Set Up Email
People in businesses send information and documents, such as sales and purchase orders and invoices, by email every day. Administrators can make that easier to do by connecting one or more email accounts to Business Central, so you can send documents without having to open an email app. You can compose each message individually with basic formatting tools, such as fonts, styles, colors, and so on, and add attachments of up to 100MB. Administrators can also set up report layouts that include only the key information from documents.
The email capabilities in Business Central are for outbound messages only. You cannot receive replies, that is, there is no inbox page in Business Central
Note
If you are using Business Central on-premises, before you can set up email you must create an app registration for Business Central in Azure portal. The app registration will enable Business Central to authorize and authenticate with your email provider. For more information, see Setting Up Email for Business Central On-Premises. In Business Central online, we handle this for you.
Required Permissions
To set up email, you must have the EMAIL SETUP permission set.
**An administrator for your exchange online account must configure a shared mailbox to connect to Business Central
Adding Email Accounts
You add email accounts through extensions that enable accounts from different providers to connect to Business Central. The standard extensions let you use accounts from Microsoft Exchange Online, but other extensions may be available that let you connect accounts from other providers, such as Gmail.
After you add an email account, you can specify predefined business scenarios in which to use the account to send emails. For example, you can specify that all users send sales documents from one account, and purchase documents from another.
The following table describes the email extensions that are available by default.
Note
The Microsoft 365 and Current User extensions use the accounts you set up for users in the Microsoft 365 admin center for your Office 365 subscription. To send email using the extensions, users must have a valid license for Exchange Online.
Setup Email Accounts
You must have a default email account, even if you add only one account. The default account will be used for all email scenarios that are not assigned to an account.
1. Choose the icon, enter Email Accounts, and then choose the related link.
2. Click New/Add an email account
3. Click through the wizard, fill in the fields as necessary.
When finished, you will see your list of email accounts. Only one can be default.
Next you need to setup email scenarios.
Highlight the sales email and click Navigate/Email Scenarios
Highlight the sales email and click Assign Scenarios
Select all sales documents that you want to assign to this email address
You will now be able to see all assigned scenarios on the page
Set Up Reusable Email Texts and Layouts for Sales and Purchase Documents
You can use reports to include key information from sales and purchase documents in texts for emails. This procedure describes how to set up the Sales - Invoice report for posted sales invoices, but the process is similar for other reports.
1. Choose the icon, enter Report Selections Sales, and then choose the related link.
2. On the Report Selection - Sales page, in the Usage field, select Invoice.
3. On a new line, in the Report ID field, select, for example, standard report 1306.
4. Select the Use for Email Body check box.
5. Choose the Email Body Layout Code field, and then select a layout from the drop-down list.
Report layouts define both the style and the content of the text in the email, including texts such as a greeting or instructions that precede the document information. You can see all available report layouts if you choose the Select from full list.
6. To view or edit the layout that the email text is based on, select the layout on the Custom Report Layouts page, and then choose the Edit Layout action.
7. If you want to offer customers to pay for sales electronically, you can set up the related payment service, such as PayPal, and then have the PayPal information and link inserted in the email text.
8. Choose the OK button.
Now, when you choose, for example, the Send action on the Posted Sales Invoice page, the email body will contain the document information of report 1306 preceded by styled standard text according to the report layout that you selected in step 5.
Set Up Document Sending Profiles
You can set up a preferred method of sending sales documents for each of your customers so that you do not have to select a sending option, such as whether to send the document by email or as an electronic document, every time you send a document.
Legacy SMTP Settings and the Email - SMTP Connector Extension
If you're already using Business Central and have configured email through the legacy SMTP setup, you can continue using your setup in parallel with the Email - SMTP Connector extension. When we update your Business Central to the next release version, we will copy your legacy SMTP settings to the Email - SMTP Connector extension. When ready, your administrator can turn on the enhanced email capabilities and you will start using the Email - SMTP Connector extension.
However, there is no synchronization between the SMTP Connector extension and the legacy settings. If you change the SMTP settings in the extension, you should make the same changes in the legacy SMTP setup, or vice versa.
Note: If you have customizations that rely on the legacy SMTP email setup, there is a chance that something will go wrong with your customizations if you start using email extensions. We recommend that you set up and test the extensions before you turn on the feature switch for enhanced email capabilities.
Using a Substitute Sender Address on Outbound Email Messages
If you are using the legacy SMTP settings, you can use the Send as or Send on Behalf capabilities from Microsoft Exchange to change the sender address on outbound messages.
Business Central will use the SMTP account to authenticate to Exchange but will either substitute the sender address with the one you specify or amend it with "on behalf of."
The following are examples of how Send As and Send on Behalf are used in Business Central:
• When you send documents such as purchase or sales orders to vendors and customers, you might want them to appear to come from a _noreply@yourcompanyname.com_ address.
• When your workflow sends an approval request by email using the email address of the requestor.
Note
You can only use one account to substitute sender addresses. That is, you cannot have one substitute address for purchasing processes, and another for sales processes.
To set up the substitute sender address for all outbound email messages
1. In the Exchange admin center for your Microsoft 365 account, find the mailbox to use as the substitute address, and then copy or make a note of the address. If you need a new address, go to your Microsoft 365 admin center to create a new user and set up their mailbox.
2. In Business Central choose the icon, enter SMTP Email Setup, and then choose the related link.
3. In the Send As field, enter the substitute address.
4. Copy or make a note of the address in the User ID field.
5. In the Exchange admin center, find the mailbox to use as the substitute address, and then enter the address from the User ID field in the Send As field.