How to setup a Microsoft Exchange server to allow you to send emails immediately from Sage 50 Accounts.
To start with, you have to know that what you are accomplishing isallowing your Exchange server to send emails without them being authenticated first. If you work for an IT support business then you will maybe expect this but if you are not trained in IT support or server support then you mustthink ofgetting the support ofsomeone who is. This is a large security liability if you don’t set this correctly. If you expose your Exchange server to let everyone to do this then you can become a casualty of spam abuse.
We are going to setup the Exchange server to accept anonymous outward-bound emails however we’re going to do it for only a select number of IP addresses. This reduces the danger of attacks.
Step 1 is to make a new custom receive connector in Microsoft Exchange Management Console. To do this, load the Exchange Management Console and expand ‘Microsoft Exchange’ > ‘Server Configuration’ > ‘Hub Transport. Here, click the ‘New Receive Connector’ function which you will find a link for on the right hand pane of the window. Type a relevant label for this connector in the ‘Name’ box. You might decide to label it ‘Sage Accounts’. Within the ‘Select the intended use…’ area, choose ‘Custom’.
Click ‘Next’ and then ‘Next’ again to arrive at the “Remote Network Settings” screen. Edit the IP address list to show only the addresses that you wish to allow. e.g. If Sage 50 Accounts is running on a terminal server then you just have the terminal server’s IP address entered here. If Sage 50 Accounts is run locally on an office workstation then you’ll need to set the IP address of this PC static and specify it in this list.
Finalise the setup of this new connector and then go into to the properties of it. Go into the ‘Permission Groups’ tab and make sure that just ‘Exchange Servers’ is checked. Next, go into the ‘Authentication’ tab and be sure that just the top setting (Transport Layer Security) and the bottom setting (Externally Secured) are checked. Click OK and then restart the ‘Microsoft Exchange Transport’ service inside Control Panel > Administrator Tools > Services.
Now you should find that you can set Microsoft Outlook to use the Exchange server’s LAN IP address as the outbound mail server void of specifying any authentication. You can try this using Outlook or Outlook Express on the relevant PC or Terminal Server (eg the workstation or Terminal Server that has Sage 50 Accounts configured in it).
How to set Sage to send emailsvia the new Exchange Server setup
In Sage Report Designer, select Tools > Options > Email Setup. Configure the ‘Default Provider’ to SMTP and click the SMTP line in the ‘Available Providers’ box. Select ‘Configure’ and enter the LAN IP address of the Exchange server in the ‘Server Name’ box. Leave the port number configured to port 25 and leave SSL unticked.
Type the email address you wish the emails to be sent from (eg [email protected]) and type the display name for the email header (eg Your firm Name – Accounts). It’s unimportant to put anything in particular within the logon details settings so this can be set to anything. Click OK.
Next you must be sure that each document you want to send as an email is configured to employ SMTP. First, edit a document in Sage Report Designer.
Click ‘View’ on the toolbar and click ‘Properties’ to show the settings toolbar on the right hand side of the screen. Under the ‘Email Options’ area, select the ‘(Email Options)’ box and a button labelled ‘…’ will be shown. Click this button to load the Email Configuration dialogue box.
Ensure that the top line (‘Provider’) is configured as SMTP and that the setting at the base of the page is configured to ‘Send emails automatically’. Select OK at the base of the page.
Configuration is done – You should now be able to email from that layout in Sage 50 Accounts.
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