PDF PostOffice Emails Are Rejected by Server for Some Users

PDF PostOffice Emails Are Rejected by Server for Some Users

Release Date: 07/17/2020
Version: 8.2 & up

Q - We are using Outlook 365. Some of our users can send PDF PostOffice invoices without a problem, but one of them receives the following errors:
ERROR: Transaction failed. The server response was: 5.2.0 STOREDRV.Submission.Exception:SendAsDeniedException.MapiExceptionSendAsDenied; Failed to process message due to a permanent exception with message Cannot submit message. 0.35250:63880000,.....
See sample screen below:

Why can't we send PDF PostOffice invoices to this user?

A - The key words in the error message are "SendAsDeniedException" and "MapiExceptionSendAsDenied." Essentially, it is saying that the authenticated user is trying to send the email as someone else and this user is not set up to do so.  

Send As Email Alias

For example, if the authenticated user is "mary.johnson@abc.com," but the send-from email address is "accounting@abc.com," then this error can happen. 

So why does the PDF PostOffice invoice work for other users, but  doesn't work only for this user? By default, Outlook 365 will only allow authenticated users to send emails on behalf of him or herself.  For example, if the authenticated user is "john.smith@abc.com," then this user's send-from email address should be "john.smith@abc.com."  On the other hand, it maybe  desirable to use a group email address as the send-from email, such as "accounting@abc.com" when John Smith is the sender. 

Typically, when you send PDF PostOffice emails, you may configure the email template as a "group" send-from email address, like "accounting@abc.com" or "no-reply@abc.com," for example.  But unless your IT personnel make a special configuration on the Outlook 365 Admin portal to allow this alias for "john.smith@abc.com," then John Smith will receive the error "SendAsDeniedException."

So it is likely that the IT personnel made the initial configuration to allow "accounting@abc.com" as the valid alias email address for "john.smith@abc.com." Later on, when user "mary.johnson@abc.com" joined the accounting team and had the same email requirement, IT was not aware of that, which is why Mary is now receiving this error. This is a common problem. The solution is to ask your IT staff to add the alias "accounting@abc.com" for Mary, or if "Accounting" is a group, add Mary to the group.

Testing & Verifying Email Setup

The best place to test & verify IT changes is to bring up "Setup" from the Elliott Control Center in the top left-hand corner:


Go to the "Misc." tab and click on the "Email Settings..." button. You will see the following sample screen for Email Preference:


As you can see, the authentication is on "emk@netcellent.com."  We can first make sure that user "emk" can successfully send on behalf of himself by clicking on the "Test email..."


Since the authentication is on "emk@netcellent.com" and the send-from is "emk@netcellent.com," this should work. We can click on the "Send" button to verify.  Sure enough, we receive the following message to confirm:


Now we can send a test email one more time. This time, we change the send-from to "accountings@netcellent.com" and try again:


But this time, the email was denied and we received the following error instead:


If your Elliott version is V8.5a.720 or after, your error message should contain additional debugging information as follows:

As you can see from the above sample message, the user emk@netcellent.com is trying to send an email from "accountings@netcellent.com."  Because the alias or group emails were not set up for the user, as a result the user received the "SendAsDeniedException" and "MapiExceptionSendAsDenied."

Conclusion

Compared to hosting your own Exchange server, a hosted email solution like Outlook 365 has tighter security. It does not allow "open relay" out of spamming concerns. In this environment, if you need to let a user send emails on behalf of another email address, you must ask your IT staff to configure the user email address to allow the alias or group email address to work.


EMK


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