I have specified email settings for FastMaint but am getting errors when I try to send or receive email or alerts.
Overview of email usage
FastMaint can send out work orders as email messages/ text messages to each person associated with a work order. When the technicians send back a reply updating the work order, FastMaint can receive these updates (Email on Main window/ Administration tab on Home page) and try to process them. FastMaint will also use this email account for sending alerts. If you enter their SMS/ text gateway address (check with your mobile phone provider for these addresses) instead of an email address in the email address field on the person form, email can be sent as text messages to them.
Email setup information
The email account setting should contain email account information of an email account that FastMaint can use to receive email (via POP3 protocol) and send email (via SMTP protocol). It should not be someone else’s email account information. It is best that you create a new email account only for FastMaint’s use.
Does your email system require OAuth2?
FastMaint does NOT support OAuth2 authentication. So it cannot be used with an email account on any system that requires it, e.g. Office 365 and Outlook.com. The email account may work for some time and then stop working reliably due to settings updates made on their servers. Making the account work again can be a hit or miss experience.
For GMail accounts you will need to setup an app password for third-party apps like FastMaint. GMail too may support only OAuth2 in the future so it is not recommended.
Does your email system support only specific versions of TLS?
If your email system no longer supports TLS 1.0 or TLS 1.1 (shows connection errors) and you have FastMaint 12 or earlier, you will need to upgrade to a newer version of FastMaint.
Free & paid email systems as an alternative
If your company will not allow you to use the POP3 & SMTP protocols to communicate with their email server, look for a free or paid email account provider (e.g. Yahoo, AOL, Zoho, GMX, Titan, Namecheap, Ionos, etc.). Make sure that they support the POP3 & SMTP protocols. Get the correct POP3 & SMTP settings to use for the email provider you choose (server, ports, etc.). Make sure to allow access by third-party apps (like FastMaint) in the settings for the email account.
Email error troubleshooting tips
Review the detailed error message shown by FastMaint. It can be rather long – but if you go to the end of the message you can usually see a more friendly message. Your email server may require an encrypted connection over SSL. Most email systems use port 995 for the secure POP3 port and port 465 for the secure SMTP port. Microsoft Exchange usually require you to use SMTP on port 587 with TLS. If you are not sure what to use check with your email system administrator.
If you keep getting un-explainable email errors, test using Mozilla Thunderbird, Mailbird, eM Client or a similar email client. Configure them to use POP3 & SMTP with the email account details to confirm that your email server is handling the POP3 & SMTP protocols correctly. Run these tests on the computer running FastMaint OR the server hosting the FastMaint Web application to confirm that domain/ firewall issues are not causing these problems.
Using Microsoft Exchange server as your email server?
It may require some configuration of your Exchange server to allow SMTP relaying or handle DNS lookups. Also it is possible that the user name & password do not match the domain user name & password. Check the error message. If it has something like “Command is not valid in this state” it usually means that MS Exchange requires an encrypted connection usually over SSL – so try the ports mentioned above.
The following articles may be helpful:
1) SMTP 550 mailbox unavailable errors:
https://www.siteground.com/kb/smtp-error-550/
2) POP3 and IMAP4 in Exchange Server:
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/Exchange/clients/pop3-and-imap4/pop3-and-imap4?redirectedfrom=MSDN&view=exchserver-2019
3) Enable and configure POP3 on an Exchange server:
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/exchange/clients/pop3-and-imap4/configure-pop3?view=exchserver-2019
4) Troubleshooting – Enabling Protocol Logging In Microsoft Exchange:
https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa997690.aspx
