Inbound Emails (Design)
- Daniel Mederl
Introduction
The Inbound Emails and the Temporary Task Users allow designers to open up their workflows to external contractors while increasing the number of possible new use cases.
The Temporary Task Users are an essential part of defining a workflow that is accessible for users outside of the TIM BPM Suite environment. Click here to learn more!
Start your workflow by sending an email!
It is now possible to start an instance of your workflow by simply sending an email to the designated email address linked to it. This feature can be customised so that it fits your specific use case. Click here to learn more.
Complete a task by answering an email!
Configuring tasks to be completed by email reply is now simpler. This feature was previously available via the SignalByMailReply Timer which is now obsolete. This improved feature is now better customisable and enables the implementation of more complex use cases. Click here to learn more.
Prerequisites
Some initial prerequisites are necessary to implement the feature into your workflow. To activate this feature your process model must have at least one of the following:
Email Start Event:
A transition needs to be drawn from the additional start event to an activity or gateway.
The process model must still contain the normal start event for the manual start of the workflow.
Task Boundary Event:
A transition needs to be drawn from the boundary event to the target activity or gateway.
Additionally, it is required to draw another transition from the activity where the boundary event is attached to another or the same target activity or gateway. See example below:
As seen in the thumbnails above 2 variants of the start and boundary events are supported (Signal and Message according to the BPMN Standard).
Configuration
To configure the Inbound Email feature, some initial configuration and a per workflow configuration are required.
Set up IMAP Host
For the TIM BPM Suite to receive inbound emails an IMAP Host needs to be configured. This is done outside the TIM BPM Suite environment (e.g. Microsoft, Google, etc.).
Mailbox Connector
After completing the setup of the IMAP Host, you need to connect it to your TIM BPM environment. This is done via a new connector type the Mailbox Connector.
Like other Connectors it can be found in the Design section of the TIM BPM Suite, therefore it is required that the user that sets up the Mailbox Connector has the workflow-designer static role.
From there select the Connectors sub-section.
In the bottom-left corner the Plus-Button1 () is shown clicking it will show a sub-button-menu, there click the Mailbox-Button2 to create a new Mailbox Connector.
Reference | Attribute | Description |
|---|---|---|
1 | Mailbox configuration | These are the required fields to create a connection between the IMAP mail server and the TIM BPM Suite:
|
2 | Authentication | There are 2 authentication Methods available:
Depending on the selection new required fields need to be filled. Optionally No Authentication can be selected. |
Workflow Design
The configuration regarding the Inbound Emails is done on the workflow level.
Connecting the workflow to a mailbox
If the prerequisites regarding the process model are met a new tab is shown in the workflow properties.
Reference | Attribute | Description |
|---|---|---|
1 | Mailbox Connector | Here the Mailbox Connector that is linked to the workflow must be selected. This step is mandatory and cannot be skipped for the feature to work! |
2 | Other Configuration | These additional options allow the workflow designer to decide what should happen with the initialising email and its attachments.
|
Who is allowed to start and/or complete a task?
Here the same rules apply to the rest of the workflow. The expressions chosen for the Starter, Owner and Workflow-Designer rights also apply to the inbound emails.
Only users with a group membership to one of the starter groups are allowed to start an instance of the workflow by inbound email.
Configuration of process variables
For both the email start and the task completion by mail reply we do have 2 available options to transfer the mail text to process variables.
Save mail-text to process variable
This option allows the designer to save the mail text to a specified process variable.
To extract the required information from the mail text the ReturnRegexHandler can be used.
Use process variable mapping
This option offers a more sophisticated approach by providing a mapping which can be copied to the mail text of the inbound email, to set up some variables before starting the instance.
The mapping works by providing a label that is easy to understand and the name of the process variable that will hold the value the user assigns to it in the email.
Clicking the Copy mapping button will save the mapping to the clipboard in the following format:
Label: [please enter your data here]In our example above the following text would be saved to the clipboard:
Please enter your name here: [please enter your data here]
Please enter suggestion here: [please enter your data here]This can then be provided to the user sending the email to start an instance of the workflow via email template or in case of completing a task integrated into the task mail text of the given task.
Administration
Here you can find what's new for administrators in regards to inbound emails.
© TIM Solutions GmbH | AGB | Datenschutz | Impressum