Email Polling and Retrigger Functionality

Hi Harsha -

Do you mind sharing what is your business use case?

Thanks,
Rob

Hi Rob,

My Use case is pretty simple, I need to send emails from a workflow , as well as the receive the email from the users, I am actually working in cloud.
I have some couple of questions which I will put it on once you suggest me some ways

Hi Harsha -

What you're explaining is the proposed "how", but not they "why".

Why does appian need to send email to users?
Who are the users? Are they actually named Appian users?
What's the nature of the email message itself?
What does the user do after they get the email?
What's the nature of the email message that needs to be sent back to appian? Who's reading it? Why?

Thank you so much for the response Rob,

here are the answers for the questions,


Why does appian need to send email to users?
Harsha: it is the part of the work flow where I need to attach a document which is generated as part of workflow and send it via email. (generally a simple pdf doc generated and subject)
Who are the users? Are they actually named Appian users?
Harsha: There might be an external or Appian users. I can get the external users email from the database and can send it.
What's the nature of the email message itself?
Harsha: It is like a document attached with a simple text sending as a acknowledgment to the user.
What does the user do after they get the email?
Harsha: User might respond back to the email which is sent from Appian (for eg additional info required). He might attach some attachments required for the workflow.
What's the nature of the email message that needs to be sent back to appian? Who's reading it? Why?
Harsha: the Nature of the email message would be just the data which the user send it in Appian (may be document or the data in the body of the email.) I assume that it should be read by Appian process model which will inturn link to the case.


Now in addition to that,
1.as we can send emails from Appian using a process, designer,but we can also configure a email from which we can send it for eg in this case it is like reply@abc.com. Can users reply to this same mail box so that Appian can read the data from this mail box and start a process model.Is it possible in cloud.

Harsha,

Take look at the documentation for sending an email to a process. There is a section specific to cloud configurations.

docs.appian.com/.../Sending_an_Email_Message_to_a_Process.html

To Rob's point, the nature of email integration, being very loosely coupled with the system, can be more error prone and difficult to get clear visibility when errors do arise. If your use case lends itself to other functionality it is worth looking into.

Thanks Eric,

I will have a look at it, however I have some doubt

1.we are using O365 I heard that there is NTML authentication is having an issue so my question is ,..... if we are using O365 can the link which you have sent will be possible?

The link I provided is for Appian Cloud. You will need to work with support to make sure your cloud environment is configured for receiving emails. The mail server on the client side will not be authenticating/integrating with Appian. Incoming emails will be processed by the application server on the cloud environment based on polling of the mailbox.

If you have individuals who will be replying to the email with additional documents needed for the process within Appian it would be better to task those users with uploading the documents in Appian. Routing the documents from email will require you to include key-value pairs in the email so Appian knows what to do with the response emails. If an end users breaks those key value pairs inserted in the email then Appian won't be able to route them correctly.

docs.appian.com/.../Sending_an_Email_Message_to_a_Process.html

Thanks Eric,

for the response,...but my problem is we are sending the email to the users who are not part of Appian system so they have to send their responses back via email right ...As per my understanding.....to summarize.

1.We can send an email from any client SMTP network and can be sent.
2.Receiving can be done via Application server cloud which can trigger a process.
3.The SMTP server and Server which is receiving the mail is different.

1. Correct, the client SMTP network doesn't matter.
2. Correct, but remember that you won't have to configure any of that as you are on cloud. You will need to follow the documentation here: docs.appian.com/.../Sending_an_Email_Message_to_a_Process.html
3. Correct, the SMTP server and application server are different, but as you are in the cloud you don't need to worry about that as you won't be modifying that configuration.

Remember that configuring an integration like this is generally error prone as you a relying on the end user formatting and sending their email correctly. Appian can't help you make sure the email is correct as the end user is completely outside of the platform. If the user has to complete the work through email, but can be assigned an Appian account you may want to look into the Task View add-in for Outlook as another potential solution.

docs.appian.com/.../Task_Viewer_Add-in_for_Microsoft_Outlook.html

1. Correct, the client SMTP network doesn't matter.
2. Correct, but remember that you won't have to configure any of that as you are on cloud. You will need to follow the documentation here: docs.appian.com/.../Sending_an_Email_Message_to_a_Process.html
3. Correct, the SMTP server and application server are different, but as you are in the cloud you don't need to worry about that as you won't be modifying that configuration.

Remember that configuring an integration like this is generally error prone as you a relying on the end user formatting and sending their email correctly. Appian can't help you make sure the email is correct as the end user is completely outside of the platform. If the user has to complete the work through email, but can be assigned an Appian account you may want to look into the Task View add-in for Outlook as another potential solution.

docs.appian.com/.../Task_Viewer_Add-in_for_Microsoft_Outlook.html

Thank you so much eric this is what I have been looking for, but I have a one more question in a scenario based,

1. Lets say a mail has been sent to the user, from reply@abc.com from the client exchange server,
2.Now if the users wants to reply to the same mail id reply@abc.com I hope this can be configured in application server side in Appian. But now the question is if the users from their outlook click on reply and if the send a mail to Appian. This should be received in Appian end right ?

and also for the suggestion I am going to tell the pros and cons of all the items which are mentioned