CopiaFacts is able to send e-mail broadcasts, fax-to-email transactions, and other e-mail items such as notifications from the system to an administrator. Emails are normally initiated using FS files in a similar way to fax transmissions, processed in the COPIAFACTS server application,and can be integrated with existing job administration and reporting. Notification emails can also be initiated by other CopiaFacts programs, using the EMDIRECT program to actually send the message.
An Internet connection is required on the machine running CopiaFacts for e-mail, and your available bandwidth determines the rate at which you can send e-mails.
CopiaFacts uses three different routing methods to send e-mail, which can be selected in EMSETUP:
Sending to the recipient mail server (default)
With this method CopiaFacts acts like an email server.
The COPIAFACTS engine uses domain name services (DNS) to look up the mail servers (MX) for the destination domain, and directs the e-mail to one of those mail servers, using the designated priority sequence it there are multiple servers. This has the advantage that you will normally get an immediate response if the e-mail fails, allowing a retry. In addition, when TLS secure e-mail is specified and supported by the destination, the e-mail content is encrypted from end-to-end.
This method is easiest to configure and is recommended when the majority of destinations are outside your company. No login or authentication is required, it needs one standard IP port to be open (25), it can provide secure transmission, and it uses widely accepted standards.
The main disadvantage of this method is that some Internet Service Providers still block outbound transmissions to port 25 and force the use of their own mail server; and some companies also require all outbound e-mail from the company to use the corporate mail server. The ISPs do this to deter the use of their facilities by spammers, and the companies to exercise tight control over outgoing e-mails. Both are reasonable aims, but in consequence CopiaFacts has to to be configured in client mode, not server, which is slightly harder to do.
Sending via a local corporate mail server or ISP (optional)
With this method CopiaFacts acts like an email client.
The client settings have to be configured to send e-mail, just as you would configure Outlook or Thunderbird as e-mail clients to send e-mail. And it has to log in to a mail server to send email. The COPIAFACTS program can optionally use this method to send email, and the Copia EMDIRECT program can only use this method. The Copia EMSETUP program is used to configure both.
EMSETUP is used to configure the email server to be used. This is always required when you will be using EMDIRECT to send notifications, and is optional for COPIAFACTS to send email broadcasts, fax-to-email transactions and the like. For COPIAFACTS, you can select to use the server for all email, or only for certain destination domains, for example within your own company.
Connecting to an internal corporate server which only allows connections from the local network can often be done without login credentials; otherwise a login name and password are normally needed. The server may be a local server such as Exchange, or may be in the cloud.
In addition to the login name and password, you will also need the server name or IP address, the port to be used, the authentication method and the level of security (TLS) to be used. Copia provides typical settings for common sever types (but these can change); your server administration should be able to provide settings for a corporate server; and the settings will normally be the same as can be found using Google for configuring mail clients for large public servers. Normally port 25 is not used to connect to a mail server with credentials. The usual port is 587, which supports TLS security by sending STARTTLS to explicitly initiate security; but port 465 is also commonly used, when TLS is 'implicit' from the very start of the connection. Mixing up the TLS and port settings can easily cause sending to fail, and firewalls can also cause difficulties: for troubleshooting use FFTRACE to see log output either from EMDIRECT or CF9EMAIL (for transmissions from COPIAFACTS).
Apart from configuration issues, the main disadvantage of this method is that CopiaFacts controls and reports connection security only as far as the connected server; after that the route to the sender is out of our hands. And similarly, there is no way for CopiaFacts to report transmission failures beyond the server.
Sending via a Copia-provided mail server
With this method CopiaFacts acts like an email client. But no server configuration is needed.
This method can optionally be selected in EMSETUP for system notifications only. Its principal purpose is to send notifications early in the installation and setup process for new CopiaFacts customers, perhaps before the e-mail transmission methods or security settings have been finalized.
The server can continue to be used to send notifications and trace files to Copia support staff, but for continuing use to send emails to your own staff you must configure your own mail server.
Details of CopiaFacts e-mail features appear in the following sections:
E-Mail Feature Overview
E-Mail Capacity Planning
Setting Up for Sending E-Mail
Locating the Recipient
Mail Relay via ISP
Preparing an E-Mail Broadcast
Personalizing E-Mail Messages
Sending to Multiple Recipients
International E-Mail
Combining E-Mail and Fax Broadcasts
Sending MHTML E-Mail (with embedded images)
Signed and Encrypted E-Mail
Logging E-Mail Transmissions
E-Mail Timeouts
