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Defining valid administrator email addresses

Edit configuration property settings to change the default email addresses from which system notifications, such as a request to join a community, are sent. Notifications are sent from generic administrator email addresses if you do not take action. Default email addresses are initially set during installation, so use this procedure only if you want to change them.

By default, automatic notifications are sent from a generic email address, such as blogs-admin@example.com. Edit the property to change this to a legitimate administrator email address that has access rights to send mail. Some of the notification messages sent automatically, such as the notifications used to handle blog postings that are flagged for containing inappropriate content, inform recipients that they can respond to the default administrative user email address from which the notification was sent. If you do not edit the default email address, recipients get a delivery failure notification when they try to respond to the automatic email.

Note:

  • Important:Starting from HCL Connections 6.0 CR4, a new template version is provided and you can enable it by editing configuration. Go to Enabling the new notification templates for details. With the new template, you can define administrator email addresses and several other properties from one .json properties file. Before doing so, back up your original notifications folder. In addition, ensure that any customized files are backed up before performing a product upgrade or applying a cumulative refresh or fix pack, as you might need to merge your changes again manually after making updates.
  • If you plan to prevent user email addresses from being displayed in the product, define a valid email address for the global administrator. When you hide emails, this global administrator address is specified as the sender even in emails generated by user actions that would normally specify that user as the sender. The global sender email address is only used if you configure HCL Connections to prevent emails from being displayed.
  • If you provide additional administrator email addresses for the different types of notifications, those settings take precedence over the global address. If you want the global administrator address to be used for a specific notification, comment out the sender property currently specified for that notification type. For example:

    <!--<property name="sender">files_admin@example.com</property>-->
    

You can edit the following administrator email addresses:

  • Global sender. Change the default email address of the global sender into one with the correct domain for your enterprise and a name that your users will recognize and trust.
  • Specific notification types. Edit the administrator addresses used when different types of notifications are sent.

If you want to change default email addresses from what you assigned in install, complete the following steps:

  1. Start the wsadmin client from the following directory of the system where you installed the deployment manager:

    [app\_server\_root](../plan/i_ovr_r_directory_conventions.md)\profiles\dm\_profile\_root\bin
    
    app\_server\_root\profiles\dm\_profile\_root\bin
    

    Note: You must start the client from this directory or subsequent commands that you try to run will not execute properly. For more information, see the Starting the wsadmin client topic.

  2. Use the following command to access the HCL Connections configuration files:

    execfile("connectionsConfig.py")
    

    If you are prompted to specify a service to connect to, type 1 to select the first node in the list. Most commands can run on any node. If the command writes or reads information to or from a file by using a local file path, you must select the node where the file is stored. This information is not used by the wsadmin client when you are making configuration changes.

  3. Check out the notification-config.xml file by using the following command:

    LCConfigService.checkOutNotificationConfig("temp\_dir","cell\_name")
    

    where temp_dir is a temporary directory and cell_name is the WebSphere® Application Server cell to which you installed Activities. When you specify a path to the working directory on a system running Microsoft Windows, use a forward slash for the directory. For example: "C:/temp".

    Note: Linux: The directory you specify as the temporary directory must grant write permissions.

  4. From the temporary directory to which you checked out the notification-config.xml file, open it in a text editor.

  5. Specify a valid internet-style email address containing no spaces for the global sender by editing the globalSenderEmailAddress property in the following section of the notification-config.xml file:

    <properties>
      <property name="globalSenderName">HCL Connections Administrator</property>
      <property name="globalSenderEmailAddress">**global-admin@example.com**</property> 
    </properties>
    
  6. If you want to force the email address that you specify in the globalSenderEmailAddress to be used as the sender of all notifications, add the following property to the <properties> element previously listed, and set it equal to true.

    <property name="alwaysUseGlobalSender">true</property>
    
  7. By default, the email address of the original sender is set as the reply-to address. If you do not want the original sender to appear as the reply-to address, then add the following property to the <properties> element previously listed, and set it equal to false.

    <property name="includeOriginalSenderAsReplyTo">false</property>
    

    If the alwaysUseGlobalSender property is set to false, then the includeOriginalSenderAsReplyTo property is ignored. If the alwaysUseGlobalSender property is set to true, then the includeOriginalSenderAsReplyTo is optional. The default value for this property is true if the property is added, but no value is defined for it.

  8. To specify different administrator email addresses for different notifications types per application, search for the notification types you want to change, and then change the value of the sender properties. If there is no sender property, add one.

    Note: If a type element is present, the email address specified for it is used instead of the global administrator address. If you want the global sender address to be used instead of the address specified here, comment out the associated type element. For example, if you want to change the address from which notifications that inform people that they have been added to an activity are sent, edit the value of the sender property in the following notification type:

    add-member : For example:

    ```
    <type name="add-member">
      <channel name="email" enabled="true">
        <property name="senderName">Activities Admin</property>
        <property name="sender">activities-admin@example.com</property>
        <property name="ftl">addMemberMail.ftl</property>
      </channel>
     </type>
    ```
    

    Note: No notifications are sent from the Home page application.

  9. Save and close the notification-config.xml file.

  10. Check in the configuration files using the following command:

    LCConfigService.checkInNotificationConfig("<temp_dir>","<cell-name>")
    

Parent topic:Configuring notifications

Related information

Enabling email notifications (default templates)

Hiding email addresses

Specifying an administrator email address for Blogs notifications

Optional post-installation tasks

Starting the wsadmin client