Mass Maintenance

Set up Email Validations

Using an external request scenario, an external contact can send an email to the external data email account to:

  • Add a request
  • Create an Excel-initiated request

This topic contains the following sections:

Validations

Validations are stored procedures or views that have been written and saved in a data source that is registered in the Stewardship Tier. A validation executes when an event occurs, and confirms that a process is valid. If the validation fails, processing stops. For example, a validation is registered to a Receive Email event. The validation confirms that an email received at a designated address has an attachment in a specified format. If the attachment is in a valid format, the validation passes and processing can continue. However, if the attachment is in an invalid format, the validation fails, and processing stops.

Validations may have Severity of Error, Warning, Message, or Workflow Only. If the validation Severity is set to Error and the validation fails, processing stops and the event the validation was registered to does not run.

NOTE: That message was entered in the Message field on the Email Validation Message page.

Mass Maintenance is delivered with multiple email validations.

Email Validations Included with Mass Maintenance

A Template Administrator can register email validations that are run on emails received at the external data email account. These validations reduce time needed for support by handling basic email validation automatically.

When Mass Maintenance is installed, it is automatically configured to run email validations to check that:

  • The message is a valid type ( i.e., the alias included in the subject line of the email matches the alias for an external request scenario)
  • The request role is active for an active request (for example, the External Data role has not been finished for the request)
  • The sender has permission to enter a request for the template (for example, the sender has been added as an External Contact for the external request scenario)
  • The template for the request is active

For external request scenarios that create Excel-initiated requests, Mass Maintenance also runs validations to check that:

  • The email has only one attachment
  • The email contains an attachment
  • The attachment is in .xls or .xlsx format
  • The sender has access to the template that is associated with the Excel file attached to the email
  • The template related to the Excel file attached to the email is active

When an External Contact for an external request scenario that creates an Excel-initiated request submits an Excel file as an attachment to an email, if any of the worksheets fail an email validation listed above, none of the worksheets in the Excel file will be processed. The external contact will receive a message from the first validation that fails. The external contact must correct and resubmit the Excel file.

Edit Default Email Validations

The Template Administrator can further configure each validation to:

  • Stop processing the validation and ignore the email on failure
  • Email the sender in the case of a failure

To edit the default email validations:

  1. Select Setup > Email Validation from the Navigation pane.
  2. Click the CONTINUE ON FAILURE check box to enable the validation process to continue if an email fails the validation. Clear the check box if the validation process should stop if an email fails the validation.
  3. Click the EMAIL ON FAILURE check box to enable it if Mass Maintenance should send an email to the sender when an email fails a validation.
  4. Click Message to view the text and language of the email message that Mass Maintenance sends to the original sender.

  5. Click Edit to update the message text.

    View the field descriptions for the Email Validation Message page.

  6. Enter the text of the message for a language in the MESSAGE field.
  7. Click Save.

Add Custom Email Validations

A Template Administrator can add custom email validations, in the form of views or stored procedures, to validate inbound emails from External Data roles. In the case of a stored procedure, the validation takes in an EmailMessageID parameter. A view binds on an EmailMessageID.

The EmailMessageID value should correspond to a value in the table ttEmailMessage.EmailMessageID. When Mass Maintenance runs the validation, if a view returns at least one record or a procedure returns 1 then the validation fails.

To add a custom email validation:

  1. Select Setup > Email Validation from the Navigation pane.

  2. Click Add.

    View the field descriptions for the Email Validation page.

  3. Enter a sort order in the PRIORITY field.

    NOTE: The priority determines the order in which the validations are run.

  4. Select a data source ID from the DATA SOURCE ID list box.

    NOTE: The data source contains the view or stored procedure that is the email validation.

  5. Select the validation from the RULE list box.

    NOTE: The validation is a view or a stored procedure from the data source.

  6. Enter a brief description of the validation in the DESCRIPTION field.
  7. Click the CONTINUE ON FAILURE check box to enable it if the process should continue after an email validation failure.
  8. Click the EMAIL ON FAILURE check box to enable it if Mass Maintenance should send an email to the sender with information about the failure.
  9. Click Save.
  10. Click Message.

  11. Click Edit next to the message’s language.

    View the field descriptions for the Email Validation Message page

  12. Enter the text for the email validation failure error message in the MESSAGE field.
  13. Click Save.