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Centralised Email Manager Process


Introduction
This document describes the Centralised Email Manager process which can be used to handle inbound/outbound
emails within Blue Prism®. This Blue Prism process reads each email in the inbox. If the email is recognised
(according to its subject) then it will be routed to a sub-process which will handle the email. If the subject is not
recognised, then the email will be moved to an “Unknown Email” folder.
After all emails in the inbox have been read then outbound emails will be processed. A work queue of outbound
email requests is worked, and all pending email requests are sent.
This process and document are provided as a template and starting point for you to build upon.

Pre-Requisites
The below steps must be completed for this process to function.
• Email Manager Release – The Email Manager release file must be imported into the target environment
• MAPIEx VBO – This VBO must be imported into the target environment and be functional (as per the
MAPIEx setup instructions available on the Portal)
• Utility - File Management VBO – This standard utility must be imported. It can be found in the local Blue
Prism installation directory
• Mail Profile setup – A profile should be created from the mail configuration application located in the
control panel (as per the MAPIEx setup instructions available on the Portal)
• Outlook (32 bit) – this should be installed and configured (as per the MAPIEx setup instructions available on
the Portal)

Configuration
There are several Environment Variables that can be configured within the process
• Email Manager – Attachment Directory – This is the top level directory in which email attachments will be
temporarily stored during processing (note that these attachments are deleted immediately after an email
is handled) – The default is “C:/BluePrism/EmailManager”
• Email Manager – Profile Name – This is the name of the mail profile which has been setup within the
Control Panel of the resource – The default is “Blue Prism Email Manager”

Inbound Email Management


To extend the Email Manager process to handle an additional email type the following steps should be followed.
Add an additional choice criterion to the “Subject” choice stage to identify the new type of email.

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The new choice criterion must be specific enough to not match any of the other options.
Link a new calculation stage to the new choice node. This should populate the ‘Move to Folder’ data item with the
inbox folder to which this type of email should be moved after processing. Note that this folder will be
automatically created if it does not already exist.
The new calculation stage should then link to a new process stage. The email handler process specific to that type
of email should be selected in the stage properties.
The process stage should then be linked to the main line on the right. The updated page should appear as below.

No other changes need to be made to this process for adding additional email types.

Email Handler Processes


For each new email format that is expected there must be a separate process which can interpret the detail of that
email and process it. It is highly recommended that the scope of this process remains very limited, this is to ensure
that the Email Manager process spends as little time as possible on each email (maximising throughput).
As such it is recommended that these processes are limited to the below steps:
1. Verify the inbound email is from an approved source (using an environment variable)
2. Verify the email/attachment’s data structure/content
3. Add any new work to a work queue for processing

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4. Throw an exception if the email cannot be processed (so that the email is moved to a “Failed” folder)

These processes should also:


• Ensure any application interaction is limited to standard applications (Microsoft Word/Excel)
• Close all applications prior to completing/terminating
• Terminate if the email could not be verified/processed
• Move any attachments to a shared directory if they are required (as files in the temp email processing
folder will be deleted after each email)
A simple example of an email handler process is shown below.

Outbound Emails
The Email Manager process can also manage the sending of outbound emails. This gives the added advantage that
not all runtime resources need to be configured with MAPIEx/Microsoft Outlook/email profiles.
Any process requiring an email to be sent should call the “Add Outbound Email to Queue” action in the “Utility –
Email Manager” VBO, passing in all the required information (including recipients, subject, body and attachments).
This request will then be placed onto a work queue, to be sent the next time the Email Manager process runs.
Work Queue Maintenance
The “Email Manager - Outbound Email” work queue contains all requests for outbound emails, this queue also
stores the attachment files for each email. As such it is possible for the data in this queue to become quite large
over time, and steps should be put in place to remove items from the work queue at a regular interval (according
to your organisation’s data policy).

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Alternate Email Systems


The default email protocol for the Email Manager process is MAPIEx, however it has been designed in such a way
that it can be modified to work with other email protocols. To allow this process to work with other email systems
then the steps in the below pages should be replaced with your custom VBO.
• Get Next Email action on Get Next Email page
• Send Email action on Send Email page
• Move Email action on Move Email page

Please note that Blue Prism does not provide support for the implementation of additional email systems.

Scheduling
It is recommended that this process run via a schedule and a frequent basis, depending on the volume of emails
expected.
It is also possible for a single resource to run this process and another process at the same time, as all the VBOs
that are used have their exposure set to background (please note that running two processes will consume two
licences, regardless of which resource they are running on).

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