Testing email in SAP systems (with workflow too)

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Sometimes you just want to test if email is working properly in your SAP system. For example the Basis consultant has just built a new box, which is the situation I've recently been in. Sometimes they forget to configure SAPconnect appropriately... Normally you just take this stuff for granted and it just works but in my case it didn't.

You can run ABAP program: RSBCS_EXAMPLE_EMAIL. This will allow you to test out all the standard email functionality. Internally it uses the BCS classes (Business Communication Service). You can run this program directly from transaction SE38.

When you see the following result you know that SAPconnect is not properly configured. Time to talk to your basis consultant...

What about SAP Business Workflow and external emails?

External emails are emails sent through your companies exchange server to an internet email address. When addressing an email you can use address type "U" for internet email and an email address: test.user@test.com.

But... When working with SAP Business Workflow it is common to use type "G" addressing which is where you can specify a HR object(s) as an email recipient. In fact this is the default for a Send Mail step.

For example: the standard Workflow Send Mail step allows you to bind a list of HR objects as recipients which is commonly done by using an address like this: "USSAPUSER". Where US specifies the object type as a User Id and SAPUSER is the actual system userid of the person. (This value is availble in the USR01 BOR Object which is handy too.) This is just workflow 101 stuff. But sometimes those emails never get into SOST (or goto Outlook) and are only delivered to the SAP Inbox (SBWP) and no one seems to now why.

The problem is that often when a Basis Consultant installs a system and enables smtp with SAPconnect they forget to do the additional config to enable this "type G" email addressing (in fact I'm not sure its even their job, but someone does it). So here is what you need to do...

Goto transaction SO16 (Shared Office Settings) and enable "Send to Home Address of Users".

Now check the User Id's - they need to have the Communication Method set as "E-Mail" (and an email address of course!).

And thats that! You can now drop email steps into your Workflows and have them work with the standard HR Object based addressing.

Note: Sometimes no matter what you do, emails to a SAP UserId just don't seem to get forwarded to the home address as described above. Typically this is just a buffer issue so clear them out with the "Reset buffer" button in SO16 on the Addressing tab.