A notification mailer is a Java program that performs e-mail send and response processing for the Oracle Workflow Notification System, using the JavaMail API. You need to implement one or more notification mailers only if you want to have your workflow users receive their notifications by e-mail, as well as from the Worklist Web pages.
The notification mailer program is defined as a service component type in the Generic Service Component Framework. This framework helps to simplify and automate the management of background Java services.
Oracle Workflow provides one seeded notification mailer service component, called Workflow Notification Mailer. Most of the configuration parameters for this mailer are set to default values. You can enter several of the remaining required parameters using AutoConfig. After installation, you then only need to enter the e-mail inbox password in order to complete the configuration of this mailer. Alternatively, if you only want to send outbound messages and do not need to receive inbound messages, you only need to disable inbound processing in order to complete the configuration of this mailer. If the mail servers and Business Event System components used by the notification mailers are set up, and the Workflow Mailer Service container to which the Workflow Notification Mailer belongs is started, then the seeded notification mailer automatically starts running once its configuration is complete.
You cannot delete the seeded Workflow Notification Mailer or edit its name, assigned agents, correlation ID value, or container. However, if necessary you can optionally update other configuration parameters, schedule control events, or manually choose control commands to start, stop, suspend, resume, or refresh this notification mailer.
Note: Oracle Alert also uses the Workflow Notification Mailer to send and receive alert e-mail messages. If you use Oracle Alert, ensure that the configuration of the Workflow Notification Mailer meets your alert requirements. See: Setup Steps.
You can also optionally create additional notification mailer service components. For example, you can create a notification mailer that processes only messages that belong to a particular workflow item type, or instances of a particular message from a particular item type. You can create additional mailers that process the same types of message to increase throughput.
The correlation ID for a notification mailer determines which messages it can process.
To create a general notification mailer that can process any message from any item type that is not being handled by a dedicated notification mailer, leave the correlation ID blank. The seeded Workflow Notification Mailer has a blank correlation ID so that it can run as a general mailer.
To dedicate a notification mailer to processing messages from a particular item type, set the correlation ID to the internal item type name followed by a colon and a percent sign.
To dedicate a notification mailer to processing instances of a particular message from a particular item type, set the correlation ID to the internal item type name followed by a colon and then the internal message name.
Note: If you run a general notification mailer and a dedicated notification mailer at the same time, then the general notification mailer does not process messages that match the dedicated notification mailer's correlation ID, as long as the dedicated notification mailer has a status of Running, Stopped With Error, or System Deactivated. If the dedicated notification mailer has any other status, such as User Deactivated or Suspended, then the general notification mailer does process the messages that match the dedicated notification mailer's correlation ID.
To ensure consistency in message handling, all notification mailers that can process the same messages must share the same values for certain parameters. Multiple mailers can process the same messages in the following cases:
A general mailer runs at the same time as any dedicated mailers.
Multiple general mailers run at the same time.
Multiple dedicated mailers for the same item type or message definition run at the same time.
In these cases, the notification mailers must share the same values for the following parameters:
HTML Agent
Attach Images to Outbound E-mails
Attach Stylesheet to Outbound E-mail
Autoclose FYI
Direct Response
Reset NLS
Inline Attachments
All message template parameters
However, these mailers can have different values for the From and Reply-to Address parameters. The headers of each notification e-mail message will contain the From and Reply-to Address values of the notification mailer that actually sent the message, unless the message itself has the special #WFM_FROM and #WFM_REPLYTO message attributes defined to override the notification mailer's parameters. See: Notification Mailer Attributes.
You can also configure any notification mailer service component to process only inbound messages, or only outbound messages. You associate inbound and outbound mailers with each other by assigning them the same mailer node name. The mailer node name indicates which inbound mailer can process incoming responses to outbound messages sent by a particular outbound mailer.
You can optionally assign the same node name to multiple mailers for load balancing purposes. However, each mailer that performs inbound processing for a node must have its own inbox.
If you enable both outbound and inbound processing for the same mailer, that mailer will automatically use the same node name for both types of processing, enabling it to process incoming responses to the outbound messages it sent. You can optionally also create other notification mailers that share the same node name.
If you create an outbound-only mailer, but you still want to perform response processing for e-mail responses to the outbound messages it sends, you should create at least one other mailer with the same node name that does perform inbound message processing. Otherwise, there will be no inbound mailer that can process incoming responses to outbound messages sent by this outbound mailer.
If you only want to implement outbound message processing, without inbound e-mail response processing, then you can configure an outbound-only mailer without creating a corresponding inbound mailer. In this case you should configure the mailer to use message templates for response-required notifications that do not request a response by e-mail, but instead direct recipients to respond from the Notification Details Web page. For example, you can configure the mailer to send response-required notifications using the Workflow View From UI message template, which is an alternative template provided by Oracle Workflow in the System: Mailer item type, or create your own custom message templates. The outbound-only mailer can still use the standard message templates to send outbound summary notifications or For Your Information (FYI) notifications that do not require a response.
Create an inbound-only mailer only if you have also created at least one mailer with the same node name that performs outbound message processing. If no outbound mailer shares the same node name, no incoming response messages will be marked with that node name, and the inbound-only mailer will have no messages to process.
Dedicated mailers for different item types or message definitions should use different node names.
If you create custom notification mailer service components, you can either assign them to the seeded container for notification mailers, named Workflow Mailer Service, or, based on the volume to be handled by the seeded container, you can also choose to create your own custom containers.
Currently, Oracle Workflow supports the Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) for outbound messages and the Internet Message Access Protocol (IMAP) for inbound messages. You must have an SMTP server set up in order to send Oracle Workflow notification e-mail messages, and an IMAP server set up if you want to receive e-mail notification responses. Users can receive e-mail notifications using various e-mail clients, although notifications may be displayed differently in different clients, depending on the features each client supports.
Note: Oracle Workflow supports IMAP version 4 (IMAP4) compliant mail servers. Ensure that your mail server uses this IMAP version.
To set up a notification mailer, you must perform the following steps.
Set up an SMTP mail server to send outbound messages.
You can optionally configure the SMTP server to require authentication for server connections through the Simple Authentication and Security Layer (SASL). The Oracle Workflow notification mailer supports the PLAIN, LOGIN, and DIGEST-MD5 authentication mechanisms. Additionally, if you have applied patch 9452181 for JavaMail version 1.4.x, then the notification mailer can also support the Microsoft NTLM authentication mechanism. If you configure your SMTP server to use one of these authentication mechanisms, set up a user name and password for the notification mailer to use in establishing an authenticated connection to the server.
If you configure your SMTP server to support more than one authentication mechanism, then the notification mailer uses the mechanism that appears first in the server's list of supported mechanisms. Consequently, if you want the notification mailer to use a particular mechanism, ensure that that mechanism appears first in the server's list. At a minimum, you should ensure that the first authentication mechanism listed for the server is one that the notification mailer supports.
Note: If you use the PLAIN or LOGIN authentication mechanisms, it is recommended to connect to the SMTP server through Transport Layer Security (TLS) or Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) to encrypt the user name and password that are sent to the server. See: Connecting to Mail Servers Through TLS or SSL. If you use the DIGEST-MD5 or NTLM authentication mechanisms, the JavaMail API encrypts the user name and password before sending the data to the SMTP sever.
Set up an IMAP4 compliant mail server with an e-mail account for the notification mailer if you want to receive inbound messages.
The notification mailer requires three folders in this e-mail account: the inbox, a folder to store processed messages, and a folder to store discarded messages. If the e-mail account does not already include folders named PROCESS and DISCARD, Oracle Workflow automatically creates these two folders when you complete the basic notification mailer configuration. You can optionally specify other folders for the notification mailer using the advanced configuration wizard.
Note: If you create the PROCESS and DISCARD folders manually before configuring the notification mailer, use your e-mail client to create these folders. A notification mailer may not be able to access folders that were created using command line tools outside the e-mail client.
However, note that you must not use an e-mail client to access the notification mailer's e-mail account while the notification mailer is running. Use the e-mail client only during setup.
You can use AutoConfig to enter the following configuration parameters for the seeded Workflow Notification Mailer service component during installation. For more information about running AutoConfig, see: Technical Configuration, Oracle E-Business Suite Setup Guide, and Technical Configuration Tools, Oracle E-Business Suite Concepts.
SMTP Server
IMAP Server (if you want to receive inbound messages)
Inbox Username (if you want to receive inbound messages)
Reply To E-mail Address (if you want to receive inbound messages)
HTML Agent Name - This parameter defaults to the value you enter for the Applications Servlet Agent parameter in AutoConfig. Use the following format:
http://<server_name:port>/OA_HTML/
Note: When you enter the SMTP Server and IMAP Server parameters, specify each server in the following format: <server_name>[:<port_number>]
For the IMAP Server parameter, specify the actual host name. Do not use localhost as the setting for this parameter.
For the SMTP Server parameter, Oracle strongly recommends that you specify the actual host name. However, you can specify localhost as the setting for the SMTP Server parameter if you ensure that an SMTP server is configured to send e-mails to all valid domains on each host where concurrent managers run. If you have implemented Parallel Concurrent Processing to allow concurrent processing activities to be distributed across multiple nodes in a cluster system, then you must configure an SMTP server on every node. Otherwise, if a concurrent manager attempts to execute outbound notification mailer processing on a node without an SMTP server, the processing will fail.
You can optionally specify the port number to use on each server. If you do not specify a port number, the notification mailer uses port 143 on the IMAP server and port 25 on the SMTP server by default.
Ensure that the Business Event Local System status is set to Enabled in the Workflow Configuration page, and that the JOB_QUEUE_PROCESSES database initialization parameter, which is required for the Business Event System, is set to an appropriate value. The Business Event Local System status is set to Enabled by default, and usually you do not need to change this status. If notification processing is not being completed, however, you should check this preference value.
(Recommended) You can optionally set the WF: Workflow Mailer Framework Web Agent profile option to the host and port of the Web server that notification mailers should use to generate the content for Oracle Application Framework regions that are embedded in notifications. If this profile option is not set, notification mailers will use the same Web agent specified in the Application Framework Agent profile option. However, on a load-balanced Web server, notification mailers might not be able to render Oracle Application Framework content within a notification. In this case, set the WF: Workflow Mailer Framework Web Agent profile option to a physical host, instead of a virtual host. The WF: Workflow Mailer Framework Web Agent profile option should be set at site level. See: Overview of Setting User Profiles, Oracle E-Business Suite Setup Guide.
(Optional) If your Oracle E-Business Suite instance is set up in a DMZ configuration, you can optionally configure links for the Notification Detail Link attachment in e-mail notifications to be generated using the external web entry point for users whom you designate as external users. In this way external users without access to your intranet, such as suppliers, can access these links to Oracle E-Business Suite content from workflow notifications.
To designate users as external users, assign them the role WF_EXTERNAL_ROLE. See: Create Grant.
Note: Some Oracle E-Business Suite applications assign the role WF_EXTERNAL_ROLE to certain users as part of their configuration. For more information, see your product-specific documentation.
To specify the external web entry point that the notification mailer should use to generate the links, set the FND Framework External Agent profile option. See: Overview of Setting User Profiles, Oracle E-Business Suite Setup Guide.
When a notification is sent to a recipient with the role WF_EXTERNAL_ROLE, the notification mailer uses the external agent specified in the FND Framework External Agent profile option to generate the link for the Notification Detail Link attachment. However, if no value is set in the FND Framework External Agent profile option, then the notification mailer uses the default Web agent specified in the Application Framework Agent profile option.
For more information about DMZ configurations, see: Oracle E-Business Suite Release 12.2 Configuration in a DMZ, My Oracle Support Document 1375670.1.
Before a service component can run, the container which manages it must first be started. The seeded Workflow Notification Mailer service component belongs to a container named Workflow Mailer Service, while the seeded agent listener service components that are also required for notification mailer processing belong to a container named Workflow Agent Listener Service. You should ensure that these two containers are running. If you create your own custom containers for custom service components, ensure that those containers are running as well. Use the Service Instances page to start the containers as service instances in Generic Service Management (GSM).
When the Workflow Agent Listener Service container is running, it automatically starts seeded agent listener service components named Workflow Deferred Notification Agent Listener, Workflow Error Agent Listener, and Workflow Inbound Notifications Agent Listener, which are required for notification mailer processing. Ensure that these agent listeners are running.
Use the notification mailer configuration wizard to configure your notification mailer service component. The Basic Configuration page lets you configure a notification mailer quickly by entering only the minimum required parameters, while the advanced configuration wizard lets you specify additional parameters to control how the notification mailer processes messages.
If you entered configuration parameters for the seeded Workflow Notification Mailer through AutoConfig, you only need to enter the password for the e-mail inbox in order to complete the configuration for that mailer and begin running it. If you did not enter parameters for the seeded mailer through AutoConfig, then in order to complete the configuration for that mailer you need to enter only the SMTP server, IMAP server, e-mail inbox username, e-mail inbox password, and reply-to e-mail address. All other configuration parameters for the seeded Workflow Notification Mailer are initially set to default values and do not need to be changed, although you can optionally do so if you choose.
Note: The IMAP server, e-mail inbox username, e-mail inbox password, and reply-to e-mail address are required only if you want to receive inbound messages. Alternatively, if you only want to send outbound messages and do not need to receive inbound messages, you only need to disable inbound processing in order to complete the configuration of the Workflow Notification Mailer.
(Optional) By default, the seeded Workflow Notification Mailer has a Launch Summary Notifications event scheduled to send summary notifications once a day. You can optionally use the notification mailer configuration wizard to modify the start time and interval for this event's schedule, or to schedule the Launch Summary Notifications event at the interval you choose for any notification mailer service component. When this event is processed, a summary notification is sent to each role with a notification preference of SUMMARY or SUMHTML, listing all the notifications that are currently open for that role.
(Optional) You can configure a notification mailer to connect to the SMTP server and IMAP server through TLS or SSL to encrypt the data exchanged. See: Connecting to Mail Servers Through TLS or SSL.
(Optional) You can optionally set the internal mailer parameter named HTML_DELIMITER to specify which characters the notification mailer uses to delimit response values in response templates for HTML-formatted e-mail notifications. Valid values for the HTML_DELIMITER parameter are:
DEFAULT - The notification mailer uses the default delimiters, currently set as the single quote (') for both the opening and the closing delimiter. The notification mailer also uses the default delimiters if the HTML_DELIMITER parameter value is left null.
APOS - The notification mailer uses the single quote, or apostrophe (') , as both the opening and the closing delimiter. This setting is currently the same as the default.
QUOTE - The notification mailer uses the double quote (") as both the opening and the closing delimiter.
BRACKET - The notification mailer uses the left bracket ([) as the opening delimiter and the right bracket (]) as the closing delimiter.
Using single quotes as the delimiters accommodates e-mail applications that cannot process double quotes in the <A HREF="mailto:"> tag for the response template link, but can accept single quotes. However, if you want users to be able to use apostrophes or single quotes in their response values without entering an escape character, you can use double quotes or brackets as the delimiters, depending on what your e-mail application supports. See: To Respond to an HTML E-mail Notification.
Note: If the HTML_DELIMITER parameter is set to an invalid value, the notification mailer throws an exception at startup. Any notifications created during this time are rendered with the default delimiters instead.
By default, the HTML_DELIMITER parameter is set to the value DEFAULT. Use the afsvcpup.sql script to change the parameter value to specify the delimiters you want to use. See: To Set Internal Mailer Parameters.
If a particular notification message has the special #WFM_HTML_DELIMITER message attribute defined, however, the notification mailer will use the #WFM_HTML_DELIMITER attribute value to determine which delimiters to use for that notification, instead of using the HTML_DELIMITER parameter value.
Note: The HTML_DELIMITER parameter only controls the response templates for HTML-formatted notifications. This parameter does not apply to plain text notifications.
(Optional) The seeded Workflow Notification Mailer uses the Automatic startup mode by default and will be started automatically when you complete its configuration. If you select the Manual startup mode for a notification mailer service component, use the Service Components page to start that notification mailer. You can also use this page to manage any notification mailer service component.
When the Workflow Engine determines that a notification message must be sent, it raises an event in the Business Event System called oracle.apps.wf.notification.send. Oracle Workflow provides a seeded subscription to this event, which is defined to be deferred immediately so that the workflow process that owns the notification can continue. The event is placed on the standard WF_DEFERRED agent. Oracle Workflow provides a seeded agent listener named Workflow Deferred Notification Agent Listener that runs on this agent to continue notification processing. This agent listener is dedicated solely to processing deferred notification events.
When the event is dequeued from WF_DEFERRED and the subscription is processed, the subscription requires the event data for the event, causing the generate function for the event to be executed. The generate function for this event performs the following actions:
Resolves the notification recipient role to one or more e-mail addresses defined for the role; an e-mail address can itself be a mail list.
Checks the notification preference of the recipient to determine whether an e-mail notification is required, and in what type of format.
Switches its database session to the recipient role's preferred language and territory as defined in the directory service.
Generates an XML representation of the notification message and any optional attachments using the appropriate message template.
Finally, the subscription places the event message on the standard WF_NOTIFICATION_OUT agent.
A notification mailer service component polls the WF_NOTIFICATION_OUT agent for messages that must be sent by e-mail. When the notification mailer dequeues a message from this agent, it uses a Java-based notification formatter to convert the XML representation of the notification into a MIME (Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions) encoded message and sends the message by the Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP).
The e-mail notifications are based on message templates defined in Oracle Workflow Builder. Oracle Workflow provides a set of standard templates in the System: Mailer item type, which are used by default. It is not recommended to modify the standard templates. However, you can customize the message templates used to send your e-mail notifications by creating your own custom message templates in a custom item type using the Workflow Builder. Then assign these templates to a particular notification in a workflow process by defining special message attributes. In this case the templates assigned to the notification override any other templates.
You can also create your own custom message templates in the System: Mailer item type using the Workflow Builder, and assign these templates to a particular notification mailer service component in the mailer configuration parameters. The templates assigned to a mailer override the default System: Mailer templates. However, if any notifications have templates specifically assigned to them through message attributes, the notification-level templates still override the templates assigned to the mailer.
If the notification mailer cannot deliver an e-mail notification to one or more of the recipient's e-mail addresses, it performs the following actions:
Sets the mail status of the notification to SENT if the e-mail was delivered successfully to at least one e-mail address for the recipient.
Sets the mail status of the notification to FAILED if the e-mail could not be delivered to any e-mail address defined for the recipient. This mail status indicates that an exception prevented this e-mail notification from being delivered but does not prevent the mailer from processing other notifications.
Adds the e-mail address or addresses to its invalid e-mail address list. To avoid unnecessary processing, each notification mailer stores a list of e-mail addresses to which it could not deliver messages, and does not attempt to send any further messages to those addresses. If all the addresses for a recipient are invalid, then for any subsequent notifications to the listed addresses, the notification mailer simply sets the mail status directly to FAILED. If at least one address for the recipient was valid, then the notification mailer continues sending notifications to the valid address or addresses, but does not attempt to send any further messages to the invalid addresses.
Note: Each notification mailer can store up to 100 e-mail addresses in its invalid e-mail address list. If the notification mailer encounters additional invalid addresses when the list is already full, the notification mailer removes the oldest addresses from the list and adds the new addresses in their place. Also, the notification mailer clears the list by removing all addresses whenever you stop and restart the mailer.
Changes the notification preference of the recipient to DISABLED, if all the e-mail addresses for the recipient are invalid. To further help avoid unnecessary processing, if a recipient has a notification preference of DISABLED, Oracle Workflow does not generate a complete XML representation of any notifications to that recipient, and a notification mailer does not attempt to send e-mail notifications to that recipient. Instead, the notification mailer simply sets the mail status of the notifications directly to FAILED. The change in notification preference also indicates to the user that e-mail notifications cannot be delivered. You or the user must correct the issue that caused the failure and then reset the notification preference in order for the user to receive e-mail notifications.
If at least one e-mail address for the recipient was valid, then the notification preference of the recipient is not changed. In this case the notification mailer continues sending notifications to the valid address or addresses, but does not attempt to send any further messages to the invalid addresses.
Sends a notification to the SYSADMIN user. If all the e-mail addresses for a recipient are invalid, this notification informs the administrator that an e-mail notification could not be sent to one or more recipients, that the notification preference for those recipients has been set to DISABLED, and that those recipients' original notification preferences, which are listed, should be reset after the issues that caused the failures are corrected. See: User Notification Preference Update Report Message.
If at least one e-mail address for the recipient was valid, then this notification informs the administrator that an e-mail notification could not be sent to one or more e-mail addresses for the recipient, that those addresses should be either corrected or removed from the list of e-mail addresses defined for the recipient, and that Oracle Workflow will not attempt to send any further notifications to these addresses until the notification mailer is restarted. See: Invalid Email Address Warning Message Template.
Individual users whose notification preference was set to DISABLED can reset their notification preference manually using the Preferences page in Oracle E-Business Suite. You can also run the Workflow Directory Services Bulk Reset DISABLED Notification Preference concurrent program to reset the notification preference for multiple users at once. See: Handling Mailer Errors.
After correcting the e-mail issues and resetting DISABLED notification preferences, you can run the Resend Failed/Error Workflow Notifications concurrent program to retry open notifications that previously could not be sent. See: Handling Mailer Errors.
Notification mailers can also process e-mail responses from users, using the Internet Message Access Protocol (IMAP). A notification mailer uses a Java-based e-mail parser to interpret the text of each message and create an XML representation of it.
A notification mailer uses three folders in your response mail account for response processing: one to receive incoming messages, one to store processed messages, and one to store discarded messages.
A notification mailer does the following to process response messages:
Logs into its IMAP e-mail account.
Checks the inbox folder for messages. If a message exists, the notification mailer reads the message, checking for the notification ID (NID) and node identifier in the NID line.
If the message is not a notification response, meaning it does not contain an NID line, the notification mailer moves the message to the discard folder and treats it as an unsolicited message. For the first unsolicited message from a particular e-mail address, the notification mailer also sends a warning message back to the sender of the message. However, to avoid sending unnecessary warnings due to bounced or auto-reply messages, each mailer node stores a list of e-mail addresses from which it has received unsolicited mail, and does not send any further warning messages to those addresses. Instead, if the node receives a second unsolicited message from a particular address, the notification mailer discards the message and raises the oracle.apps.wf.mailer.unsolicited event. You can optionally define a subscription to this event if you want to perform some other action in response to the second unsolicited message. For all subsequent unsolicited messages, the notification mailer simply discards the message.
Note: Each mailer node can store up to 100 e-mail addresses in its warned list. If the node receives unsolicited messages from additional addresses when the list is already full, the notification mailer removes the oldest addresses from the list and adds the new addresses in their place. Also, the notification mailer clears the list by removing all addresses when you start the mailer for the first time, and again whenever you stop and restart its container. In these cases, the mailer may send another warning message if it receives further unsolicited e-mail from an address that is no longer on the warned list.
Note: You can optionally use the Send Warning for Unsolicited E-mail mailer parameter to prevent notification mailers from sending any warning messages at all. See: Notification Mailer Configuration Wizard.
If the message is a notification response, but for a different node, the notification mailer leaves the message in the inbox and adds the e-mail's Unique Message ID (UID) to its ignore list.
If the message is a notification response for the current node, meaning it contains an NID line including the node identifier of the current node, the notification mailer processes the message.
The notification mailer performs the following steps for messages that belong to its node.
Retrieves the notification ID.
Checks to see if the message bounced by referring to the tags specified in the configuration parameters, if any. If the message bounced, the notification mailer updates the notification's status and stops any further processing, based on the specifications of the tag list.
Checks the Oracle Workflow database for this notification based on the NID line.
If the notification does not exist, meaning the notification ID or the access key in the NID line is invalid, the notification mailer moves the message to the discard folder. If the NID line is incorrectly formatted, the notification mailer moves the message to the discard folder and treats it as an unsolicited message.
If the notification exists, but is closed or canceled, the notification mailer moves the message to the processed folder and sends a Workflow Closed Mail or Workflow Canceled Mail message to the recipient role, respectively.
Note: You can optionally use the Send E-mails for Canceled Notifications mailer parameter to prevent notification mailers from sending any notification cancellation messages. See: Notification Mailer Configuration Wizard.
If the inbound message is a response to a request for more information that has already been answered, or if the message is formatted as a more information response but no information was requested for that notification, then the notification mailer moves the message to the discard folder and sends a Workflow More Info Answered Mail message to the sender of the message.
If the notification exists and is open, the notification mailer generates an XML representation of the message and places it on the standard WF_NOTIFICATION_IN agent as an event called oracle.apps.wf.notification.receive.message. The notification mailer then moves the message for the completed notification to the processed folder.
Note: If the character encoding of the response message is not compatible with the database codeset, the notification mailer may not be able to parse the response and recognize the response values. Ensure that the character encoding of messages in your mail client is compatible with the codeset of your database.
Finally, if there are no more unprocessed messages in the inbox, the notification mailer logs out of the e-mail account.
Oracle Workflow provides a seeded agent listener named Workflow Inbound Notifications Agent Listener that runs on the WF_NOTIFICATION_IN agent to continue notification processing for the valid response messages placed on that agent. When an event message is dequeued from WF_NOTIFICATION_IN, Oracle Workflow executes a seeded subscription that calls the appropriate notification response function. This function verifies the response values with the definition of the notification message's response attributes in the database. If a response value is invalid, or if no response value is included, the notification mailer sends a Workflow Invalid Mail message to the recipient role, or, for an invalid response to a request for more information, the notification mailer sends a Workflow Invalid Open Mail (More Information Request) message to the recipient role. If the responses are valid, the notification response function records the response and completes the notification.
Use the notification mailer configuration wizard to configure a new notification mailer service component, or to edit the configuration of an existing notification mailer service component. The notification mailer configuration wizard begins with the Basic Configuration page, which lets you configure a notification mailer quickly by entering only the minimum required parameters.
From the Basic Configuration page, you can also navigate to the advanced configuration wizard to specify additional parameters that control how the notification mailer processes messages. The advanced configuration wizard lets you define general and detail attributes, define e-mail server and message generation parameters, schedule control events, and define tags to assign statuses to unusual messages.
Some parameters appear in both the Basic Configuration page and the advanced configuration wizard. Both the Basic Configuration page and the advanced configuration wizard also let you send test messages.
Note: If you are configuring the seeded Workflow Notification Mailer and you entered configuration parameters for this mailer through AutoConfig, then you only need to enter the password for the e-mail inbox in order to complete the configuration for that mailer. If you did not enter parameters for the seeded mailer through AutoConfig, then in order to complete the configuration for that mailer you need to enter only the SMTP server, IMAP server, e-mail inbox username, e-mail inbox password, and reply-to e-mail address. All other configuration parameters for the seeded Workflow Notification Mailer are initially set to default values and do not need to be changed, although you can optionally do so if you choose.
Note that the IMAP server, e-mail inbox username, e-mail inbox password, and reply-to e-mail address are required only if you want to receive inbound messages. Alternatively, if you only want to send outbound messages and do not need to receive inbound messages, you only need to disable inbound processing in order to complete the configuration of the Workflow Notification Mailer.
Navigation: Applications Dashboard > (pull-down menu) Workflow Manager > (B) Go > Notification Mailers status icon > (B) Create > (B) Continue
Navigation: Applications Dashboard > (pull-down menu) Workflow Manager > (B) Go > Notification Mailers status icon > (B) Edit
This page lets you configure a notification mailer quickly by entering only the minimum required parameters in a single page. You must set parameters marked with an asterisk (*) to appropriate values for your environment before you can run the notification mailer.
Name - The name of the service component. This name must be unique. The name of the seeded notification mailer service component is Workflow Notification Mailer, and you cannot change this value.
Server Name - The name of the outbound SMTP mail server. Oracle strongly recommends that you specify the actual host name for the SMTP server. However, you can specify localhost as the setting for this parameter if you ensure that an SMTP server is configured to send e-mails to all valid domains on each host where concurrent managers run. If you have implemented Parallel Concurrent Processing to allow concurrent processing activities to be distributed across multiple nodes in a cluster system, then you must configure an SMTP server on every node. Otherwise, if a concurrent manager attempts to execute outbound notification mailer processing on a node without an SMTP server, the processing will fail. Also, when you save the configuration, Oracle Workflow Manager tests the connection to the SMTP server from within the Web tier host. Consequently, if you set the outbound server name to localhost, you should ensure that an SMTP server is configured on the Web tier host as well.
You can optionally specify the port number to use on that server. If you do not specify a port number, the notification mailer uses port 25 by default. Specify the server in the following format: <server_name>[:<port_number>]
For example: mysmtpserver.example.com:25
Username - If the outbound SMTP server is configured to require authentication, enter the user name of the account that the notification mailer uses to connect to the SMTP server.
Password - If the outbound SMTP server is configured to require authentication, enter the password for the account specified in the Username parameter. The password value is masked as asterisks in the display and is stored in encrypted form.
Connection Security - Select the type of protocol to use for connections to the SMTP server.
Choose None if you do not want to use a secure protocol.
Choose SSL/TLS to use TLS or SSL directly.
Choose STARTTLS to upgrade to an encrypted TLS or SSL connection using STARTTLS.
Note: The notification mailer connects to the SMTP server through the following default ports, depending on the connection security you select.
None - port 25
SSL/TLS - port 465
STARTTLS - port 587
You can optionally specify a different port number along with the SMTP server name in the outbound Server Name parameter.
Before you can use a secure protocol, you must also complete additional setup steps. See: Connecting to Mail Servers Through TLS or SSL.
Inbound Processing - Select this parameter to enable inbound e-mail processing with this notification mailer. Deselect this parameter to disable inbound e-mail processing for this notification mailer and dedicate the notification mailer solely to outbound processing.
If you disable inbound processing, you can leave the other inbound parameters blank.
Server Name - The name of the inbound IMAP mail server. Note that you must specify the actual host name for the server. Do not use localhost as the setting for this parameter. You can optionally specify the port number to use on that server. If you do not specify a port number, the notification mailer uses port 143 by default. Specify the server in the following format: <server_name>[:<port_number>]
For example: myimapserver.example.com:143
Username - The user name of the mail account that the notification mailer uses to receive e-mail messages.
Password - The password for the mail account specified in the Username parameter. The password value is masked as asterisks in the display and is stored in encrypted form.
Reply-To Address - The address of the e-mail account that receives incoming messages, to which notification responses should be sent. This value must be a full RFC822-compliant e-mail address.
If a particular notification message has the special #WFM_REPLYTO message attribute defined, however, the notification mailer will use the #WFM_REPLYTO attribute value as the reply address for that message, instead of the Reply-To Address parameter value.
Note: If you enable inbound processing, Oracle Workflow by default sets the From parameter, which is displayed in the From field of the message headers, to the name portion of the reply-to address. For example, if the reply-to address is Workflow@example.com, the notification mailer sets the From parameter to Workflow.
If you disable inbound processing, Oracle Workflow by default sets both the Reply-To Address parameter and the From parameter to nobody@<server_name>, where <server_name> is the name of the outbound SMTP mail server.
To specify a different From value, navigate to the advanced configuration wizard.
Connection Security - Select the type of protocol to use for connections to the IMAP server.
Choose None if you do not want to use a secure protocol.
Choose SSL/TLS to use TLS or SSL directly.
Choose STARTTLS to upgrade to an encrypted TLS or SSL connection using STARTTLS.
Note: The notification mailer connects to the IMAP server through the following default ports, depending on the connection security you select.
None - port 143
SSL/TLS - port 993
STARTTLS - port 143
You can optionally specify a different port number along with the IMAP server name in the inbound Server Name parameter.
Before you can use a secure protocol, you must also complete additional setup steps. See: Connecting to Mail Servers Through TLS or SSL.
Note: The notification mailer requires three folders in the IMAP mail account: the inbox, a folder to store processed messages, and a folder to store discarded messages. If you enable inbound processing and the mail account you specify in the Username parameter does not already include folders named PROCESS and DISCARD, Oracle Workflow automatically creates these two folders. To specify other folders for the notification mailer, navigate to the advanced configuration wizard.
Note: If you enable inbound processing, the notification mailer uses the Workflow Open Mail (Templated) message, which provides a response template for sending responses by e-mail, as the default message template for e-mail notifications that require a response. If you disable inbound processing, the notification mailer uses the Workflow Open Mail (Outlook Express) message, which provides a link in HTML notifications for entering responses in the Notification Details page, as the default message template for e-mail notifications that require a response. To specify other message templates, navigate to the advanced configuration wizard.
Note that the plain text version of the Workflow Open Mail (Outlook Express) message requests a response by e-mail. If you disable inbound processing, ensure that your users do not have a notification preference of MAILTEXT or MAILATTH. Alternatively, if you disable inbound processing and you want users to receive plain text notifications, use the advanced configuration wizard to specify a message template that directs recipients to respond from the Notification Details Web page, such as the standard Workflow View From UI message template or a custom message template.
To cancel any changes on this page, click the Cancel button.
To save this configuration, click the Apply button.
To send test messages, click the Test Mailer button. In the Test Notification Mailer page, select the recipient role to which the messages should be sent, and click the Send Test Message button.
Note: To send a test message successfully, you must select a recipient role that either has a valid e-mail address defined, or that has members with valid e-mail addresses defined. The recipient role must also have a notification preference that includes individual e-mail notifications.
If you set an override e-mail address for the notification mailer, the Test Notification Mailer page displays that address. In this case the test message is sent to the override address rather than the e-mail address of the recipient role. However, you must still select a recipient role to enable the notification mailer to send the test messages. See: Reviewing Service Component Details.
Oracle Workflow sends two test messages to the recipient role: one message with content built using PL/SQL and one message with Oracle Application Framework content. Check the e-mail account for the recipient role to view the test messages and reply to them with the Acknowledge response. If you did not implement inbound e-mail processing for this mailer, use the Worklist pages to respond to the test messages after viewing the outbound messages in e-mail. After you acknowledge both test messages, Oracle Workflow sends a confirmation message to the same recipient role to show that the notification mailer successfully processed the inbound response e-mails.
If you do not receive the test messages or the response confirmation message, or if the message content does not appear correctly, check the notification mailer setup, including the mail servers and the mailer configuration parameters. In particular, if the Oracle Application Framework content does not appear correctly, check the Application Framework Agent and WF: Workflow Mailer Framework Web Agent profile options, as well as the Framework User, Framework Responsibility, Framework Application ID, and Framework URL Timeout parameters in the advanced configuration wizard. See: Setting Up a Notification Mailer and Message Generation.
Note: Oracle Workflow sends the test messages by launching the PLSQL/OAFwk Response Test Process in the System: Tests (WFTESTS) item type. This item type is stored in a file called wftstmlr.wft in the $FND_TOP/import/<lang> subdirectory. You can optionally use the Status Monitor to check the status of the test process.
To set additional parameters for this notification mailer in the advanced configuration wizard, click the Advanced button.
This page lets you define general attributes for the service component. Some attributes are already set to required values and cannot be modified. You must set attributes marked with an asterisk (*) to appropriate values for your environment before you can run the service component.
ID - The configuration wizard displays the identifier for the service component.
Status - The configuration wizard displays the status of the service component.
Name - The name of the service component. This name must be unique. You can only edit the name when the notification mailer is not running. The name of the seeded notification mailer service component is Workflow Notification Mailer, and you cannot change this value.
Startup Mode - Select Automatic, Manual, or On-Demand as the startup mode for the service component. You can only edit the startup mode when the notification mailer is not running. The seeded Workflow Notification Mailer is assigned the Automatic startup mode by default, but you can optionally change this value.
Container Type - The container type to which this service component belongs, which is always Oracle Applications Generic Service Management (Oracle Applications GSM).
Inbound Agent - The Business Event System agent for inbound processing. The inbound agent for a notification mailer service component is always WF_NOTIFICATION_IN.
Outbound Agent - The Business Event System agent for outbound processing. The outbound agent for a notification mailer service component is always WF_NOTIFICATION_OUT.
Correlation ID - Enter a correlation ID value to determine which messages this notification mailer can process.
To create a general notification mailer that can process any message from any item type that is not being handled by a dedicated notification mailer, leave the correlation ID blank. The seeded Workflow Notification Mailer has a blank correlation ID so that it can run as a general mailer to process all messages; you cannot change this setting.
To dedicate a notification mailer to processing messages from a particular item type, set the correlation ID to the internal item type name followed by a colon and a percent sign, in the following format:
<item_type_name>:%
For example:
WFDEMO:%
To dedicate a notification mailer to processing instances of a particular message from a particular item type, set the correlation ID to the internal item type name followed by a colon and then the internal message name, in the following format:
<item_type_name>:<message_name>
For example:
WFDEMO:APPROVE_REQUISITION
By dedicating a notification mailer to a particular item type or message definition, you can increase throughput for the associated messages.
Both dedicated and general notification mailer components are compatible with each other. You can run several dedicated and general notification mailers at the same time if you choose. In this case, note that a general notification mailer does not process messages that match a dedicated notification mailer's correlation ID, as long as the dedicated notification mailer has a status of Running, Stopped With Error, or System Deactivated. If the dedicated notification mailer has any other status, such as User Deactivated or Suspended, then the general notification mailer does process the messages that match the dedicated notification mailer's correlation ID.
To cancel any changes on this page, click the Cancel button.
To save these settings and proceed to the next step of the configuration wizard, click the Next button.
This page lets you define detail attributes for the service component. You must set attributes marked with an asterisk (*) to appropriate values for your environment before you can run the service component. A refresh icon identifies attributes that can be refreshed dynamically while the service component is running.
ID - The configuration wizard displays the identifier for the service component.
Status - The configuration wizard displays the status of the service component.
Name - The configuration wizard displays the name defined for the service component.
Container - The container to which the service component will belong. Oracle Workflow provides a container called Workflow Mailer Service for notification mailer service components.
Maximum Idle Time - If you selected the On-Demand startup mode for the service component, enter the maximum time in minutes that the service component can remain idle before it is stopped. An on-demand component that is stopped in this way will be restarted by its container when it is needed again to process new messages.
Max Error Count - The number of consecutive errors the service component can encounter before its container stops it and changes its status to Stopped with Error. If an error is resolved and processing can continue, the error count is reset. The default value for the maximum error count is 10.
Inbound Thread Count - Set the inbound processing thread count to 1 (one) to enable inbound message processing with this notification mailer. Select 0 (zero) to disable inbound message processing for this notification mailer and dedicate the notification mailer solely to outbound processing. If you selected the Inbound Processing parameter in the Basic Configuration page, the inbound thread count is set to 1; if you deselected the Inbound Processing parameter, the inbound thread count is set to 0.
The inbound thread count cannot be greater than 1, because only one thread can access the e-mail inbox at a time. If you disable inbound message processing for this notification mailer, but you still want to perform e-mail response processing, you should create at least one other notification mailer with the same node name that does perform inbound message processing. Otherwise, there will be no inbound mailer that can process incoming responses to outbound messages sent by this outbound mailer.
Outbound Thread Count - Specify the number of outbound processing threads you want to execute simultaneously with this notification mailer. You can set the outbound thread count to 1 (one) or more depending on the volume of outbound messages you need to send. Specify 0 (zero) to disable outbound message processing for this notification mailer and dedicate the notification mailer solely to inbound processing. If you disable outbound message processing for this notification mailer, you should create at least one outbound notification mailer with the same node name. Otherwise, no inbound response messages will be marked with that node name and this inbound mailer will have no messages to process. The default value for the outbound thread count is 1.
Log Level - Select the level of detail for the information you want to record in the service component container log. The recommended log level, which is also the default value, is Error. Usually the log level only needs to be changed if you want to record additional detailed information for debugging purposes. You can choose the following levels:
1 - Statement
2 - Procedure
3 - Event
4 - Exception
5 - Error
6 - Unexpected
Processor Read Wait Timeout - Specify the amount of time in seconds that the service component's processing thread continues to wait, after reading the last message from its assigned queue, before timing out. If another message is received before this time expires, that message is processed and the timeout period begins again. If the timeout period expires and no more messages have been received, the service component stops reading and its sleep time begins. The default read timeout period for a notification mailer is 10 seconds.
Processor Min Loop Sleep - Specify the minimum sleep time in seconds during which the service component waits, after its read timeout period expires, before it checks its queue for messages again. The default minimum sleep time for a notification mailer is 5 seconds.
Processor Max Loop Sleep - Specify the maximum sleep time in seconds if you want to increase the sleep time between read attempts when no messages are received. If you specify a maximum sleep time that is greater than the minimum sleep time, then the service component initially waits for the minimum sleep time after it finishes reading messages from its queue. If no messages are read in subsequent attempts, then the sleep time between read attempts gradually increases until the maximum sleep time is reached. Increasing the sleep time can help enhance performance if messages are received infrequently. You can also specify 0 (zero) for this parameter to indicate that the sleep time should not be increased. In this case, the service component always waits for the minimum sleep time between read attempts. The default maximum sleep time for a notification mailer is 60 seconds.
Processor Error Loop Sleep - Specify the sleep time in seconds during which the service component waits, after an error occurs, before it attempts to begin processing again. The default error sleep time for a notification mailer is 60 seconds.
Processor Close on Read Timeout - Select this parameter to specify that the service component should close its connections after its read timeout period expires, when its sleep time begins. Deselect this parameter to specify that the connections should remain open until the processing thread stops.
Selecting this parameter lets the notification mailer close its session with the IMAP server or SMTP server if it could not read a message from the IMAP inbox or from the database, respectively, before the read timeout period ended. For example, if an external process is accessing the IMAP inbox, the notification mailer may not be able to read or access the inbox for some time. In this case it may be advantageous for the notification mailer to close the existing connection, wait for a while, and then try to re-establish a new connection. Additionally, some IMAP servers may cause an idle session to time out and become invalid. In this case also, it is advantageous for the notification mailer to close the existing connection and re-establish a new one.
To cancel any changes on this page, click the Cancel button.
To return to the previous step of the configuration wizard, click the Back button.
To save these settings and proceed to the next step of the configuration wizard, click the Next button.
This page lets you define e-mail server parameters for the notification mailer. Some parameters are already set to required values and cannot be modified. You must set parameters marked with an asterisk (*) to appropriate values for your environment before you can run the notification mailer. A refresh icon identifies attributes that can be refreshed dynamically while the service component is running. If the notification mailer is currently running, then parameters marked with a refresh icon will be refreshed immediately when you select the Next button.
Mailer Node Name - The node identifier name used by this notification mailer. The maximum length for a node name is eight characters. The node name cannot include any spaces or any of the following characters: left bracket ([), right bracket (]), slash (/), or at sign (@). The node name is included with the outgoing notification ID in outbound messages, and is used in inbound messages to identify the notification mailer that should process the messages. If you use the inbound and outbound thread count parameters to create notification mailers that are dedicated to either inbound or outbound processing, you should ensure that you assign the same node name to at least one outbound mailer and one inbound mailer, so that inbound mailer can process responses to messages sent by the outbound mailer. You can optionally assign the same node name to multiple mailers for load balancing purposes. However, each mailer that performs inbound processing for a node must have its own inbox. The default node name is WFMAIL.
Note: The node name for each node must be unique. However, multiple mailers can share the same node.
If a particular notification message has the special #WFM_NODENAME message attribute defined, however, an outbound notification mailer will include the #WFM_NODENAME attribute value when sending the message, instead of the Mailer Node Name mailer parameter value.
Email Parser - The Java class used to parse an incoming notification response e-mail formatted according to the templated response method and to create an XML document for the response. The notification mailer uses this parser when the Direct Response parameter is deselected. The default standard e-mail parser provided by Oracle Workflow is named oracle.apps.fnd.wf.mailer.TemplatedEmailParser. Usually you do not need to change this value.
If you are not implementing inbound e-mail processing for this mailer, leave the default as a placeholder value.
Note: You do not need to change the value of the Email Parser parameter if you select the Direct Response parameter. The notification mailer automatically switches to the alternate e-mail parser when the Direct Response parameter is selected.
Alternate Email Parser - The Java class used to parse an incoming notification response e-mail formatted according to the direct response method and to create an XML document for the response. The notification mailer uses this parser when the Direct Response parameter is selected. The default alternate e-mail parser provided by Oracle Workflow is named oracle.apps.fnd.wf.mailer.DirectEmailParser. Usually you do not need to change this value.
If you are not implementing inbound e-mail processing for this mailer, leave the default as a placeholder value.
Note: You do not need to change the value of the Alternate Email Parser parameter if you deselect the Direct Response parameter. The notification mailer automatically switches to the standard e-mail parser when the Direct Response parameter is deselected.
Expunge Inbox on Close - Select this parameter to purge deleted messages from the inbox folder when the notification mailer closes this folder. If you do not select this parameter, copies of messages that were moved to the discard or processed folders remain in the inbox, in a deleted state, until you manually expunge them using your e-mail application.
Inbound Protocol - Oracle Workflow currently supports the IMAP protocol for inbound e-mail.
Inbound Server Name - The name of the inbound mail server. Note that you must specify the actual host name for the server. Do not use localhost as the setting for this parameter. You can optionally specify the port number to use on that server. If you do not specify a port number, the notification mailer uses port 143 by default. Specify the server in the following format: <server_name>[:<port_number>]
For example: myimapserver.example.com:143
If you are not implementing inbound e-mail processing for this mailer, enter a placeholder value.
Username - The user name of the mail account that the notification mailer uses to receive e-mail messages.
If you are not implementing inbound e-mail processing for this mailer, enter a placeholder value.
Password - The password for the mail account specified in the Username parameter. The password value is masked as asterisks in the display and is stored in encrypted form.
If you are not implementing inbound e-mail processing for this mailer, enter a placeholder value.
Inbox Folder - The name of the folder from which the notification mailer receives inbound messages. This value is case-insensitive. The default value is INBOX. The inbox must be separate from the processed and discard folders. Each notification mailer that performs inbound processing should have its own separate inbox.
Note: Usually, you use a dedicated mail account for notification mailer processing. If you want to use a mail account for the notification mailer that you also use for other purposes, you should create a folder in that account where you will place inbound messages destined for the notification mailer and specify that folder in the Inbox Folder parameter. Otherwise, the notification mailer will attempt to process all messages in the regular inbox and discard any messages that are not notification responses. If you do specify a separate folder to use as the notification mailer inbox folder, however, you must move messages from the regular inbox to that separate folder yourself. Depending on your mail program, you may be able to create a filter in the mail account to move such messages automatically. Use your e-mail client to create the separate folder. A notification mailer may not be able to access folders that were created using command line tools outside the e-mail client.
If you are not implementing inbound e-mail processing for this mailer, leave the default as a placeholder value.
Inbound Connection Timeout - The maximum amount of time, in seconds, that the notification mailer will wait to establish a connection to the inbound server before timing out. The default inbound connection timeout period for a notification mailer is 120 seconds.
Inbound Message Fetch Size - The maximum number of messages that the notification mailer can fetch from the inbox at one time. The default inbound message fetch size is 100 messages.
Maximum Ignore List Size - The maximum number of notification IDs that the notification mailer can store in its ignore list, indicating that this notification mailer will make no further attempts to process them. For example, if the mailer encountered a connection error while processing a notification, that notification ID is temporarily added to the ignore list, and is then removed from the list the next time the inbox folder is successfully closed. The default maximum ignore list size is 1000. Usually you do not need to change this value.
Note: If the notification mailer finds additional messages to be ignored in the inbox when the ignore list is already full, the notification mailer removes the oldest notification IDs from the list and adds the new notification IDs instead.
Connection Security - Select the type of protocol to use for connections to the IMAP server.
Choose None if you do not want to use a secure protocol.
Choose SSL/TLS to use TLS or SSL directly.
Choose STARTTLS to upgrade to an encrypted TLS or SSL connection using STARTTLS.
Note: The notification mailer connects to the IMAP server through the following default ports, depending on the connection security you select.
None - port 143
SSL/TLS - port 993
STARTTLS - port 143
You can optionally specify a different port number along with the IMAP server name in the Inbound Server Name parameter.
Before you can use a secure protocol, you must also complete additional setup steps. See: Connecting to Mail Servers Through TLS or SSL.
Outbound Protocol - Oracle Workflow currently supports the SMTP protocol for outbound e-mail.
Outbound Server Name - The name of the outbound mail server. Oracle strongly recommends that you specify the actual host name for the SMTP server. However, you can specify localhost as the setting for this parameter if you ensure that an SMTP server is configured to send e-mails to all valid domains on each host where concurrent managers run. If you have implemented Parallel Concurrent Processing to allow concurrent processing activities to be distributed across multiple nodes in a cluster system, then you must configure an SMTP server on every node. Otherwise, if a concurrent manager attempts to execute outbound notification mailer processing on a node without an SMTP server, the processing will fail. Also, when you save the configuration, Oracle Workflow Manager tests the connection to the SMTP server from within the Web tier host. Consequently, if you set the outbound server name to localhost, you should ensure that an SMTP server is configured on the Web tier host as well.
You can optionally specify the port number to use on that server. If you do not specify a port number, the notification mailer uses port 25 by default. Specify the server in the following format: <server_name>[:<port_number>]
For example: mysmtpserver.example.com:25
If you are not implementing outbound e-mail processing for this mailer, enter a placeholder value.
Username - If the outbound SMTP server is configured to require authentication, enter the user name of the account that the notification mailer uses to connect to the SMTP server.
Password - If the outbound SMTP server is configured to require authentication, enter the password for the account specified in the Username parameter. The password value is masked as asterisks in the display and is stored in encrypted form.
Test Address - This parameter has been replaced by the override e-mail address, which is available through the Component Details page for a notification mailer. See: Reviewing Service Component Details.
Outbound Connection Timeout - The maximum amount of time, in seconds, that the notification mailer will wait to establish a connection to the outbound server before timing out. The default outbound connection timeout period for a notification mailer is 120 seconds.
Connection Security - Select the type of protocol to use for connections to the SMTP server.
Choose None if you do not want to use a secure protocol.
Choose SSL/TLS to use TLS or SSL directly.
Choose STARTTLS to upgrade to an encrypted TLS or SSL connection using STARTTLS.
Note: The notification mailer connects to the SMTP server through the following default ports, depending on the connection security you select.
None - port 25
SSL/TLS - port 465
STARTTLS - port 587
You can optionally specify a different port number along with the SMTP server name in the Outbound Server Name parameter.
Before you can use a secure protocol, you must also complete additional setup steps. See: Connecting to Mail Servers Through TLS or SSL.
Processed Folder - The name of the mail folder where the notification mailer places successfully processed notification messages. This value is case-insensitive. The processed folder must be separate from the inbox and the discard folder.
The default value for this parameter is PROCESS. If you enabled inbound processing in the Basic Configuration page and the mail account you specified did not already include a folder named PROCESS, Oracle Workflow automatically created a folder with this name in that account when you completed the basic notification mailer configuration.
You can optionally specify the name of a different folder in this parameter. In this case, ensure that you use your e-mail client to create the folder. A notification mailer may not be able to access folders that were created using command line tools outside the e-mail client.
Note: The notification mailer does not perform any further operations on messages in the processed folder. You can review, back up, or delete these messages through your e-mail application if necessary.
If you are not implementing inbound e-mail processing for this mailer, leave the default as a placeholder value.
Discard Folder - The name of the mail folder where the notification mailer places incoming messages that are not recognized as notification messages. This value is case-insensitive. The discard folder must be separate from the inbox and the processed folder.
The default value for this parameter is DISCARD If you enabled inbound processing in the Basic Configuration page and the mail account you specified did not already include a folder named DISCARD, Oracle Workflow automatically created a folder with this name in that account when you completed the basic notification mailer configuration.
You can optionally specify the name of a different folder in this parameter. In this case, ensure that you use your e-mail client to create the folder. A notification mailer may not be able to access folders that were created using command line tools outside the e-mail client.
Note: The notification mailer does not perform any further operations on messages in the discard folder. You can review, back up, or delete these messages through your e-mail application if necessary.
If you are not implementing inbound e-mail processing for this mailer, leave the default as a placeholder value.
Allow Forwarded Response - Indicate whether to allow a user to respond by e-mail to an e-mail notification that has been forwarded from another role. This parameter is selected by default.
If Allow Forwarded Response is selected, the notification mailer never checks the "From" e-mail address of the notification response and always allows the response to be processed.
Note: Note that there are limitations when you deselect Allow Forwarded Response. For example, suppose a notification is sent to a distribution list mail alias that does not have a user/role relationship in the Oracle Workflow directory service. If any user from the distribution list responds to the notification, the notification mailer will always treat that notification response as unsolicited mail, because the "From" e-mail address, which is an individual user's e-mail address, will never match the distribution list mail alias.
If Allow Forwarded Response is deselected, the notification mailer will check whether the "From" e-mail address of the notification response exactly matches the e-mail address of the recorded recipient role or the e-mail address of a user in that role. If the two e-mail addresses match exactly, meaning the notification was not forwarded or was forwarded according to a valid routing rule, the notification mailer treats the response as a valid response. If the two e-mail addresses do not match exactly, meaning the notification was simply forwarded using the e-mail Forward command, the notification mailer does not process the response and treats it as unsolicited mail.
Note: To enhance security, Oracle Workflow does not allow a notification to be reassigned to the process owner who initiated the workflow, nor to the from role for the notification, when the reassignment is attempted through the Worklist pages or through a vacation rule. However, if you select the Allow Forwarded Response parameter, then a user specified as the process owner or the from role can still respond to the notification through e-mail if the original recipient forwards it through e-mail. To prevent this possibility, deselect the Allow Forwarded Response parameter.
To cancel any changes on this page, click the Cancel button.
To return to the previous step of the configuration wizard, click the Back button.
To save these settings and proceed to the next step of the configuration wizard, click the Next button.
Note: When you click the Next button, the configuration wizard validates the parameters you entered. If the inbound thread count is set to 1, the configuration wizard also verifies that it can connect to the e-mail account on the specified inbound mail server with the specified user name and password, and that the folders specified in the Processed Folder and Discard Folder parameters exist in that e-mail account. If the parameters are successfully validated, and the notification mailer is currently running, then Oracle Workflow Manager immediately refreshes the notification mailer with the new parameters.
This page lets you define message generation parameters for the notification mailer. Some parameters are already set to required values and cannot be modified. You must set parameters marked with an asterisk (*) to appropriate values for your environment before you can run the notification mailer. A refresh icon identifies attributes that can be refreshed dynamically while the service component is running. If the notification mailer is currently running, parameters marked with a refresh icon will be refreshed immediately when you select the Next button or the Finish button.
From - A value that appears in the From field of the message header of a notification e-mail. You can specify the From parameter value either as a display name only, or as a full RFC822-compliant address.
If you specify a display name only, the notification mailer adds the e-mail address from the Reply-to Address parameter to create a full RFC822-compliant address for the From message header. The full address is created in the following format: "Display Name" <reply_to_address>
If you specify a full RFC822-compliant address, the notification mailer uses only that From parameter value in the From message header, and does not include the Reply-to Address value.
If a particular notification message has the special #WFM_FROM message attribute defined, however, the notification mailer will use the #WFM_FROM attribute value in the From field for that message, instead of the From parameter value.
The default From parameter value for the seeded notification mailer service component is Workflow Mailer. For other notification mailers, if you selected the Inbound Processing parameter in the Basic Configuration page, Oracle Workflow by default sets the From parameter to the name portion of the reply-to address specified in the Basic Configuration page. For example, if the reply-to address is Workflow@example.com, Oracle Workflow sets the From parameter to Workflow.
If you deselected the Inbound Processing parameter in the Basic Configuration page, Oracle Workflow by default sets the From parameter to nobody@<server_name>, where <server_name> is the name of the outbound SMTP mail server specified in the Basic Configuration page.
If you are not implementing outbound e-mail processing for this mailer, leave the default as a placeholder value.
Reply-to Address - The address of the e-mail account that receives incoming messages, to which notification responses should be sent. This value must be a full RFC822-compliant e-mail address.
If a particular notification message has the special #WFM_REPLYTO message attribute defined, however, the notification mailer will use the #WFM_REPLYTO attribute value as the reply address for that message, instead of the Reply-to Address parameter value.
Note: If the From parameter value is specified as a display name only, then the notification mailer also uses the reply-to e-mail address together with that display name to create a full RFC822-compliant address for the From field of the message header.
If you deselected the Inbound Processing parameter in the Basic Configuration page, Oracle Workflow by default sets the Reply-to Address parameter to nobody@<server_name>, where <server_name> is the name of the outbound SMTP mail server specified in the Basic Configuration page. If you are not implementing inbound e-mail processing for this mailer, leave the default as a placeholder value.
HTML Agent - The base URL that identifies the HTML agent that handles HTML notification responses. This URL is required to support e-mail notifications with HTML attachments. Usually the HTML agent specified here can match the value of the Applications Servlet Agent profile option; however, you can optionally specify a different HTML agent for a particular notification mailer. The HTML agent should be specified in the following format:
http://<server_name:port>/OA_HTML/
where <server_name:port> represents the server and TCP/IP port number on which your servlet agent accepts requests.
Note: The notification mailer can also still handle an HTML agent value in the previous format:
http://<server_name:port>/pls/wf
If a particular notification message has the special #WFM_HTMLAGENT message attribute defined, however, the notification mailer will use the #WFM_HTMLAGENT attribute value as the HTML agent for that message, instead of the HTML Agent mailer parameter value.
Message Formatter - Oracle Workflow uses the oracle.apps.fnd.wf.mailer.NotificationFormatter Java class to generate notification messages.
Framework User - The numerical user ID for the user through which a notification mailer accesses Oracle Application Framework content for inclusion in e-mail notifications. The Framework user must have workflow administrator privileges in order to access the content for every user's notifications.
The default value for this parameter is 0, which is the user ID for the SYSADMIN user. This setting lets the notification mailer access Oracle Application Framework content through the SYSADMIN user, which is also the default workflow administrator role. If you change the Workflow System Administrator preference, check the Framework User parameter to ensure that the user accessed by the notification mailer has workflow administrator privileges. Set the Framework User parameter to a user that is a member of the Workflow System Administrator role, or, if you set the Workflow System Administrator preference to a responsibility, set the Framework User parameter to a user that has that responsibility. See: Setting Global User Preferences.
Note: You can use the Workflow Mailer URL Access Tester page to test whether Oracle Application Framework content can be generated correctly for e-mail notifications. See: Testing Mailer URL Access.
Framework Responsibility - The numerical responsibility ID for the responsibility through which a notification mailer accesses Oracle Application Framework content for inclusion in e-mail notifications. The user specified in the Framework User parameter must have this responsibility assigned. The default value for this parameter is 20420, which is the responsibility ID for the System Administrator responsibility.
Framework Application ID - The numerical application ID for the application through which a notification mailer accesses Oracle Application Framework content for inclusion in e-mail notifications. The responsibility specified in the Framework Responsibility parameter must be assigned to this application. The default value for this parameter is 1, which is the application ID for the System Administration application.
Framework URL Timeout - The maximum amount of time, in seconds, that the notification mailer will wait to access a URL for Oracle Application Framework content before timing out. The default Framework URL timeout period for a notification mailer is 30 seconds.
Attach Images to Outbound Emails - Select this parameter to attach any images referenced in HTML content included in a message, such as Oracle Application Framework content, to outbound notification e-mail messages. Deselect this parameter to display the image references as off-page URLs instead of attaching the images.
Attach Stylesheet to Outbound Email - Select this parameter to attach any stylesheet referenced in HTML content included in a message, such as Oracle Application Framework content, to outbound notification e-mail messages. Deselect this parameter to display the stylesheet reference as a URL instead of attaching the stylesheet.
Note: E-mail clients vary in their support for stylesheet references within HTML content in the body of an e-mail. Some e-mail clients do not support references to a stylesheet that is attached to the e-mail, while others do not support any form of stylesheet references within HTML content at all. Consequently, attaching a stylesheet may not have the same effect in all e-mail clients.
Autoclose FYI - Indicate whether this notification mailer automatically closes notifications that do not require a response, such as FYI (For Your Information) notifications, after sending the notifications by e-mail. This parameter is selected by default. If Autoclose FYI is deselected, all FYI notifications will remain open in the Worklist until users manually close these notifications.
Direct Response - By default, notification mailers require a response format for plain text notifications called the templated response method. Select this parameter to use the direct response method instead.
With the templated response method, a notification mailer sends plain text notifications requiring a templated response to users with a notification preference of MAILTEXT or MAILATTH. Users must reply using a template of response prompts and enter their response values between the quotes following each prompt.
With the direct response method, a notification mailer sends plain text notifications requiring a direct response to users with a notification preference of MAILTEXT or MAILATTH. Users must enter their response values directly as the first lines of a reply.
Note: Responses that are generated automatically from an HTML-formatted notification or attachment must always use a response template, regardless of which response method you select.
See: Workflow Open Mail (Templated) Message, Workflow Open Mail (Direct) Message, To Respond to a Plain Text E-mail Notification Using Templated Response, To Respond to a Plain Text E-mail Notification Using Direct Response, and Example 'Respond' Message Attributes.
Reset NLS - Select this parameter if you want the notification mailer to encode each notification message with character encoding according to the notification recipient's preferred language. Deselect this parameter if you want the notification mailer to use the same character encoding for all notification messages. This parameter is deselected by default.
If a particular notification message has the special #WFM_RESET_NLS message attribute defined, however, then the notification mailer will use the #WFM_RESET_NLS attribute value to determine whether to encode the message with character encoding for the preferred language, instead of using the Reset NLS parameter value. Additionally, you can use the Character Encoding Configuration page in the Workflow administrator Web pages to specify the character encoding that you want to use under either Reset NLS setting, overriding the default logic for determining the character encoding.
If the Reset NLS parameter is deselected at the notification mailer level and is not overridden at the message level, or if the #WFM_RESET_NLS message attribute is set to N at the message level, then the notification mailer uses the same character encoding for all notification messages.
By default, the notification mailer uses the default character encoding for the database.
If you want to use different character encoding instead, then you can specify the override character encoding in the Character Encoding Configuration page.
If the Reset NLS parameter is selected at the notification mailer level and is not overridden at the message level, or if the #WFM_RESET_NLS message attribute is set to Y at the message level, then the notification mailer encodes each notification message with character encoding according to the notification recipient's preferred language.
By default, the notification mailer uses the following logic to determine the character encoding for the message.
If the notification recipient has specified both a preferred language and a preferred territory, then the notification mailer uses the character encoding listed in the WF_LANGUAGES table for that language and territory.
If no preferred territory is specified, then the notification mailer uses the character encoding associated with the first entry it encounters in the WF_LANGUAGES table for the user's preferred language.
If no preferred language is specified, then the notification mailer uses the character set listed in WF_LANGUAGES for the language AMERICAN and territory AMERICA.
If you want to use different character encoding instead, then you can use the Character Encoding Configuration page to specify the override character encoding for each language installed in your database. In this case the notification mailer uses the override character encoding configured for the notification recipient's preferred language.
Note: You can also review and update the Reset NLS parameter setting for your notification mailers in the Character Encoding Configuration page Any changes you make in that page will be reflected in the notification mailer configuration wizard as well.
See: Configuring Character Encoding for Notification Mailers.
Inline Attachments - Select this parameter to set the Content-Disposition MIME header to inline for attachments to notification messages, including the Notification Detail Link, HTML Message Body, Notification References containing attached URLs, and attached PL/SQL documents. Deselect this parameter to set the Content-Disposition MIME header to attachment for these attachments. For example, if your e-mail application cannot display HTML content such as the Notification Detail Link inline, deselect this parameter to display this link as an attachment instead. Note, however, that some e-mail clients may not support the Content-Disposition header, or may support it in varying ways. Consequently, the Inline Attachment setting may not always have the desired effect, depending on the e-mail clients with which users read their e-mail messages.
Send Warning for Unsolicited E-mail - Select this parameter to allow the notification mailer to send back a warning message the first time it receives an unsolicited e-mail message from a particular e-mail address. Deselect this parameter to prevent the notification mailer from sending warning messages.
Send E-mails for Canceled Notifications - Select this parameter to allow the notification mailer to send cancellation messages to users when previously sent notifications are canceled. Deselect this parameter to prevent the notification mailer from sending cancellation messages.
If you set up multiple notification mailers in the same Oracle E-Business Suite instance, you must set this parameter to the same setting for all the notification mailers.
This region lets you specify the message templates you want to use to generate e-mail notifications. The template for a particular type of e-mail notification determines the basic format of the notification, including what header information to include, and whether and where to include details such as the message due date and priority.
Oracle Workflow provides a set of standard templates in the System: Mailer item type, which are used by default. It is not recommended to modify the standard templates. However, you can customize the message templates used to send your e-mail notifications by creating your own custom message templates in the System: Mailer item type using the Workflow Builder, and assigning these templates to a particular notification mailer service component in this region. The templates assigned to a mailer override the default System: Mailer templates.
Additionally, you can create your own custom message templates in a custom item type using the Workflow Builder, and assign these templates to a particular notification in a workflow process by defining special message attributes. In this case the templates assigned to the notification override both the templates assigned to a mailer and the default System: Mailer templates.
If you are not implementing outbound e-mail processing for this mailer, leave the default templates as placeholder values.
Attached URLs - The notification mailer uses this template to create the Notification References attachment for HTML-formatted notification messages that include URL attributes with Attach Content checked. The template must includes a list with links to each URL.
Outbound Closed Notification - The notification mailer uses this template to inform the recipient that a previously sent notification is now closed.
Outbound Cancelled Notification - The notification mailer uses this template to inform the recipient that a previously sent notification is canceled. You can optionally use the Send E-mails for Canceled Notifications parameter to specify whether or not the notification mailer should send Outbound Cancelled Notification messages.
Invalid Response Notification - The notification mailer uses this template to inform a user that the user responded incorrectly to a notification. For example, if a response message from a user contains a valid notification ID (NID) line matching it with a notification, but does not contain any response value or contains an invalid response value, the notification mailer sends an Invalid Response Notification message to the user. This template must describe how to respond to the notification correctly.
Open Notification - If you are using the default response method, which is templated response, the notification mailer uses this template to send open notifications that require a response. This message template must provide a response template for the recipient as well as instructions on how to use the response template.
Note: In addition to the default Workflow Open Mail (Templated) message template, Oracle Workflow also provides a predefined template called Workflow Open Mail (Outlook Express). This template is provided to accommodate e-mail applications such as Microsoft Outlook Express or other e-mail clients that cannot process the response links included in the HTML bodies of the Workflow Open Mail (Templated) and Workflow Open Mail (Direct) templates. If you use one of these e-mail clients, you can select the Workflow Open Mail (Outlook Express) message template to have HTML e-mail notifications include a link to the Notification Details Web page which lets users respond to the notification there.
If you are configuring this notification mailer for outbound message processing only and you are not implementing any corresponding inbound e-mail response processing, then you should set the Open Notification parameter to a message template that does not request a response by e-mail, but instead directs recipients to respond from the Notification Details Web page. For example, you can select the Workflow View From UI message template provided by Oracle Workflow, or create your own custom message template.
If you selected the Inbound Processing parameter in the Basic Configuration page, the Open Notification parameter is set to the Workflow Open Mail (Templated) message template by default. If you deselected the Inbound Processing parameter, the Open Notification parameter is set to the Workflow Open Mail (Outlook Express) message template by default.
Note: The plain text version of the Workflow Open Mail (Outlook Express) message requests a response by e-mail. If you disable inbound processing, ensure that your users do not have a notification preference of MAILTEXT or MAILATTH. Alternatively, if you disable inbound processing and you want users to receive plain text notifications, specify a message template that directs recipients to respond from the Notification Details Web page.
Open Notification (Direct Response Parsing) - If you select the Direct Response parameter, the notification mailer uses this template to send open notifications that require a response. The response instructions in the plain text message body must describe how to reply using the direct response method. This message is used for notifications sent to performers with a notification preference of MAILTEXT or MAILATTH. The response instructions in the HTML-formatted message body must describe how to reply using the automatically generated response template. This message is used for notifications sent to performers with a notification preference of MAILHTML or MAILHTM2, and is also attached to notifications sent to performers with a notification preference of MAILATTH.
Note: Responses that are generated automatically from an HTML-formatted notification or attachment must always use a response template, regardless of which response method you select.
Note: If you are configuring this notification mailer for outbound message processing only and you are not implementing any corresponding inbound e-mail response processing, then you should set the Open Notification (Direct Response Parsing) parameter to a message template that does not request a response by e-mail, but instead directs recipients to respond from the Notification Details Web page. For example, you can select the Workflow View From UI message template provided by Oracle Workflow, or create your own custom message template.
See: Workflow Open Mail (Templated) Message, Workflow Open Mail (Direct) Message, To Respond to a Plain Text E-mail Notification Using Templated Response, To Respond to a Plain Text E-mail Notification Using Direct Response, and Example 'Respond' Message Attributes.
Open FYI Notification - The notification mailer uses this template to send notifications that do not require a response. The template must indicate that the notification is for your information (FYI) and does not require a response.
Outbound Summary Notification - This template is no longer used.
Outbound Warning Notification - The notification mailer uses this template to send a message to a user the first time it receives unsolicited mail from that user. For example, if a message from a user does not contain a notification ID (NID) line matching it with a notification, or contains an incorrectly formatted NID line, the notification mailer sends an Outbound Warning Notification message to the user. You can optionally use the Send Warning for Unsolicited E-mail parameter to specify whether or not the notification mailer should send Outbound Warning Notification messages.
Open Notification (More Information Request) - The notification mailer uses this template to send a request for more information about a notification from one user to another user.
Note: If you use an e-mail application such as Microsoft Outlook Express that cannot process the response link included in the default Workflow Open Mail (More Information Request) message template, you can select an alternative template named Workflow More Information Request (Outlook Express) instead. In particular, if you set the Open Notification parameter to use the Workflow Open Mail (Outlook Express) message, then you should also set the Open Notification (More Information Request) parameter to use the Workflow More Information Request (Outlook Express) message.
Outbound HTML Summary Notification - The notification mailer uses this template to send a summary of currently open workflow notifications to users and roles that have their notification preference set to SUMMARY or SUMHTML in the Oracle Workflow directory service.
To cancel any changes on this page, click the Cancel button.
To return to the previous step of the configuration wizard, click the Back button.
To save these settings and proceed to the next step of the configuration wizard, click the Next button.
To save these settings and proceed to the last step of the configuration wizard, click the Finish button.
Note: When you click the Next or Finish button, the configuration wizard validates the parameters you entered. If the parameters are successfully validated, and the notification mailer is currently running, then Oracle Workflow Manager immediately refreshes the notification mailer with the new parameters.
This page lets you schedule events to control the running of the service component. The events are raised at the scheduled time by DBMS jobs. For a notification mailer service component, you can schedule the following events:
Start
Refresh
Suspend
Resume
Stop
Launch Summary Notifications
For each event, the list displays the event name, date and time when the event is first scheduled to be raised, the interval in minutes at which the event is reraised, and, for a Refresh event, any parameters to be refreshed. You can specify the following refreshable parameters, using the parameters' internal names, when you refresh the notification mailer.
PROCESSOR_IN_THREAD_COUNT - Inbound Thread Count
PROCESSOR_OUT_THREAD_COUNT - Outbound Thread Count
COMPONENT_LOG_LEVEL - Log Level, specified as a numerical value
1 - Statement
2 - Procedure
3 - Event
4 - Exception
5 - Error
6 - Unexpected
EXPUNGE_ON_CLOSE - Expunge Inbox on Close
ALLOW_FORWARDED_RESPONSE - Allow Forwarded Response
FROM - From
REPLYTO - Reply-to Address
HTMLAGENT - HTML Agent
ATTACH_IMAGES - Attach Images to Outbound E-mails
ATTACH_STYLESHEET - Attach Stylesheet to Outbound E-mail
AUTOCLOSE_FYI - Autoclose FYI
RESET_NLS - Reset NLS
INLINE_ATTACHMENT - Inline Attachments
SEND_UNSOLICITED_WARNING - Send Warning for Unsolicited E-mail
ATTACHED_URLS - Attached URLs
CLOSED - Outbound Closed Notification
CANCELED - Outbound Cancelled Notification
OPEN_INVALID - Invalid Response Notification
OPEN_MAIL - Open Notification
OPEN_MAIL_DIRECT - Open Notification (Direct Response Parsing)
OPEN_MAIL_FYI - Open FYI Notification
SUMMARY - Outbound Summary Notification
WARNING - Outbound Warning Notification
OPEN_MORE_INFO - Open Notification (More Information Request)
SUMHTML - Outbound HTML Summary Notification
To schedule events:
If no events are currently scheduled, click the Add a Row button to add a new row to the list of events and enter the information for the event.
Select the event for the command you want to schedule.
Select the date when you want the event to be raised first.
Select the hour and minute to specify the time on the specified date when you want the event to be raised first. The hour values are in a twenty-four hour format. For example, select 00 for midnight, or 23 for 11 PM.
If you want to raise the event periodically, enter the time interval in minutes at which you want to raise the event. If you do not specify a repeating interval, the event is raised only once.
If you choose the refresh event, you can optionally enter any parameters you want to include with the event in order to refresh the notification mailer configuration parameters with those values when the event is raised. Specify the parameter names and values in the following format, separating the parameters with a colon (:): internal_parameter_name=parameter_value
For example: PROCESSOR_OUT_THREAD_COUNT=3
If a parameter value itself contains a colon (:), then precede the colon with a backslash (\) as an escape character, as follows:
\:
For example:
OPEN_MAIL_DIRECT=WFMAIL\:OPEN_MAIL_DIRECT
To schedule another event, click the Add Another Row button and enter the information for the event.
To remove an event, select the event and click the Remove button.
To cancel any changes on this page, click the Cancel button.
To return to the previous step of the configuration wizard, click the Back button.
To save these settings and proceed to the next step of the configuration wizard, click the Next button.
To save these settings and proceed to the last step of the configuration wizard, click the Finish button.
Note: The configuration wizard verifies that an event is specified for every row in the list when you click the Next or Finish button. If you do not want to schedule another event, remove any empty rows before proceeding.
This page lets you enter patterns of text found in unusual messages and the status you want to assign to an inbound message if it contains any of those patterns. For example, unusual messages include bounced or returned messages and auto-reply messages such as those sent by vacation daemons, mass mailing lists, and so on. Since different mail systems vary in how they identify bounced, undeliverable, or otherwise invalid messages, you can use notification mailer tags to specify how your mail system identifies those stray messages and how you want the notification mailer to handle those messages should it come across them.
Oracle Workflow provides several predefined tags for text commonly found in undeliverable or auto-reply messages. For each tag, the list displays the pattern, which is the string of text to look for in the From line, Subject line, or body of the message, and the action, which is the mail status to assign to the message if that pattern is found. The notification mailer handles messages according to these mail status values, as follows:
UNDELVRD - Moves the message to the discard folder and updates the notification's mail status to FAILED. Additionally, the notification preference of the recipient of the notification is updated to DISABLED. No error process is initiated for this notification activity. However, after correcting the issues that prevented the e-mail from being sent, you can reset the user's notification preference and then run the Resend Failed/Error Workflow Notifications program to re-enqueue failed notifications on the notification mailer's outbound queue. See: Handling Mailer Errors.
Unavailable - Moves the message to the discard folder and continues waiting for a reply to the notification since the notification's status is still OPEN, but its mail status is updated to UNAVAIL. This status is purely informative, as no further processing occurs with this notification.
Ignore - Moves the message to the discard folder and continues waiting for a valid reply to the open notification. The notification's status is still OPEN and its mail status is still SENT.
Error - Moves the message to the discard folder and updates the notification's mail status to ERROR.
You can define additional tags for other patterns you want the notification mailer to handle automatically.
To add a new tag, click the Add Another Row button, enter the text pattern in the Pattern column, and select the status you want to assign to messages containing that pattern in the Action column.
To remove a tag, select the tag and click the Remove button. You can only remove custom tags that you defined. You cannot remove predefined tags provided by Oracle Workflow.
Note: It is important that you uniquely identify bounced messages and auto-replies by defining tags to distinguish them from normal responses. If you do not identify bounced and auto-reply messages, the notification mailer can mistake these as invalid responses, send an Invalid Response Notification message, and continue to wait for a reply. In both cases a perpetual loop would occur where the notification mailer continues sending out an 'Invalid' message and the 'Invalid' message bounces back or is auto-replied each time.
Note: Only a message response that contains a notification ID can be handled through the FAILED and UNAVAIL mail statuses. If the notification mailer receives a message response that does not contain a notification ID, it moves the message response to the discard folder. If the Send Warning for Unsolicited E-mail parameter is selected, then for the first such message from a particular e-mail address, the notification mailer also sends an Outbound Warning Notification message to the sender to warn that it received unsolicited mail.
Note: If a message response matches more than one pattern in the list of tags, the message is tagged with the status of the first tag it matches. That is, the notification mailer performs a top to bottom comparison against the tag list. Due to this behavior, you should prioritize your patterns listing the UNDELVRD tags first, followed by the Unavailable and then Ignore tags.
To cancel any changes on this page, click the Cancel button.
To return to the previous step of the configuration wizard, click the Back button.
To save these settings and proceed to the next step of the configuration wizard, click the Next button.
To save these settings and proceed to the last step of the configuration wizard, click the Finish button.
This page lets you test the configuration for a notification mailer that performs outbound e-mail processing by sending sample notification messages. Select the recipient role to which the messages should be sent, and click the Send Test Message button.
Note: To send a test message successfully, you must select a recipient role that either has a valid e-mail address defined, or that has members with valid e-mail addresses defined. The recipient role must also have a notification preference that includes individual e-mail notifications.
If you set an override e-mail address for the notification mailer, the Test page displays that address. In this case the test message is sent to the override address rather than the e-mail address of the recipient role. However, you must still select a recipient role to enable the notification mailer to send the test messages. See: Reviewing Service Component Details.
Oracle Workflow sends two test messages to the recipient role: one message with content built using PL/SQL and one message with Oracle Application Framework content. Check the e-mail account for the recipient role to view the test messages and reply to them with the Acknowledge response. If you did not implement inbound e-mail processing for this mailer, use the Worklist pages to respond to the test messages after viewing the outbound messages in e-mail. After you acknowledge both test messages, Oracle Workflow sends a confirmation message to the same recipient role to show that the notification mailer successfully processed the inbound response e-mails.
If you do not receive the test messages or the response confirmation message, or if the message content does not appear correctly, check the notification mailer setup, including the mail servers and the mailer configuration parameters. In particular, if the Oracle Application Framework content does not appear correctly, check the Application Framework Agent and WF: Workflow Mailer Framework Web Agent profile options, as well as the Framework User, Framework Responsibility, Framework Application ID, and Framework URL Timeout parameters in the advanced configuration wizard. See: Setting Up a Notification Mailer and Message Generation.
Note: Oracle Workflow sends the test messages by launching the PLSQL/OAFwk Response Test Process in the System: Tests (WFTESTS) item type. This item type is stored in a file called wftstmlr.wft in the $FND_TOP/import/<lang> subdirectory. You can optionally use the Status Monitor to check the status of the test process.
To exit the advanced configuration wizard, click the Cancel button.
To return to the previous step of the configuration wizard, click the Back button.
To proceed to the next step of the configuration wizard, click the Next button.
To proceed to the last step of the configuration wizard, click the Finish button.
This page lets you review the configuration parameter values that you set, the events that you scheduled, and the tags that you defined for this notification mailer service component.
If you want to change any of these settings, return to the appropriate step in the configuration wizard to make your changes. To return to the previous step, click the Back button.
To save these settings and finish the configuration, click the Finish button.