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SharePoint incoming and outgoing e-mail configuration for the Calendar E-Mail Extension

The following article describes how to configure incoming and outgoing e-mails for the Calendar E-Mail Extension.

In this article:

Configuring incoming e-mail

Step 1: Add and configure the SMTP Service

On your SharePoint server, or on one of your SharePoint servers if you have a farm consisting of more than one SharePoint server:

  • In Server Manager/Manage/Add roles and features, add the SMTP Server feature, this should also install the IIS 6.0 Manager.
  • In services change the startup mode of the ‘Simple Mail Transport Protocol (SMTP)’ service from manual to automatic.
  • In Server Manager/Tools/Internet Information Services (IIS) 6.0 Manager click on local computer/SMTP Virtual Server/Domains. Make sure the right pane now shows the local computer’s FQDN, use it as the address space for e-mail addresses on SharePoint, something like ‘sharepointserver.yourcompany.local’.
    When you click on the domain name you can see the drop directory, c:\inetpub\mailroot\drop by default.
    There is no need to change it. If you have a SharePoint server farm with more than one SharePoint Server, this folder must be accessible from all SharePoint servers hosting the SharePoint Timer Service (with the service account!). In this case you must specify a UNC like \\sharepointserver\c$\inetpub\mailroot\drop\ in SharePoint’s incoming email settings.

Step 2: Configure Incoming E-Mail in Central Administration/System Settings

Run Central Administration right click as an Administrator to see the ‘Configure incoming e-mail settings’ link in System Settings.

Enable sites on this server to receive e-mail? Yes.

Setting Mode: ‘Automatic’ if you only have one SharePoint server, ‘Advanced’ if you have more than one.

Use the SharePoint Directory Management Service to create distribution groups and contacts? As you like, it’s not necessary for the moment.

E-mail server display address: mylist @ ‘sharepointserver.yourcompany.local’ or, if this is different, use the domain name you configured for the SMTP Virtual Server.

Only if you have selected the advanced settings mode, E-mail drop folder: Enter the UNC \\servername\c$\inetpub\mailroot\drop\.

Step 3: Configure a Send connector in Exchange Server

Create a new send connector in Exchange Server that forwards e-mail sent to @sharepointserver.yourcompany.local (or whatever you entered to configure the SMTP Virtual Server domain name and Central Administration/Incoming e-mail settings/e-mail server display address) to the computer hosting the SMTP Service for SharePoint.

Step 4: Test incoming e-mail

On the Server hosting the SMTP Service, open Windows Explorer and browse the email\drop folder (C:\inetpub\mailroot\drop)

Open Outlook and create a new e-mail. Enter something like ‘anyalias@sharepointserver.yourcompany.local’ as the recipient, enter any subject and some blind text in the body. Send it.

Within a few seconds a new file with ‘eml’ as its file extension should appear in the drop folder.

If it does not, check the following:

  • In your inbox, check if you received a message from Exchange Server indicating the reason why the message could not be delivered.
  • Check the Exchange Server’s send connector configuration. Make sure you didn’t configure security requirements SMTP can’t fulfill!
  • Use tracking tools to find out what happened to the message on Exchange.

Configure outgoing e-mail

Step 1: Create a Receive connector in Exchange Server

Create a new receive connector that permits SharePoint Servers to send e-mail through Exchange. Depending on the Exchange Server version it might be necessary to grant permissions to send through Exchange Server and to relay messages.

Step 2: Configure Outgoing E-Mail in Central Administration/System Settings

Outbound SMTP Server: Enter the address or FQDN of the Exchange Server. In SharePoint 2016 for example you can also configure to use TLS and a certain server port if it’s not port 25. Make sure Exchange Server matches these details. The e-mail addresses can optionally be configured, they are not required.

Step 3: Test outgoing e-mail

If you haven’t yet installed the Telnet client feature on your SharePoint Web Frontend server, now it’s time to do it. In Server Manager/Manage/Add roles and features, add the Telnet Client feature.

We’ll now connect to Exchange through Telnet and send an e-mail manually. Open a connection to the Exchange Server and specify the port number, usually 25.

c:\> Telnet ExchangeServerName 25

Enter the following commands to send an e-mail:

EHLO sharepointserver.yourcompany.local

MAIL FROM: mylist@sharepointserver.yourcompany.local

RCPT TO: your-email-alias@yourcompany.ext

DATA

SUBJECT: Test from SharePoint … Press Enter twice!

Enter the text body of the test message.

Finalize the message with Enter + ‘.’ + Enter (Enter, dot, Enter)

QUIT to leave telnet

Outgoing e-mail works when you don’t encounter errors and when the message arrives in your mailbox.

Sending E-Mail to external Recipients

With the Calendar E-Mail Extension you can also send meeting requests to recipients outside of your organization. There are two options to configure.

The first option is to configure an Exchange contact with an external address that represents the SharePoint list’s e-mail alias ‘mylist@sharepointserver.yourcompany.local’ and an internal alias like ‘mylist@yourcompany.com’. You’ll have to configure the advanced settings mode in Calendar E-mail Extension Settings of your calendar list in this case – see the Calendar E-Mail Extension Configuration Guide for details.

The second option requires that Exchange is configured to relay messages for external and that SharePoint’s e-mail domain must be public, a MX-record must exist in DNS. Transport Neutral Encapsulation Format (TNEF), also known as Outlook Rich Text Format, is a Microsoft-specific format for encapsulating MAPI message properties. SharePoint will not understand this encapsulation format, so disable TNEF for this domain on Exchange Server in Remote Domains.

Additional documents

Configure incoming email for a SharePoint 2013 farm on technet

Calendar E-Mail Extension Installation Guide.

Calendar E-Mail Extension Configuration Guide.