IBM Support

Email Interaction Setup for Purchase Order

Question & Answer


Question

How can remote users who do not have access to desktop Maximo update purchasing information?

Answer

Below are the steps to configure Email Interaction Setup (EIS) for Purchase Orders:


1. Create a new Role in the Roles application.  For example: WILSON
Click on the down arrow besides the "Type" field and select a type (or example: Person).





Other types of role are available: Custom class, A set of data related to the record, Email Address, Person Group, A set of data related to the login user.





2. Create a new Communication Template record for an initial outbound email (for example: MFMAILSENDPO).





Below is an example content of the communication template:






Change the status to ACTIVE.

3. Create a new communication template for the reply for PO (for example: MFMAILRESPO).





Below is an example content of the communication template:





Change the status to ACTIVE.


4. Create a new record in the Email Interaction Setup application (for example: MFPO).





Go to the "Object Status Change Configurations" section.
Click the "New Row" button.
Click on the arrow besides the "Status" field and select a status (for example: APPR).
Attach the initial outbound template to the "Notification Template" field.
Click on the arrow besides the "Send To" field and select a Role (for example: WILSON).





Go to the Selection Values section.
Click the "New Row" button.
Enter '1' in the Select Value field.  Enter a "Target Status" (for example: INPRG).
Click the "New Row" button.
Enter '2' in the "Select Value" field.  Enter a "Target Status" (for example: CLOSE).



NOTE: If a Purchase Order status is Approved, mobile user can reply with '1' to change the status to In Progress or '2' to change the status to Close.


5.   Create an email listener from the Email Listener application.
Populate the E-mail Address, password, Mail Server, Administrator E-mail fields
Protocol is 'pop3'.
Enter 'MFMAILRCV' as the Workflow process to handle conditions.





Enter a schedule for the email processing frequency.
Note the Cron Task instance name (for example: LSNR4).





Go to the "Security Settings" action.
Click the "New Row" button. Enter 'PO' for the Maximo business object and Maximo application.





Select the "Activate/Deactivate Listener" action to activate the listener.


6. Go to the Actions application.
Create a new Action (for example: MFMAILSENDPO).
Object is PO.
Enter "com.ibm.tivoli.maximo.mfmail.MfMailSTSendAction" in the Value field.
Type is Custom Class.
Save the record.





7. Create a new escalation in the Escalations application (for example: MAY_TEST).

with the condition below:

exists (select 1 from mfmailst where mboname='PO' and origin=1 and po.status=status)

Setup a schedule for this escalation crontask instance. For example: run the escalation every 2 minutes.

Click the New Row button to create an escalation point.
Enter an Elapsed Time Attribute if needed.





Click the New Row button in the Actions section.
Attach the action created in Step 6 above (for example: MFMAILSENDPO).







The Email Interaction Setup (EIS) configuration for PO is now complete.


Steps to test Email Interaction for PO:
1. Create a new PO record in the Purchase Orders application (for example: 1104).
Approve the PO.






2. An email arrives in the user's inbox with the content below:





3. The user replies with '1' to change the status to 'In Progress'.






4. Wait for 2 minutes. The user receives another email to confirm that the PO status has been changed to 'In Progress'.






5. Go to the Purchase Orders application in Maximo. Confirm that the PO has been changed to 'INPRG' status.





Troubleshooting steps:

If there is no email arriving in the user's inbox, turn on logging in the Logging application.
Bring up the 'mail' root logger.
Set the root mail logger to 'DEBUG'.
Go to the child Logger 'mfmail', set the Log Level to DEBUG.
Go to the child Logger 'sendfailed', set the Log Level to DEBUG.
Select the Active checkbox on both child loggers.
Select the "Apply Settings" action for the change to take effect.





Run the scenario and check systemout.log and systemerr.log from the C:\IBM\WebSphere\AppServer\profiles\ctgAppSrv01\logs\MXServer directory for errors.

excerpt from the systemout.log file:

[1/25/17 18:58:46:261 EST] 00000194 SystemOut O 25 Jan 2017 18:58:46:261 [ERROR] [MAXIMO] [CID-CRON-787] Failed to execute action on escalation: {MAY_TEST} reference point: {96} for object {PO} with id {250}
psdi.util.MXApplicationException: BMXAA0259E - The e-mail cannot be sent.
Could not connect to SMTP host: max76demo, port: 25
at com.ibm.tivoli.maximo.mfmail.MfMailSTSendAction.sendSTAssignmentMail(MfMailSTSendAction.java:386)
at com.ibm.tivoli.maximo.mfmail.MfMailSTSendAction.applyCustomAction(MfMailSTSendAction.java:168)


Check that the 'mail.smtp.host' property has the correct value in the System Properties application.

[{"Product":{"code":"SSLKT6","label":"IBM Maximo Asset Management"},"Business Unit":{"code":"BU059","label":"IBM Software w\/o TPS"},"Component":"--","Platform":[{"code":"PF025","label":"Platform Independent"}],"Version":"Version Independent","Edition":"","Line of Business":{"code":"LOB59","label":"Sustainability Software"}}]

Document Information

Modified date:
17 June 2018

UID

swg21997816