach (above) to identify what supplier the document came from by querying the Contact_<Number>_Email attributes across all suppliers for a matching email address. If we find a single supplier match, we attach the document to that supplier on the Documents  tab. If we do not find a match on the email address, we attempt to find a single match on the domain of the email address in the Contact_<Number>_ Email attributes across all suppliers. If we find a single match, we attach the document to that Supplier on the Documents tab.

Outbound Configuration:

• Use for Notifications: The mailbox configured in the Outbound Configuration screen will be used to send notification emails to suppliers.
• Rate Limit: This drop-down menu choice is available to restrict the volume of outbound emails sent to your suppliers per hour. Some mail servers are configured to restrict this volume so that if our mail server is attempting to send thousands of emails within an hour, the receiving email servers will not block the sending server due to volume.

PART 4: Using the Correct Toggle Switches for TraceGains Products

Supplier Management (SM) module:

This module is used to communicate with suppliers regarding regulatory documents.

• Inbound Configuration: does not apply to the SM module.
• Outbound Configuration: Enable the Use for Notifications toggle.

We suggest selecting 310 emails/hour from the drop-down list.

Supplier Compliance (SC) module:

This module is used to communicate with suppliers regarding CARs and COAs.

• Inbound Configuration: Enable the Reply to Sender toggle.
• Outbound Configuration: Enable the Use for Notifications toggle.

We suggest selecting 310 emails/hour from the drop-down list.

Quality Management (QM) module:

This module communicates with internal users of your organization.

• Inbound Configuration: Does not apply to the QM module.
• Outbound Configuration: Enable the Use for Notifications toggle.

We suggest selecting 310 emails/hour from the drop-down list.

Audit Management (AM) module:

This module is used to communicate audit action forms and corrective action reports.

• Inbound Configuration: Enable the Reply to Sender toggle.
• Outbound Configuration: Enable the Use for Notifications toggle.

We suggest selecting 310 emails/hour from the drop-down list.

Specification Management (SpM) module:

This module is used to process specification management forms.

• Inbound Configuration: Does not apply to the Specification Management module.
• Outbound Configuration: Enable the Use for Notifications toggle.

We suggest selecting 310 emails/hour from the drop-down list.

Formula Management (FM) module:

This module is used to manage formulation and recipe R&D.

• Inbound Configuration: Does not apply to the Formula Management module.
• Outbound Configuration: Enable the Use for Notifications toggle.

We suggest selecting 310 emails/hour from the drop-down list.

PART 5: Testing Mailboxes

To truly test the mailbox configuration, the test must be run from outside the customer’s network on a machine that is not part of the customer's organization. If you are only able to test from inside the network or the only machine you have available for testing is a machine owned, managed, and configured by your employer, then send a message to TraceGains' Support Team at support@tracegains.com and they will run the test from outside your network to confirm connectivity.

To test Inbound or Outbound configuration settings, click the download button at the end of the Email Address field under the appropriate dialog box.

PART 6: Activate

Once the Inbound and/or Outbound Configuration settings have tested successfully, enable the Activate toggle for the appropriate configuration screen.

Finally, click 'Save.'