IRIS Practice Software Email Configuration

Section 2 - SMTP/POP3 - Configuration for sending and monitoring emails with IRIS

 

What information do I need before entering the email configuration in IRIS?

The following specific information is required to configure the email within IRIS; it is strongly advised to enter your specific details in the column for Your Settings before starting as reference will be made to the entries in these fields.

Configuration Table

 

Details required

Your settings

A

Companies House registered email address

 

B

Email address for staff members

 

C

Outgoing (SMTP) mail server for example, smtp.mail.co.uk

 

D

Outgoing mail username and password (if needed by your server)

Username:

Password:

E

Incoming (POP3) mail server for example, pop.mail.co.uk

 

F

Incoming mail username and password

Username:

Password:

G

MICROSOFT EXCHANGE USERS ONLY:

SMTP and POP3 Virtual Servers have been enabled

SMTP Virtual Server enabled: Yes ☐

POP3 Virtual Server enabled: Yes ☐

 

 

How do I configure IRIS?

Step 1 - Entering the default practice settings

  1. In System Maintenance go to Utilities | Email Links

  2. Select Modify existing comms subsystem configuration and click Next.

  3. Select Send via an SMTP server and enter the location of the SMTP server (Configuration Table - Row C), click Next.

  4. Select Monitor via your POP3 server and enter the location of the POP3 server entered (Configuration Table - Row E).

The mail account on the server has been configured to be monitored by IRIS, therefore attachments to the incoming mail will be stored in a separate attachment folder. . In the Incoming attachments folder the default location of the folder is, for example, \\server\iris\data\attachments field, where \\server\Iris is the IRIS program folder. The location for attachments must be a network folder accessible to all IRIS users wishing to view the attachments

  1. Click Finish, OK, OK and OK.

 

Step 2 - Logging Options

Communication between IRIS and the email services is necessary for the email communication to work seamlessly. If there are problems with this communication for any reason then these can be logged for future reference.

To do this,

  1. In System Maintenance, go to Utilities | Applications Logging Options

  2. Select Logging enabled and select All and click OK.

 

Step 3 - Entering access permissions for the email monitor

  1. In System Maintenance go to Utilities | Offline Programs

  2. Highlight both IRISEmailMonitorService.exe and IRISEmailMonitorApp.exe (by using Ctrl and left-click).

  3. Select Change User/Password, enter an IRIS staff username and the corresponding password in the appropriate fields.

  4. Click OK.

  5. Click Save Configuration for the settings to be updated.

The staff member associated to these offline programs must have write permissions to the IRIS database.

 

Step 4 - Setting up specific practice email accounts

  1. In System Maintenance go to Practice | E-mail Accounts.

  2. This screen should contain a list of all relevant email addresses required for sending and monitoring emails. If the required email addresses are not present click New.

  3. Enter the staff member (Configuration Table - Row B) or Companies House (Configuration Table - Row A) email address and account description in the appropriate fields for example.

 

  1. In the Outgoing E-mails section select Use practice default to use the SMTP settings that were entered within Utilities | Email links. Also enter the Username and Password of the email account being entered so IRIS can identify itself to your email server.

  2. In the Incoming E-mails section select Use practice default to use the POP3 settings that were entered within Utilities | Email links. Also enter the Username and Password of the email account being entered so IRIS can identify itself to your email server.

  3. Select Automatically scan and insert the frequency to scan the specified email accounts inbox, for example, 1 minute. To check that email address is being scanned correctly any emails within that account should appear within Utilities | Show Applications Queues

Automatically tidy will mean that after an e-file from Companies House has been processed it will be deleted from the email account within the mail client, for example, Outlook. The suggested period to keep emails is at least twice the length of time between backups being taken of the IRIS database. It is recommended to NOT select Automatically tidy if the emails are to be stored permanently within the email account; manually deleted or if a personal email account is being monitored instead of using a dedicated email address for correspondence with Companies House .

  1. Click OK to save the email settings.

The Companies House and staff members email addresses need to be specified, follow the bulleted options below as relevant:

  1. Go to Staff | Staff Maintenance, highlight the staff member and click View. Click the magnifying glass next to the Email field for a list of the practice email addresses.

  2.  Highlight the relevant email address and click Select to apply the email address to that staff member.

  3. Click Save, Close and Close.

  1. Go to Practice | Practice Options | Agent tab | C/H identifiers

  2. Click the magnifying glass next to Companies House registered efile address.

  3. Highlight the relevant email address (which ideally will be a dedicated email address for communicating with Companies House for example, cosec@andrewsandbrown.co.uk)

  4. Click Select, Save, Close and Cancel.

Step 5 - Configure IRIS Company Secretarial and/or IRIS Company Formations to use System Maintenance settings

Altering the settings in one product will automatically alter them in the other therefore the change only needs to be made once.


In IRIS Company Secretarial, go to Setup | Form Options | General tab, deselect Override IRIS Comm. Sub-system

or

In IRIS Company Formations, go to Setup | Company Formations Options , deselect Override IRIS Comm. Sub-system

 

Step 6 - Start IRIS email services

On the IRIS server that is, the computer that IRIS was installed on:

Go to,

  1. Start | Programs | IRIS Software Ltd | Server Utilities | Email Service Monitor, this will put this icon  in the systray in the bottom right of the screen.

  2. Right-click the icon and select Start Email Monitor to monitor emails received via the POP3 server.  

  3. It is also recommended to right-click the icon and select Service Start Mode | Automatic. This means that if the IRIS server needs to be rebooted for any reason the email service will start up automatically.

You should now be ready to electronically file with companies house and send logged emails from within IRIS Practice Management.

 

 

To review an alternative email configuration topics, select one of the below options:

 

Introduction

Section 1 - MAPI - Configuration for sending with IRIS

Section 1 - SMTP - Configuration for sending emails with IRIS

Section 2 - MAPI - Configuration for sending and monitoring emails with IRIS

Section 3 - Using Microsoft Exchange

Troubleshooting