Configure incoming Email in SharePoint 2010

Hello and welcome again to another very useful feature in SharePoint.

Here we discuss on Incoming Email capability and configuring of it.

Interesting topic and we will deal with SMTP and Microsoft Exchange Server to get this done.

So what’s the purpose of incoming e-mail feature in SharePoint ?

Yes your thought is correct !, You can send e-mail to an SharePoint Document Library which can contains attachments etc..

SharePoint libraries are capable to store e-mail as’ .eml’ files, also attachments separately. This is really useful for an organization which

Looking for a centralized location for documents which are to be shared.

My Environment

Windows Server	SharePoint	Exchange	IIS	Other
2008 R2 Ent	2010 with SP 1	2010 with sp 1	6.0 ,7.0	SMTP Server

Alright then lets begin with the Prerequisites as usual.

Install IIS 6.0 with required features via Server Manager in your local SharePoint Server.

Direct to Server Manager –> Roles –> Add Roles –> Web Server IIS -select all features under IIS 6.0 management Compatibility –> Click Next –> You may have to restart to continue.

Install SMTP Server

Direct to Server Manager –> Features –> Add Features –> Select SMTP Server/Services–> Click Next and complete the wizard to get installed.

Switch to Administrative tools from the start menu and direct to Internet information services 6.0

It will appear the windows as above. Get the properties of [SMTP Virtual Server #1]

Let IP Address range as ‘All Unassigned’ and Enable Logging for the purpose of keeping logs of activities till we get the

Feature fully functional.

Then switch to ‘Access’ tab and go to ‘Authentication’. Let it be with Anonymous access. Else provide required authentication, but let it be with default

Till we get the feature fully functional.

Next is massages tab. Here are the defaults so you may change each as required.

Deliver Section. Here also I have used defaults as we can change these settings as required any time. Up to you for customize.

Let the Other three areas as default also (Outbound security, Outbound connections, Advanced)

Skipping the LDAP Section as nothing to be configured on that here in our requirement.

Lastly direct to Security tab and there also I’m leaving defaults as nothing need to be changed.

Now we are about to check on domain name association. By default it taken FQDN on the Server which you installed SMTP.

Right click on the Domain Name and get the Properties.

It shows the path of mail root which will store e-mail temporary before send to SharePoint.

Now we need to set SMTP Service to be start automatically with windows start.

Direct to services and let the service start mode as ‘Automatic’.

That’s all on configuring SMTP Server.

Here we are about to deal with exchange now.

I’m on Exchange 2010 here in my lab. Currently most of the organizations are having at least exchange server 2007 so almost similar to 2010

Configuration wizards, also I have tested and was successful same in exchange 2003 as well.

Need to create a new send connector in exchange. This used to relay email from exchange to SMTP which we configured in SharePoint Server

Then SMTP Server will forward particular mail to SharePoint library which we configured for incoming email.

Let’s begin by launching the Exchange Management Console –>Organization Configuration –> Hub Transport.

Click on Send Connectors –>Actions –>New Send Connector.

Type in a descriptive name for your Send Connector and then select Internal as the type.

Add your Server which SMTP Server installed in address space,

Type will be automatically defined so you have to provide only FQDN of the particular server

Add Smart Host – Here also provide the IP Address of the server which is SMTP Server installed.

Let the authentication as none with defaults.

Make Sure that your Hub Transport server is picked up.

Summary will appeared and click next to proceed with the new connector preparation.

You can see our newly created connector here under send connectors.

Alright, finished the dealing with exchange configuration !!

Next – The Directory Management Service

SharePoint 2010 allows you to leverage Active Directory Domain Services (AD DS) so that contacts that are created when you email enable document libraries or lists are stored in a designated Organizational Unit within your AD DS infrastructure. So why would you want to enable Directory Management Service? Purely for the fact that by storing these contacts in AD, you are allowing your users to locate email enabled libraries and lists easily from within their Outlook Address book.

Let’s begin by creating an Organizational Unit in Active Directory.

First check on IIS whether what is the account that acts as identity of SharePoint Central Administration Pool (Pool Account).

Note this as we need this in next steps..

Create a new Organizational Unit to hold the contacts which will be created by SharePoint.

Simply Direct to active Directory Users and computers –> Right click on the domain and click New –> Organizational Unit.

Provide an descriptive name and click ‘Ok’

Right click on the newly created OU and click –>Delegate Control.

This is to delegate permissions for the account which is the identity of Central Administration Pool Account for object creation inside this OU.

Add the account as I mentioned earlier. This is the pool account of our SharePoint Central admin Pool.

Select Create custom task to delegate. And click next

Choose ‘This Folder, existing objects in this folder, and creation of new objects in this folder’ as shows below

Next to Grant permissions as below.

Click Ok to complete the delegation wizard.

Enable advanced features by clicking on view at active directory console.

Direct to properties of our newly created OU, and switch to security tab. below permissions are need to get granted for the same account.

Click advanced and you will get below window. Select the same account and switch to edit mode.

Grant to ‘delete Sub Tree’ Permission as below. Click Ok for all opened tabs and you got it saved.

Lets Get in to SharePoint as we have finished dealing with AD Configurations.

Direct to System settings –> Configure Incoming Email Settings in Central administration

You will direct to below interface. Provide necessary information’s and let the other options as shown below.

OU=SharePoint Contacts(name of the newly created OU in AD), DC=mstest (Name of the DC), DC=com

Select Yes to “Enable site on this server to receive e-mail”

Select “Automatic” for Setting mode.

Select “Yes” to use the SharePoint Directory Management Service to create distributions groups and contacts.

Enter your Active Directory container details, i.e. the Organizational Unit container that we created specifically for our SharePoint 2010 contacts.

Ensure that your SMTP server details are correct, this should be the fully qualified domain name of your SMTP service that was installed on your SharePoint Server.

Lets check Drop box Properties of our SMTP Server Mail Root.

Direct to –> C:\inetpub\mailroot –> Get the Properties of Drop Folder.

IIS Security Groups should have granted for below permissions,

WSS_Admin_WPG – Full Control and

WSS_WPG – Read & Execute / List folder Contents / Read

Configuring email – Library

Click ‘Yes’ Allow this library to receive email. And type an address as you wish (This address will used to send emails to the library from out side)

Also there are several selective options that are can be customized as you need.

Save original e-mail option will save your e-mail as .eml file in the library

Click ok once you done here. And lets get in to contacts as we can see our new contact which given here will be created in Exchange and AD.

Open newly created SharePoint contacts OU in Active directory.

Alright then here is the new contact we got created via Email Library configuration.

Lets Get in to Exchange and check whether we have got our Mail Contact is created.

Open Exchange management Console –> Recipient configuration –> Mail Contacts –>

Yeah it’s too, here you can see the new Email contact.

Right Click and Get the properties of it.

Add new SMTP Address if it has only one address as External. And let that ne address contain only Contact@Domain.com (SMTP Server Name not required

As it will used only for internal communication only) click on the newly created address and Click on the Black Tick to Set it as ‘External’

Note : This Can use if you are sending mails from the outside the organization.

Click Apply and Ok.

Now Open your e-mail client and send a new mail to the address which we created.

Here we Go !!!

We have received a email to our e-mail library.

Known Points of failures.

If you haven’t received any email to the library which is already has been sent.

Go to –> C:\inetpub\mailroot\Drop folder.

Emails are should be hold there as it cannot be sent to SharePoint. Normally this occurs if SharePoint Timer Service Account doesn’t have enough

Privileges to the configuration databases.

Experienced – I got this pending queue in SMTP Drop box and what I did was, changed the privileges of Timer Service Account from the SQL Security.

First you have to check the identity which Timer Service Running On

Switch to Services –> look at the SharePoint 2010 Timer Service and it’s Service account.

It is recommended to run this service under separate account and that particular account should have proper privileges to SQL DB’s

Open SQL server and Check in Server Roles whether this Account has dbcreator role granted.

Adding to this role was solved my problem and all the email which are was in queue(as shown in above figure) immediately sent to the E-mail library

once I added this permission here !!

SharePoint 2010 Service Accounts and it’s Privileges is a massive area to talk about, so let me bring them to another article very soon.

Stay connected and see you in another post 🙂

Written by Manoj Viduranga ………………………….