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Connecting your email accounts

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Goal

You can connect any number of email accounts to Xentral. Connecting email accounts allows you to send and receive emails from your customers and suppliers. You can set automatic invoices, delivery notes, and tracking emails if your process requires it.

Prerequisites

You need the following data to connect your email account with Xentral. You can find this data on the websites of your email providers. If not, please contact your support.

Data for sending emails:

  • The email address you want to send from
  • A password of your email account
  • SMTP Server address
  • SMTP Port (usually 587, 465 or 25)
  • Encryption (usually SSL or TLS)

Data for receiving emails:

  • The email address you want to import emails from
  • A password of your email account
  • IMAP Server address
  • IMAP Port (usually 993 or 143)
  • Encryption (mostly SSL)

To connect a Gmail account, you must set up a connection to the Google Cloud API. Refer to this manual for instructions.

To connect Office365, please contact MS Office support and switch back to the Basic Authentication method. Please note that Xentral doesn’t support the new authentication procedure at the moment. With Basic Authentication, you can connect your email account following the steps of this guide.

Workflow

The following procedures describe best practices for connecting your email accounts in Xentral.

  1. Connecting your primary account
  2. Configuring additional email accounts
  3. Testing your email setup

Email settings

You can find your email connections in two places in Xentral:

  • Primary account - use this account for sending standard emails (invoices, purchase orders, …) 
  • Email accounts  - use this for connecting additional emails + setting-up Xentral to receive Emails 

Connecting your primary account

Xentral uses the primary email account for sending emails that don’t require replies, such as shipment tracking emails, invoices, or order confirmations. If you do not specify another email xentral will always use this email address. 

  1. Log into Xentral and go to Administration > System > Basic settings > Email.
  2. Enter the username (email)  which is most likely identical to your email address.
  3. Enter the password of your account.
  4. Add the SMTP server address for your outgoing emails
  5. Add Port and Encryption. Standard values are:
    • 465 - SSL
    • 587 - TLS
    • 25 - no encryption
  6. Enter a target address for your test mail in the Test mail recipient field.
  7. Enter your email address in the Standard settings email section in the Email address field.
  8. Click Save.
  9. Click Send test email to confirm your setup. Xentral will send the test email to the given test email recipient if all settings are correct. If not, Xentral will display an error message.

Important: The fields username and email address must be equal in most cases. If they don’t, you will likely get an error message when sending the test email.

Update the signature and greeting fields according to your needs before using this email account.

Configuring additional email accounts

Apart from a default account in your basic settings, you can add additional email accounts. You can also enable receiving emails in this module by entering the IMAP settings.  

Configuring IMAP for receiving emails

  1. Log into Xentral and go to Administration > System > Email accounts.
  2. Click +New.
  3. In the Name displayed field Define the name that recipients see . 
  4. Enter the email address.
  5. Enter the username  (usually identical to the email address).
  6. Enter a description in the Internal Description field.
  7. Enter the password of your account.
  8. Enter the IMAP Server, Port, and encryption (usually 993 for SSL, and 143 for IMAP).
  9. Save the IMAP settings. You can now check the connection.

You can check new emails in Team > Email ( for older Xentral versions: My area > Email).

You can also add the IMAP settings for the primary email account here if you want to receive emails sent to this account in Xentral.

Configuring SMTP for sending emails

  1. Log into Xentral and go to Administration > System > Email accounts.
  2. Open the email you previously configured, or create a new one.
  3. Select Activate extra SMTP account.
  4. Add the following data:
    • SMPT server  - enter the SMPT server of your provider.
    • SMPT port - standard port:25, with encryption 465.
  5. If you want to send emails from an address other than your IMAP address, you can use the field Sender email address. The same applies to the Sender Name field.
  6. Click Save.

Testing your email setup

After connecting your email account, you should check the connection. Go to Sales > Sales order and use an existing or new order for testing (you must release the order first). Open the order and go to the action menu (right side, next to the save button). Use the Option Send order to email the order to a specific address.

Common issues and Questions

I get an error message when I try to send a test email.

  • Check your password, server, port, and encryption settings. Make sure you did not add a space accidentally by copying and pasting this information to Xentral.
  •  If you are testing the basic settings account, make sure the fields username and email address match.
  • If you connected a Gmail account, please check if you went through the setup process to connect the Google Cloud API.
  • To connect Office365, please contact MS Office support and switch back to the Basic Authentication method. Please note that Xentral doesn’t support the new authentication procedure at the moment. With Basic Authentication, you can connect your email account following the steps of this guide.

I want to send tracking emails, invoices, and delivery notes from a different account.

  • Open the project that represents the corresponding workflow. Go to the Projects > Settings > Logistics/shipping  > Email dispatch settings. You can find additional fields for alternative email accounts there. Connect the needed email account first in the module Email accounts following the steps of the chapter before.

I need personal email accounts for single employees.

  • Find the email account in Administration > System > Email accounts. Use the employee field and add the employee's contact from your master data (not the email address, you need the  contact object representing the user. The contact must have the role employee in its settings.)

I need to process a larger number of emails.

  • If you plan to process a larger number of emails, you might consider using the Xentral ticket system. This is a standard module that is already available.

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