Configuring outgoing email in SharePoint 2010 with Exchange 2010 – Step by Step Guide

Posted by on May 24, 2010 in Exchange, Exchange 2007, Exchange 2010, SharePoint, SharePoint 2010

In my last article I provided you with a guide in setting up your SharePoint 2010 farm providing it with the capabilities in receiving incoming email which can then be delivered directly to your SharePoint libraries and or lists.  Today we wrap up our 2 part series on email flow in SharePoint 2010 in which I will provide you with another step by step guide in configuring your SharePoint Farm in order for it to send outgoing emails through your Microsoft Exchange server.

The environment

This article builds on the SharePoint Farm setup that I have documented here. It consists of the following servers which would form a common basis in most large organizations.

  • Windows 2008 R2 server running Active Directory Domain Services
  • Windows 2008 R2 server running SQL 2008 R2
  • Windows 2008 R2 server running SharePoint 2010 RTM
  • Windows 2008 R2 server running Exchange 2010 RTM
  • Windows 7 client running Office 2010 RTM

SharePoint 2010 allows you to configure any SMTP service including the one which I had setup in my previous article to send outgoing email, however we will utilise Exchange 2010 (same instructions apply for Exchange 2007) to provide email delivery to our end users.  Instructions on configuring the SMTP service (i.e. you are not using Microsoft Exchange in your environment) can be found on TechNet.

Creating a Receive Connector in Exchange 2010

 

If you recall from my previous article when we were configuring incoming email, we created a “Send Connector” in Exchange to forward the messages to the SMTP service that we had configured and installed.  This time round we will create a “Receive Connector” in Exchange 2010.

Launch the Exchange Management Console and navigate to Server Configuration / Hub Transport / New Receive Connector.  The New Receive Connector wizard is invoked.

Enter a descriptive name and ensure “Custom” is selected as the intended use.

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Click Next

Leave “All Available IPv4” in your Local Network settings unless you have specific Exchange IP requirements.

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Click Next

Edit the IP address of your SharePoint 2010 server.

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Click Next

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Click New

You will now notice that our SharePoint 2010 Outgoing mail connector is listed with our default Exchange 2010 Receive Connectors..  image

We will now venture into its properties and make a minor permission change.  Click on the “Permission Groups” tab and select Anonymous users.

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Click Apply.

Configuring outgoing email in SharePoint 2010 Central Administration

Launch Central Administration and navigate to System Settings / E-Mail and Test Messages / Configure outgoing e-mail settings.

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Enter your Outbound SMTP server, i.e. your Exchange server where we created our receive connector and specify a From and Reply-to address.

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Click OK

Testing our configuration

Lets navigate to our SharePoint 2010 web application and create an Alert .  In my example I will create an immediate alert for Announcements.

Navigate to your Announcement List and click on List Tools/List and then click on “Alert Me” located in the ribbon interface.

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Select “Set alert on this list” and select your Alert options.  Ensure that you have “send notifications immediately” selected for testing purposes.

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Click OK

You should receive your notification email that you have successfully subscribed soon after creating your alert.

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I will now create a Test Announcement to ensure that the actual alert is delivered.

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Alas! 5 minutes later (based on the immediate timer job definition schedule) we have received our email alert confirming that our SharePoint configuration with Exchange was successful.

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Did you know that you can also configure outgoing email for a specific Web application?  You might want to do this if you have multiple SharePoint Web Applications hosting specific site collections and would want a different From and or Reply Address setup.

Even though we are now going to configure outgoing email for a specific Web application, you are still required to setup the default farm outgoing email settings as per the above.

Configuring outgoing email for a specific Web application in SharePoint 2010 Central Administration

Launch Central Administration / Application Management / Manage Web Applications.

Select one of your Web Applications and then select “General Settings” from the Ribbon.

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Select “Outgoing E-Mail” from the drop down.

It will pick up your default farm settings that we entered in earlier in which you can now change the From and Reply-to address to something more specific for the selected Web application.

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Click OK

We are done!  I hope you have found this step by step guide in configuring outgoing email in SharePoint 2010 with Exchange useful, and stay tuned as we continue our journey in configuring our SharePoint 2010 Farm.

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If you require any assistance with your SharePoint or other IT needs, the team at GKM2 are happy to assist.  You can contact us via info@gkm2.com.au or 1300 797 288 within Australia.

Articles in this series

Installing SharePoint 2010 using Least Privilege Service Accounts – Step by Step Guide

Configuring incoming email in SharePoint 2010 with Exchange – Step by Step Guide

Configuring outgoing email in SharePoint 2010 with Exchange – Step by Step Guide

15 Comments

  1. i need your help regarding sharepoint 2010 email setup

    how to enable incoming email in sharepoint 2010 ?
    what are the necessary things to install ?
    IS THEIR any configuration is required on exchange server ?
    if yes how to confiure in iis7 & linux mail server?
    i m waiting for your reply thanks in advance

  2. Our server is set up this way, and all settings when installed were set to default.  BUT

    We aren’t getting any emails from sharepoint, alerts, invitations,etc.

    We see formed messages created, but not being sent.
    From our Badmail folder, we see text files with 4.4.7 error messages on every *.bad file.

    Is there a step by step approach to dealing with the 4.4.7 errors,

  3. Hi Gilbile, sorry for the late response, I have been away and there have been changes to our commenting system.  I also have an article for incoming email setup for SharePoint 2010 and Exchange 2010 here; http://sharepointgeorge.com/2010/configuring-incoming-email-sharepoint-2010/

  4. Hi Steven,
    There seems to be a communication error with Exchange and SharePoint.  If your receive connector is setup correctly and both servers can talk to each other, it is usually very straight forward and alerts work right away.  It is a bit hard to diagnose without some information about your environment.  Try to telnet to the smtp server with port 25. 

    Check the following also http://sharepointalert.info/troubleshooting-sharepoint-alerts/ 

  5. thanks for your great article.
    how ever i have small problem i hope you can help me out.

    1. when i use sharepoint open in chrome my task web part just open outlook web app!
    2. when i use it with ie i get certification error. when i ask ie to continue randomly this web part only for ie 6 or above! and my ie is 9 or won’t show anything at all!

    its quiet confusing. can you tell me what did i wrong?
    thanks in advance

  6. This is all great information and have done all of this. Is there a way you can configure the links below “Testing Alerts has been added” when you get the email alert in Outlook? I have folders that have tons of children in them and wanted an easier way to getting to them with a click. Right now my “View Shared Documents” link in my email alert only takes me to the root Shared Document site and not to where the doc has been added or modified. I have a complex folder structure I have built and don’t want my team playing where’s Waldo. Thanks for any help if possible.

  7. where to get outbound smtp server?

  8. Hi George,

    Great post as always! Anyway, I have a question. Is it possible to set the reply-to-address based on the email address of
    the current user? Let say, I have a list that will notify some users once the
    item is created on that list and once these users received that notification
    email from SharePoint and they reply to that email, it should point to the
    email address of the current user. Can this be achieved using workflow?

    Thanks in advance,

    Arnel

  9. When I used this configration to send e-mails, it worked fine if the number of receiver is less than 1000. Once it exceeded 1000, I got an error. I saw our exchange connector should support 5000 users.

  10. Hi George. Great article. If I look at Servers in the Farm the exchange still shows as Not Configured. Any ideas?

  11. Hi Adrian, This is normal. Only SharePoint servers will register as configured.

  12. Can this configuration allow for mails to be sent to external contacts via SharePoint Designer 2010 workflow…

  13. Is it possible to configure SP2010 and EX2010 Server on a single BOX?
    – i’ve tried this configuration but it seems my Test SP2010 is not receiving any emails messages.

  14. That was awsome, but i still have problem with users without defined email address in sharepoint, where can i fix this?

  15. I receive the notification that the alert has been setup, but no alerts for anything added or modified in the library. Any thoughts?

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