Configure EmpowerID Email Send Options

Owned by
Phillip Hanegan
Last updated: Jun 24, 2021
7 min read

By default, EmpowerID is configured to use SMTP as the provider for email delivery. However, SMTP is not the only provider option. You can elect to use SendGrid (requires a SendGrid account with an API key), Exchange Web Services (on-premise or Office 365) or both SMTP and Exchange Web Services (EWS). If you choose to use more than one provider, you order the precedence by setting the priority for each. The provider with the lowest priority has the higher precedence. By default, SMTP has precedence. You can change this at any time.

You can configure EmpowerID to process emails differently, depending on your scenario. These scenarios include the following:

  • Simple SMTP relay – In this scenario, you specify the SMTP server that EmpowerID uses to send automated emails on behalf of the system and the default from address for all EmpowerID notifications. Examples of these types of emails include welcoming emails sent to new employees, emails sent to users when their passwords are reset by the help desk, and pending password expiration notifications, etc.

  • Authenticated SMTP Delivery – In this scenario, you specify an account that EmpowerID should use to connect to the SMTP server. This account must have password that is vaulted in EmpowerID and becomes the default From address used for any automated emails sent on behalf of the system. When configuring for authenticated SMTP delivery, you have the option to specify whether to use SSL, TLS and the port used for TLS.

  • Exchange Web Services (EWS) – In this scenario, you specify the account that EmpowerID should use to connect to EWS, as well as the URL to the EWS server. As with configuring EmpowerID for authenticated SMTP delivery, you need to vault the password for the user account.

  • SendGrid – In this scenario, you specify EmpowerID use SendGrid to send automated emails behalf of the system. To use SendGrid, you need to have a SendGrid account with an API key and set up domain authentication in SendGrid to allow SendGrid to send emails originating from EmpowerID. Please see SendGrid’s documentation for further information on configuring SendGrid before selecting SendGrid for sending emails in EmpowerID.

  • Email approvals – In this scenario, you configure EmpowerID to give resource owners and other delegated approvers the ability to respond to Access Requests from their email clients, apart from interacting directly with the request in the EmpowerID Web interface. This allows users to respond to requests when away from their desks. To do so, they simply reply to the email with "Approved" or "Rejected." EmpowerID reads the response and submits the decision.

To configure EmpowerID for simple SMTP relay, do the following:

  1. On the navbar, expand Infrastructure Admin > EmpowerID Servers and Settings and select Email Settings.

  2. Select SMTP from the Email Delivery Mode drop-down.

  3. In the SMTP Mail Delivery Settings pane, enter the following information:

    • SMTP From Address — This specifies the default From address the system should use when sending automated emails to your user.

    • SMTP Server DNS — This specifies the DNS or IP address of the SMTP server in your environment.

  4. Save your changes.

  1. On the navbar, expand Infrastructure Admin > EmpowerID Servers and Settings and select Email Settings.

  2. Select SMTP from the Email Delivery Mode drop-down.

  3. In the SMTP Mail Delivery Settings pane, enter the following information:

    • Account with Vaulted Password for Authenticated SMTP — Select the user account to be used by EmpowerID to authenticate to the SMTP server and to send automated responses on behalf of the system. This account must have a password that is vaulted in EmpowerID. If the account does not have a password that is vaulted, please see How to Vault Account Passwords below and then return to complete the setup.

    • SMTP From Address — This specifies the default From address the system should use when sending automated emails to your user.

    • SMTP Server DNS — This specifies the DNS or IP address of the SMTP server in your environment.

  4. Save your changes.

Note

  • When configuring EmpowerID for authenticated SMTP, the mailbox selected for reading and processing emails takes precedence over the setting entered in the SMTP From Address setting.

  • If you are using a mail delivery system other than Exchange that supports SMTP, then you need to create a tracking-only account store and add an account with the appropriate credentials, as well as a user principal name, for that system to that account store. You then vault the password for that user account.

 

  1. On the navbar, expand Infrastructure Admin > EmpowerID Servers and Settings and select Email Settings.

  2. Select Exchange EWS from the Email Delivery Mode drop-down.

  3. On the Email Settings page, edit the following settings:

    • Office 365 / Exchange Mailbox for Send and Receive — This specifies the user account EmpowerID uses to authenticate to the EWS server as well as to send automated emails on behalf of the system. This account needs to have its password vaulted in EmpowerID.

    • Office 365 / Exchange Web Service URL — This specifies the URL to the EWS server. If you are using Office 365, the value of the URL should be https://outlook.office365.com/EWS/Exchange.asmx.

       

  4. Click Save.

Prerequisites

In order to use SendGrid as the Email provider, you need to have a SendGrid account with an API key and set up domain authentication in SendGrid to allow SendGrid to send emails originating from EmpowerID. Please see SendGrid’s documentation for further information.

After setting up SendGrid as outlined by their documentation, you can configure SendGrid as the Email provider in EmpowerID by doing the following:

  1. On the navbar, expand Infrastructure Admin > EmpowerID Servers and Settings and select Email Settings.

  2. Enter the following information in the Email Settings form:

    1. Email Delivery Mode – SendGrid

    2. SendGrid API Key – Your SendGrid API key

       

  3. Click Save.

For EmpowerID to process email approvals, the task or operation being approved or rejected must have the EnableBulkApproval set to true. This is set in Workflow Studio.

If you are using SMTP, follow the procedure outlined in the authenticated SMTP Delivery section, including vaulting a user account; otherwise, following the procedure outlined in the EWS section. After completing those steps, do the below steps.

  1. On the navbar, expand Infrastructure Admin > EmpowerID Servers and Settings and select Email Settings.

  2. On the Email settings page, select Enable Approve by Email Reply.

     

  3. Click Save.