maintool can automatically send emails for certain maintenance events, for example when a work order request is registered or a work order receives a new status. This way, everyone involved learns directly when they need to take action or how far their request has progressed.
The emails are sent in the background using the email account set up in Business Central. The messages are short plain-text emails. They state the document number and the new status or the event.
When are emails sent?
| Event | Recipient | Content |
| A work order request is registered (Register action). | The user who is set up on the User Setup page as responsible for the request's responsible department. | Subject: request number and description of the work order category. Text: description of the request. |
| A work order request is posted. | The user who registered the request (Registered from User). | Notification that the request has been posted, including the number of the work order created from it, if applicable. |
| The status of a work order is changed. | Depending on the status setup: the person in charge, the person responsible for the responsible department and/or the users who registered the underlying requests. | Work order number and new status. When a work order is opened, the email also states the assigned person in charge or the department. |
Emails are only sent for documents whose work order category allows sending. Documents without a work order category never trigger an email.
Prerequisites
- An email account is set up in Business Central and set as the default account (Email Accounts page). Without a working email account, maintool cannot send emails.
- Every recipient has an entry on the User Setup page with a maintained Email address.
Setup
- Set up an email account
Open the Email Accounts page, create an account using New (e.g. Microsoft 365 or SMTP), and set it as the default account. Check the connection by sending a test email. - Enable sending per work order category
Open the Work Order Categories page and enable the Send E-Mail field for all categories for which emails are to be sent. This switch is the basic prerequisite for all emails described in this article. As long as it is turned off, maintool does not send any emails for documents in this category. - Maintain user email addresses
Open the User Setup page and enter the address of each recipient in the Email field. - Define the persons responsible for departments
On the User Setup page, select the department (resource group) the user is responsible for in the Responsible for Department field. Exactly one user should be assigned per department. If there are several, only the first user found receives the email. - Link persons in charge to users
To ensure that persons in charge receive emails, open the Resource Card of the respective person and enter the corresponding Business Central user in the User ID field. The email address is read from this user's entry on the User Setup page. - Define recipients per work order status
Open the Work Order Status Setup page. For each status, specify who is notified when a work order changes to this status:- Send E-Mail to Person in Charge: the person in charge entered in the work order.
- Send E-Mail to Resp. for Department: the person responsible for the responsible department entered in the work order.
- Send E-Mail to Registered from: all users who registered one of the work order requests from which the work order was created.
For emails on work order requests (registering and posting), steps 1 to 4 are sufficient. The settings on the Work Order Status Setup page apply to work orders only.
| Note: If sending is enabled but required information is missing, maintool cancels the process with an error message. In that case, the status is not changed, or the request is not registered or posted. Missing information may include, for example, no email address on the User Setup page, no person responsible for the department, or no user ID on the resource of the person in charge. Add the missing information and repeat the process. |
Things to keep in mind
- The subject and text are created in the language of the user who triggers the process.
- To send an email when a work order request is registered, a responsible department must be entered on the request. Otherwise, no email is sent.
- If a work order with a person in charge is opened, this person in charge always needs a user ID with an email address as soon as the work order category allows sending. This also applies if the status itself does not send an email to the person in charge.
- You can find sent emails on the Sent Emails page and failed emails on the Email Outbox page.
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