Enabling External Communication

Enabling external communication features in SBM allows external (non-SBM) users to submit items via e-mail and to communicate with SBM users on items that they have submitted.

To enable external communication features:

1. In SBM Composer, add a submit transition from the E-mail state as described in Preparing Your System for E-mail Submission.
2. Edit the state form for the initial state in that workflow, and click the Tool Bar tab in the property editor. Under Optional Actions, select Manage External Users if it is not selected already. Select this option on any additional state forms that should expose the Manage External Users option for SBM users.
3. Grant the External Communication privilege to the necessary roles. This privilege enables SBM users to add and update non-SBM users on items using the Manage External Users option that appears in the Actions drop-down list. This option only appears when this privilege is granted.
   Tip: This privilege only applies to users with Regular User or Managed Administrator product-access. External Users and Occasional Users cannot manage external users on an SBM item.
4. Save your changes, and deploy the process app.
5. In SBM Configurator, ensure that a user with Add Notes to Any Item and Add Attachments to Any Item privileges is specified in the Web services authentication user field on the Mail Services | Notification Server tab. This ensures that replies from non-SBM users are added to items.
6. In Application Administrator, select Allow Anonymous Submit on the General tab for the desired project. For details, see Enabling Anonymous Submit for a Project.
7. Open the E-mails page from the Application Administrator portal and add a new mailbox or edit an existing mailbox. Select Allow Anonymous E-mail Submit. Configure options for allowing attachments, replies, and spam settings as described in Enabling Anonymous E-mail Submit.
8. When an SBM user sends an e-mail from an item, the Send E-mail dialog box enables the SBM user to select an e-mail template in the Template drop-down list. This option only appears when a non-SBM user is associated with the item.

   To configure which templates are available in the drop-down list, edit the project in Application Administrator, click the Settings tab, and then click the E-mail Templates edit icon in the E-mail Recorder section. A list of .htm and .txt templates that are used for communicating with both SBM and non-SBM users appears. Select each template that should be available in the Send E-mail | Template drop-down list.

   Note: Your selections will override the default browser e-mail template (which is set in SBM Configurator) and the default external communication template (which is set via the Usage options drop-down list in the E-mails | Templates section of Application Administrator) for this project. If you find that changes to the default templates are not appearing in messages sent from items, review these selections to see if you have overridden the default templates for the project.
9. On the Communications tab for this project, optionally configure one or more rules for executing transitions when an external user replies to an e-mail. For details, refer to Creating Communication Rules.
10. In Application Administrator, grant the External Communication privilege to individual users and groups as needed.

If you defined communication rules, test them by sending an e-mail from an external address to your SBM mailbox that is configured to allow anonymous e-mail submit. Once the item is successfully created, send an e-mail from the SBM item to your external e-mail address, and then reply to that e-mail. SBM should process the reply and execute the transition as defined in the communication rule.