Configuring outgoing (SMTP) email

Jive uses an outgoing SMTP email server for sending messages, such as content update notifications, task reminders, and registration confirmations. You configure a connection to the server in the Admin Console or by using the Setup wizard.

Fastpath: Admin Console: System > Settings > Email Server, then Outgoing

The main part of configuring outgoing email settings involves the settings for the Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) server that outgoing email will use.

  • The Mail Host and Server Port should correspond to your email server. A host name may look like this: smtp.example.com. If your outgoing email server requires a port number, enter it here.
  • Turn on Mail Debugging if you want to have messages from the outgoing server written to the application log. These can be useful if you suspect there's a problem with outgoing email. For more information on viewing logs, see Using application logs.
    Note: You should not leave mail debugging on a production instance any longer than necessary to debug a problem.
  • If your SMTP server requires authentication to send email through it, set the Server Username and Server Password.
  • If you want to encrypt the connection between the web app nodes and the SMTP server, select the check boxes to use Secure Sockets Layer (Use SSL) or Transport Layer Security (Use TLS).

You should set the Server Admin Email and Server Admin Name to use a default email address and name for outgoing email. In practice, outgoing emails can appear to have been sent by any one of many people, depending on the reason for the message. For example, when someone posts a message to a discussion thread, the email can appear to have come from them and will be received by anyone receiving notifications for the message.

We strongly recommend using a Bounce Email Address. This prevents automatic email replies, such as Out of the Office emails, from posting in your community. That is, if an outgoing Jive email bounces because its recipient is no longer available, the returning email is sent to this bounce email address. This is the best way to keep this kind of email from cluttering the inbox of an address that you use for other purposes.
Note: You should avoid setting the bounce email address to a domain that is the same as the domain for registering users. The bounce email address is placed as the return-sender address in the email header for a message sent out from the system for validation. If the email address of the user attempting validation and the bounce email address have the same domain, spam filters may see this as a spoofing attempt and drop the message.

You should select the Set Username in Notification Email From Address check box, when you want a person's user name to show in the FROM line of a notification email instead of their full name. With this enabled, if someone posts a discussion reply message, notification messages sent to other people show the FROM line as, for example, "gladysk" rather than "Gladys Kravitz".