Enabling notification replies

An administrator must edit settings in the news-config.xml file to allow users to reply to email notifications. Users must specify two preferences.

Before you begin

To edit configuration files, you must use the IBM® WebSphere® Application Server wsadmin client. See Starting the wsadmin client for details.

About this task

In the news-config.xml file you must enable support for the reply feature, and also provide a special ReplyTo address. If your deployment has a dedicated HCL Connections mail domain, you must provide that as well. If your deployment uses an existing domain, provide either a prefix or suffix to add to the HCL Connections domain.

For users to be able to reply to emails, certain of their HCL Connections settings must be selected. They must click Settings, and then the Email Preferences tab. They must make sure Receive notifications from other people by email and Allow me to reply to notifications by email (this option is only available if mail-in is enabled in the news-config.xml file) are selected. In the Content that I am following section, they must make sure Forums is set to Individual Emails.

Note: Users will not see Allow me to reply to notifications by email until you perform the steps in this topic to enable notification replies.

Procedure

To configure the data synchronization task, complete the following steps.

Start the wsadmin client from the following directory of the system on which you installed the Deployment Manager:
```
app_server_root\profiles\dm_profile_root\bin
```
where app_server_root is the WebSphere Application Server installation directory and dm_profile_root is the Deployment Manager profile directory, typically dmgr01.
You must start the client from this directory or subsequent commands that you enter do not execute correctly.
Start the News Jython script interpreter.
1. Use the following command to access the News configuration file:
```
execfile("newsAdmin.py")
```
  If prompted to specify a service to connect to, type 1 to pick the first node in the list. Most commands can run on any node. If the command writes or reads information to or from a file using a local file path, you must pick the node where the file is stored.
2. Check out the News cell-level configuration file using the following command:
  NewsCellConfig.checkOutConfig("working_dir", "cellName")
  where:
  - working_dir is the temporary directory to which you want to check out the cell-level configuration file. This directory must exist on the server where you are running wsadmin.
    Note: AIX, and Linux only: The directory must grant write permissions or the command will not run successfully.
  - cellName is the name of the cell that the home page node belongs to. This argument is required. It is also case-sensitive, so type it with care. If you do not know the cell name, type the following command in the wsadmin command processor to determine it:
    print AdminControl.getCell()
  For example:
```
NewsCellConfig.checkOutConfig("d:/temp", "NewsServerNode01Cell")
```
  The command displays this message:
```
News Cell Level configuration file successfully checked out.
```
Open news-config.xml in a text editor.

Locate the section containing the mailin element:

	<!-- These settings control the Mail-In feature, which provides support
for replying to certain notifications to add responses / comments. -->

	<mailin enabled="true">
	    <replyto enabled="true">
	    
	    	<!-- A special ReplyTo address is added to notifications where
				 the user can reply to the notification to respond/comment.
				 The domain may be a dedicated domain for connections bound
				 mails. Or it could be existing domain, in which case a prefix
				 of suffix should be provided also. -->

	        <replytoAddressFormat>
	            <domain>enterprise.com</domain>

	            <!-- A prefix OR suffix (not both) may also be provided. 
						This is necessary if an existing domain (with other 
						email addresses) is being used.
						There is a 28 character limit for the affix. -->

	            <!--  
	            	<affix type="suffix">_lcreplyto</affix>
					-->

	        <affix type="prefix">lcreplyto_</affix>
	            
	        </replytoAddressFormat>
	    </replyto>
	</mailin>

Specify the mailin.enabled and replyto.enabled attributes as "true."
Specify your email server domain in the replytoAddressFormat.domain element. The example shown is enterprise.com.
If you use an existing, non-dedicated domain that contains other email addresses, specify either a suffix or prefix to be added to the domain in the address. The examples shown are _lcreplyto and lcreplyto_.

After making changes, you must check the configuration files back in, and you must do so during the same wsadmin session in which you checked them out for the changes to take effect. See Applying property changes in the News repository for information about how to save and apply your changes.

Results

ReplyTo can be turned on or off by Connections users if the default setting <replyToEnabled>true</replyToEnabled> is specified in notification-config.xml. Refer to Enabling email notifications for instructions on modifying notification-config.xml.