AWG Blogs

Sunday, November 20, 2011

Group Email in MOSS

There are a couple of gotchas in Sharepoint 2007 you have to watch for when configuring group emails.

First, if you are trying to configure alerts to an AD security group email, make sure that the security group appears under the permissions for the list, either individually or in a group. Then you can create the alert by replacing your email with that of the security group. Although, at this time, I wouldn't know where to find this alert, if I wanted to delete it.

Secondly, there a few things to watch for when trying to send an email to a Sharepoint group. First you have to email enable the sites; do it in CA under Operations, Incoming Email Settings. Then in your group's settings, create the e-mail distribution list. After submitting you will notice below "Distribution list e-mail address:" a message "Distribution list status: Creation request pending." This means you must approve the request in CA, Operations, Approve/reject Distribution Groups. When that's done, you can email the group. However, what I had to do was verify the actual email address used as shown in Active Directory Users and Computers under the OU where Sharepoint created the distribution group. In my case, the email as shown in AD was based on the domain, i.e. mygroup@mydomain.com. Whereas in Sharepoint in the group settings, was shown mygroup@server.mydomain.com. Make sure the Windows SharePoint Services Timer service is running or else the email you send to mygroup@mydomain.com (e.g. emailing it from Outlook) may never be sent.

There is still a problem with regard to adding this group email to an email action in a Sharepoint Designer built workflow. The email does not send. The NDA email contains "You do not have permission to send to this recipient." I have tried removing connection and relay restrictions in the SMTP virtual server in Exchange System Manager. I also tried configuring Sharepoint to send via a local SMTP server that relays to Exchange. But I get the same NDA error. I have had no luck getting group email to work in the three-state workflow as well, so maybe it's related to group functionality. If I select the group from the Select Users picker in Define E-mail Message SPD workflow, I do not get an NDA, but no email is sent. If I type in the group's email address, as it appears in AD, then I get the NDA. If I use the long form email address, no email is sent, nor an NDA.