The adapter polls the mail server at a specified interval, retrieves
new messages from specified mail server folders, converts each message to
a business object, and then sends the business objects to the application
server.
Required folders for inbound communication
The following
folders need to be present for each poll location. If you set up the adapter
to poll in multiple locations, you must have these folders in each location.
Required
folders:
- In progress folder - Located on your local drive, it holds e-mails that
are marked in progress in the event table.
- Poll folder - One or more folders on the mail server that the adapter
polls for new e-mails.
Supported inbound protocols
Depending on your mail
server, you might be able to pick which inbound e-mail protocol to use. Differences
between the protocols and a description of how the adapter processes each
protocol are noted in the following table and sections that follow.
Table 1. Differences between the IMAP and POP3 protocolsIMAP |
POP3 |
Supports the existence of multiple mail folders
on a mailbox. |
Supports only one mailbox (named "Inbox") per
user. |
Allows a copy of the e-mail to remain on the
mail server after the client receives the e-mail. |
Supports a "View-once-only" feature on the
server. The mail is deleted from the mail server once the client receives
a copy of the mail. |
Inbound with IMAP
If you use the IMAP protocol for
your inbound communication, the adapter performs the following steps:
- The adapter polls the mail folders at regular intervals and logs any unread
e-mails as events in the event table. You can use the activation specification
PollFolders property to customize the list of folders that are searched.
- If you specify multiple mail server folders for the mail server account
in the PollFolders property, the adapter polls all mail server folders sequentially.
- Search criteria determines which mail is picked up from the mail server.
The adapter picks up all e-mail that match the criteria
- The adapter writes all polled e-mails to the InProgress folder in RFC822
format using the Message-ID of the polled e-mail as the file name. Once an
e-mail is written into the InProgress folder, it is deleted from the mail
server.
- The adapter transforms each e-mail message into a business object instance
and delivers it to the enterprise application.
- The adapter deletes processed e-mails from the InProgress folder and archives
them if archiving is selected.
Inbound with POP3
If you use the POP3 protocol for
your inbound communication, the adapter performs the following steps:
- The adapter polls the Inbox mail folder at regular intervals and logs
any unread e-mails as events in the event table.
- If you specify search criteria, all unread e-mails that fit the search
criteria are picked up for polling.
Note: When no search criteria is specified,
all unread mail is picked up by default.
- The adapter writes all polled e-mails to the InProgress folder in RFC822
format and uses the Message-ID of the polled e-mail as the file name.
- Once an e-mail is read by the adapter it is deleted.
- The adapter transforms each e-mail message into a business object instance
and delivers it to the enterprise application.
- The adapter deletes all processed e-mail from the InProgress folder and
archives them if archiving is selected.
Archiving
You can configure the adapter to archive
both successful and failed e-mails. To do this, the following folders must
be present:
- Archive folder – A file system folder where the adapter archives successful
events.
- Failed event folder – A file system folder where the adapter archives
failed events.
When the ArchiveFolder property is specified, all successfully
processed mail will be moved into the archive folder from the in progress
folder. If you leave this property blank all successfully processed mail is
deleted from the InProgress folder.
If the FailedEventsFolder
is specified, all unsuccessfully processed mail will be moved into the failed
events folder from the in progress folder. If you leave this property blank,
all failed mail is deleted from the in progress folder.
Terms of use |
Last updated: Mon 30 Oct 2006 03:44:37
(c) Copyright IBM Corporation 2005, 2006.
This information center is powered by Eclipse technology (http://www.eclipse.org)