How do I configure an email channel?

To send emails to your customers and to receive emails from them, you must first set up an email channel.

You can create separate email channels for different application stripe codes. For example, one for CRM and one for HCM. However, you can use the same email channel for both inbound and outbound emails:

Note: You can add attachments totaling 10MB to an email.

• Inbound email: Indicates the service emails received from your customers. As part of your implementation, you must set up a forwarding rule on your company email server to redirect these emails to Oracle's inbound email ID. This is the same email account that Oracle provided at the time of provisioning. For example, all the support emails that are sent to [e-mail] are forwarded to pod_name.fa.extservice.incoming@pod_name-opcwf.mail.dcsn.oraclecloud.com for processing. The SVC_INBOUND_EMAIL_ADDRESSES profile option indicates the Oracle email ID to which the support mails must be forwarded.

  If it's required for your company, you can also create different support email channels for different business units or divisions. For example, [e-mail], [e-mail], and so on. All the support emails sent to these different support email channels are forwarded to pod_name.fa.extservice.incoming@pod_name-opcwf.mail.dcsn.oraclecloud.com for processing.

  Note: If you're implementing HR Help Desk or Internal Help Desk, then you must define a channel with the appropriate application stripe. The account name of the channel must match the email address of your mailbox from which you're redirecting or forwarding emails to the Oracle mailbox mentioned above. If you don't define the appropriate channel, the requests created for the emails are set with the CRM application stripe. In such cases, you must run an ODI import process to update the application stripes of the SRs.

  The SVC_INBOUND_EMAIL_ADDRESSES profile option contains two email IDs:

  • For CRM, use the email ID that contains the text 'extservice' as a part of the ID, as the forwarding email ID.

  Note: You must avoid updating these inbound email addresses. If you have to update these inbound email addresses for some reason, you must complete the following steps:

• Outbound email: Indicates the emails that are sent by the Service application from the service request. For example, when an agent responds to the primary customer contact.

  To ensure that your outbound email is delivered successfully to your external recipients, you must set up a Sender Policy Framework (SPF) policy on your domain.

  To enable Oracle to send out an email on your behalf, you must do the following:

  • Set up an SPF policy on your domain as an authentication mechanism. The exact method of setting up an SPF policy varies from one domain provider to another. For example, v=spf1 include:spf_c.oraclecloud.com ~all.

  • If you want to set the support agent's name as the From Name in outbound emails, set the value for the SVC_USE_RESOURCE_NAME_IN_OUTBOUND profile option to Yes. For more information, refer to How do I set the From Name in outbound emails?

To configure an email channel for the customer:

1. In the Setup and Maintenance work area, go to the following:

   • Offering: Service

   • Functional Area: Communication Channels

   • Task: Manage Communication Channels

2. In the Service Channels page, click Create Channel.

3. In the Create Channel window:

   1. Select a Stripe Code.

      Select CRM to process emails from and to external customers. Select HCM to process emails from and to internal employees, through the HCM Help desk support.

   2. The Purpose field is set to Support by default.

   3. Select the Channel Type as Email.

   4. Specify the support email ID of your company as the Account Name. For example: [e-mail]

      If a forwarding rule is configured, all the mails that are sent to the specified support email ID are forwarded to Oracle's inbound email ID. If an outbound email is configured, Oracle can send mails to the customer as the specified support email ID, on your behalf.

   5. Verify whether the generated Channel Code is unique.

      The channel code is autogenerated and it uniquely identifies a communication channel when exporting or importing channels from one environment to another.

      • If the autogenerated channel code is unique, you can leave it unchanged.

      • If the autogenerated channel code isn't unique, add a set of characters to the code to make it unique.

   6. (Optional) Specify a Display Name to indicate any information about the channel, such as the name of the deploying company for which the channel is being configured.

   7. When a new channel is being created, it's active by default. To deactivate it, clear the Active option.

   8. (Optional) From the Business Unit drop-down list, select a Business Unit (BU).

      The BU set in the scope is selected by default, but you can select a different BU. This column appears only if the multiple business units feature is turned on.

   9. Click Save.