Enabling Email Functionality in the Team System Web Access (TSWA)

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By default, the email functionality in Team System Web Access (TSWA) is disabled and users will receive the following message when trying to use it:

“Sending email is not enabled. Please contact your administrator.”

Email Functionality

To enable you to need to change TSWA’s web.config file, which can be found following path: \Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 2005/2008 Team System Web Access\Web.

  • Change the setting “sendingEmailEnabled” to true.
  • And specify your SMTP server name under “host”.

 <emailSettingssendingEmailEnabled=”true”enableSsl=”false” />

     <jscriptConfig>
      <addname=”showBrowserToolbar”value=”true”/>
    jscriptConfig>
 webAccessSettings>
 <system.net>
    <mailSettings>
      <smtpdeliveryMethod=”network”from=”[email protected]”>
       
        <networkhost=”192.168.1.12″port=”25″defaultCredentials=”true” />

Optionally you can specify which account to use when authenticating with the SMTP server and if SSL should be enabled as well as the default email address for the sender.

Where can you use the email functionality?

 You can send… 
  • single work items (from the work item form)
  • multiple work items, i.e. the result of a work item query

The email function can be found in the “Tools” menu.

Email Functionality 01

The “Send Email” window allows you to specify the sender’s (“From”) and receiver’s (“To”) email address, as well as subject and message.

Email Functionality 02

After hitting send a message box confirms that the mail was successfully routed to the email server.

Mail Delivery Failed

This is how the receiver will see the message if it’s about a single work item:
Mail Error
Configure SMTP Server and E-mail Notification Settings in the Services Web.Config File

You can configure Team Foundation Server to use an existing SMTP server to send e-mail alerts. Users can configure alerts for various projects, work item, and build event notifications. Although you can specify the SMTP server during Team Foundation Server installation, you might want to change the STMP server later. Similarly, if you to change the application pool service account by using the TFSAdminUtil ChangeAccount command, you must manually change the sender account e-mail address to the new service account’s e-mail address.

Note

The content of Team Foundation Server alert e-mails is not customizable. The content of the e-mails is automatically generated from the TeamFoundation.xsl file. Modifying this file is not recommended. If you do modify the contents of this file, be sure to thoroughly test your modifications. Incorrect modifications of this file can result in the failure of Team Foundation Server e-mail alerts and the inability to view Team Foundation work items, changesets, or files in a Web browser.

Required Permissions

To perform this procedure, you must be a member of the Administrators group on the Team Foundation application-tier server. For more information, see Team Foundation Server Permissions.

Note

Don’t use the ASP.Net tab of the IIS Manager (inetmgr) to edit a configuration file. If you use this tab, an attribute is added to the configuration element of the configuration file. This attribute interferes with normal functioning

To designate or change the SMTP server for sending e-mail alerts
  1. On the application-tier server for Team Foundation, locate the installation directory for the application tier.
  2. Open the Web Services directory, and then open the Services subdirectory.
  3. In a text or XML editor, open the Web.Config file, and locate the element.
  4. Update the element by typing the fully qualified domain name of the SMTP server. For example, type the following string:
  5. Save and close the Web.Config file.
You must close and restart the Web services application for Team Foundation before your changes will take effect.

To designate or change the sender e-mail address for e-mail alerts

  1. On the application-tier server for Team Foundation, locate the installation directory for the application tier.
  2. Open the Web Services directory, and then open the Services subdirectory.
  3. In a text or XML editor, open the Web.Config file, and locate the element.
  4. Update the element by typing the e-mail address that is associated with the service account (for example,Domain/TFSService). That is used for the application pool identity for Team Foundation. For example, type the following string:
  5. Save and close the file.

You must close and restart the Web services application for Team Foundation before your changes will take effect.