PeopleSoft Learning

Sending an email is very simple and easy concept, but there are so many different things that we need to keep in mind from best practices to new additional methods that can be useful in different purpose. I am trying to cover all the different aspects of sending emails, this will be Bible for sending emails in the PeopleSoft.

Best Practice
1)  Anything that works is not correct or best method to follow while writing the PeopleCode. First thing comes to the mind - SendMail function to send the email, it is an deprecated method and should not be used. Application Class MCFOutboundEmail needs to be used and it is the fully SMTP Protocol compliant to RFC 821/822. It uses Javamail functionality using this package.

Where to Configure
MCFOutBoundEmail() function uses the SMTP section of the Application Server's psappsrv.cfg file, and Process Scheduler's SMTP section of the psprcs.cfg file, just as the SendMail() function does. No special configuration is required for the MCFOutboundEmail() function to work.

Sample Code send Email
import PT_MCF_MAIL:*;
import PT_MCF_MAIL:MCFOutboundEmail;
import PT_MCF_MAIL:MCFEmail;
&res = &email.Send();

Best Performance for sending Bulk email 
 if you need to send several emails where content is specific to each email is different. Following code will help if you need to send email notification on the component peoplecode, as it make one SMTP connection to send all the emails and performance will be better.
import PT_MCF_MAIL:MCFOutboundEmail;
import PT_MCF_MAIL:MCFBodyPart;
import PT_MCF_MAIL:MCFMultipart;
import PT_MCF_MAIL:MCFMailUtil;
import PT_MCF_MAIL:SMTPSession;
Local integer &noOfMails = 20;
Local array of PT_MCF_MAIL:MCFOutboundEmail &mails;
Local PT_MCF_MAIL:MCFOutboundEmail &email;
Local integer &i;
Local PT_MCF_MAIL:SMTPSession &commonSession = create PT_MCF_MAIL:SMTPSession();
&commonSession.Server = "ap6023fems.us.oracle.com";
&commonSession.Port = 25;
&mails = CreateArray(&email);
End-For;

Local PT_MCF_MAIL:MCFMailUtil &util = create PT_MCF_MAIL:MCFMailUtil();
Local array of integer &allRes = &commonSession.SendAll(&mails);

Debugging
In case if mails are not working for you and you are not able to figure out the issue.
You should look into smtp logs for more details and it will tell you exactly what is happening.
Before using the SMTP logs , you need to enable it.
For enabling SMTP logs for App Server you need to edit the app server configuration file :psappsrv.cfg.
Open the psappsrv.cfg file  and find “SMTP”.Look for SMTPTrace variable.
It will be SMTPTrace=0 initially.

Set the value of this variable SMTPTrace=1 and save the file.
This change does not require a Application Server boot and changes will be reflected immediately.
If you are using mail classes from Process Scheduler, you may need to set their trace also.
The psprcs.cfg file needs to be modified for this.
Open the file and look for SMTP and change the settings as done in the App server configuration file.
It will generate Trace file SMTP.LOG in LOGS Folder under
$PS_HOMEappservdomain_namelogsSMTP.LOG  for Appserver and $PS_HOMEappservprcsdomain_namelogsSMTP.LOG for Batchserver.

Creating an Email from Rich Text Editor Output
Using the ParseRichTextHTML - you can send the Rich Text with messages. Follwoing link has the complete details of the sample code.

Validating Email Address
ValidateAddress(addresslist) - Use the ValidateAddress method to validate a comma- or semicolon-separated list of email addresses. This method checks the syntax of the email address. It does not verify the domain name or the validity of the user name.
import PT_MCF_MAIL:*;
Local PT_MCF_MAIL:MCFMailUtil
&emailutil = create PT_MCF_MAIL:MCFMailUtil();
Local boolean &result = &emailutil.ValidateAddress(&email.Recipients);
Local array of string &bAddresses = &emailutil.badaddresses;
If (&result = False) Then
If (&bAddresses <> Null) Then
&i = 0;
While &bAddresses.Next(&i)
Warning ("Bad email address in input = " | &bAddresses [&i]);
End-While;
End-If;
End-If;

Creating an HTML Email with Images
Sending the HTML content and sending the Client Image may be requried. It looks good to send them in the email, Rather than the boring static emails which doesn't have much of details in it.
Following link has the details of the code to send the same.