Email setup help and explanation

đź’¬ General Discussion
1

Hello all,

I am running SuiteCRM on an Ubuntu 22.04 server on AWS (Not turnkey app, installed SuiteCM and managing the server myself) mostly without problems, except one major issue I’m facing specifically with emails and accounts setup.
I can’t wrap my head around it’s configuration and which account goes where, despite reading the documentation, It does not explain some questions, specifically these questions:

Inquiries:

  • Should or can the inbound and outbound email accounts be the same?
  • Where does the the user email account get the server settings from? It is not configured in the user profile? (From the outbound or system email settings?)
  • Does each user email need to be setup in outbound email?
  • How to deal with multiple email domains for multiple users?
  • Is there a plan to use protocols other than IMAP in the inbound email accounts?

Problems:

  • Followed the documentation for setting up OAUTH for IMAP Exchange accounts for outbound group email, it is not working at all.
  • SMTP is not working at all, I’m sure of the username and password, and no ports are blocked.
  • In inbound group email config, I can query the inbox/trash/sent folders but the test connection does not succeed, with error “[CLOSED] IMAP connection broken (server response)”
    (Checked the logs, nothing other than the error above)

Any help or explanation about emails and setup procedure is very much appreciated.

2

I’ll try my best to answer, but each one of your questions, leads to more questions… I find email is quite complex depending on what you’re trying to do… also, I’m talking version 7, so if you’re inquiring about 8, it may be slightly different.

  • Should or can the inbound and outbound email accounts be the same?

This seems like a simple question but is more complex. Which accounts? The “system” email is setup in email settings and is only for outbound email. It creates and outbound email account that the “system” uses for send assignment notifications and the like. It also, if you choose is available to send users email through this email ie: dave@ sends as dave@ through system@

User accounts will have an inbound and outbound email account that are tied together. THE USER MUST ENTER THESE. If the admin enters these then the “assigned to” will be admin and the user will not have access to them. These are entered directly in the user account and NOT in the admin panel. These will have the same address ie: dave@ for inbound and outbound.

  • Where does the the user email account get the server settings from? It is not configured in the user profile? (From the outbound or system email settings?)

It is configured in the user profile, that’s where it should be configured. BY THE USER. If admin does it, it won’t work.

image
image1377Ă—846 80.5 KB

If you select the “system” email account to allow users to send as (in email settings in admin) then it uses these settings to send the mail. Same as the example I gave above… sends from dave@ through system@

  • Does each user email need to be setup in outbound email?

As above, it depends on what you want. If you allow it, they can send from any email address you want through the system@ email. However, this is going to get you into spam trouble if the domains are different. It’s advisable if users are using different domains from the system@ email to enter their own inbound and outbound emails.

  • How to deal with multiple email domains for multiple users?

I think I covered that above, but if the user email is dave@domain1.com and the system is system@domain2.com you’re not going to want to send this through system@ or you’ll get spam problems. In this case get the user to setup inbound and outbound email accounts for dave@domain1.com. If all users are sending from domain1.com through system@domain2.com you can setup your SPF record to allow this. (I think you’d want to test). In the case where users have setup their own inbound/outbound email its not a problem as the email is routed through their email servers.

As far as the problems, I’m experiencing those myself and not sure what the solution is. There is a bug posted on github you may want to see if that’s what you’re experiencing…Outbound/Inbound Mail: Office365 SMTP Error: Could not authenticate. v7.13 · Issue #9899 · salesagility/SuiteCRM · GitHub

3

Thank you so much for the lengthy explanation! I didn’t know some of those points.
I’ll apply what you said here and see how it goes.
I am running v8 right now, but I will be switching to v7.12ESR for now, I’d rather have a stable system with less problems than the latest features.

I’m also reading a lot of people having problems with emails and Microsoft specifically, So I’ll try to figure it out or wait for fixes, hopefully in the coming June ESR.

Thanks again