How to Configure Your Systems to Send Sage Email Directly From a Microsoft Exchange Server

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How to configure an Exchange server to allow you to send emails directly out of Sage 50 Accounts.

CAUTION:

You need to know that what you are doing is going to allow your Exchange server to send emails that are not authenticated. If you work for an IT support company then you will no doubt understand this risk but if you are not a seasoned professional in IT support or server support then you should consider obtaining the support of someone who is. This is a large security risk if you don't do this properly. If you open up your Exchange server to let anyone to do this then you are likely to become victim of spam abuse.

Part 1 - Configure the Exchange server

We are going to configure the Exchange server to allow anonymous outbound email messages but we're going to do it for just a handful of IP addresses. This greatly reduces the risk of abuse.

The first step is to create a new custom receive connector in Microsoft Exchange Management Console. To do this, launch the Exchange Management Console and expand 'Microsoft Exchange'> 'Server Configuration'> 'Hub Transport. Here, click the 'New Receive Connector' function which you will find a link for on the right hand side of the window. Enter a suitable label for this connector in the 'Name' field. You might like to call it 'Sage Accounts'. Within the 'Select the intended use...' area, choose 'Custom'.

Click 'Next' and then 'Next' again to get to the "Remote Network Settings" page.

On the Remote Network Settings page edit the IP address list to say only the addresses that you want to permit. e.g. If Sage 50 Accounts is configured on a terminal server then you should only have the terminal server's IP address entered here. If Sage 50 Accounts is run locally on an accounts PC then you'll need to make the IP address of this PC static and specify it in this list.

Finish the setup of this new connector and then edit to view the properties of it. Go into the 'Permission Groups' tab and ensure that only 'Exchange Servers' is ticked. Then, go into the 'Authentication' tab and make sure that only the top entry (Transport Layer Security) and the bottom entry (Externally Secured) are ticked. Click OK and then restart the 'Microsoft Exchange Transport' service from within Control Panel> Administrator Tools> Services.

Now you should find that you can configure Microsoft Outlook to use the Exchange server's LAN IP address as the outbound mail server without having to specify any kind of authentication. You can try this using Outlook or Outlook Express on the specific workstation or Terminal Server (eg the PC or Terminal Server that has Sage 50 Accounts installed in it).

Part 2 - Configure the Sage PC/Server

We are now going to configure Sage to send emails using the new Exchange Server configuration we created in step 1.

In Sage Report Designer, click Tools> Options> Email Setup. Configure the 'Default Provider' to SMTP and click the SMTP line in the 'Available Providers' box. Select 'Configure' and type the LAN IP address of the Exchange server in the 'Server Name' box. Leave the port number set to port 25 and leave SSL deselected.

Enter the email address you wish the emails to be sent from (eg "accounts@yourdomain.com" ) and type the display name for the email header (eg Your Company Name - Accounts). It's not important to put anything in particular in the login details settings so this can be set to anything. Click OK.

Next you need to make sure that each layout you want to send as an email is setup to utilize SMTP.

First, edit a document in Sage Report Designer. Click 'View' on the toolbar and click 'Properties' to show the properties toolbar on the right hand side of the screen. Below the 'Email Options' area, click the '(Email Options)' box and a button labelled '...' will be shown. Click this button to launch the Email Configuration Window.

Make sure that the top setting ('Provider') is set to SMTP and that the option at the bottom of the page is set to 'Send emails automatically'. Click OK at the bottom of the page.

The configuration of your system is now complete - You should now be able to email from that layout in Sage 50 Accounts.

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Source by Eddie Palmer