Mail relay

Use the HCL Compass EmailRelay service to implement a private relay service to forward email requests to a server that is registered for Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) server access.

Some organizations strictly control the access to SMTP servers. Restricting access to the SMTP servers reduces the risk of someone using the SMTP servers to send unsolicited bulk email. But, the restricted access prevents HCL Compass clients from sending email notifications through an SMTP server. For the HCL Compass clients to access the SMTP servers, each HCL Compass client computer would have to register its IP addresses with the SMTP server or with a firewall that surrounds the SMTP server, which is impractical. Instead, you can consider these two options:
  • Implement your own SMTP server for HCL Compass email.
  • Implement a private relay service to forward the email request to a server that is registered for SMTP server access. The target server cannot be an SMTP relay. Otherwise, the problem of unsolicited bulk email would still exist.

You can implement a private relay service in the EmailPlus package by configuring it use the SMTP Relay or PostOffice Relay. The EmailPlus package uses the EmailRelay service to support these email relay modes. The EmailRelay service is installed as part of the HCL Compass Web installation. You must configure EmailRelay based on your database, your SMTP email server, and EmailPlus Relay mode.

The following table compares the characteristics of SMTP Relay and PostOffice Relay.
Table 1. A comparison of SMTP Relay and PostOffice Relay
SMTP Relay PostOffice Relay
Email is sent when the record is committed. Email is sent after the database is queried for email to be sent.
Email delivery is not guaranteed. Email can be lost because the SMTP mail server is down or a communication error. Email delivery is guaranteed. Email data is stored in the database until the email is sent.
Note: If your SMTP Email server fails to send the email after accepting the email data, the email will be lost. EmailRelay cannot prevent such issues.
No extra records are stored in HCL Compass. Email data is stored in a database as a record. The record is deleted when the email is sent.
No queries are run on the database. The email data is streamed from the EmaiPlus package to the EmailRelay service. EmailRelay must periodically query the database for new email data to send.
There is no need to access the Web server. EmailRelay must have access to the Web server.