Active Roles can use Exchange Web Services (rather than SMTP server) to communicate with Exchange Server when sending notification messages and getting response to notification messages. This enables notification recipients to perform approval tasks by replying to notification messages from their regular e-mail clients, instead of using the Web Interface pages to approve or reject the requests. With the use of Exchange Web Services, Active Roles makes it possible for an approval workflow to behave as follows:
- A change request that requires approval causes Active Roles to send a notification message to the designated approver, with the message body containing the option to approve or reject the request.
- The approver replies to the notification message by choosing the desired option (either approve or reject) and typing in a text to explain the reason for that choice.
- Active Roles receives the reply message from the approver, checks to see if the approver elected to approve or reject the request, and then allows or denies the requested changes accordingly.
The use of Exchange Web Services calls for the following prerequisites:
- A supported version of Microsoft Exchange. Exchange Web Services is deployed with the Client Access server role. For the list of Exchange Server versions supported by Active Roles, see System requirements in the Active Roles Release Notes.
- Dedicated mailbox hosted on a supported version of Exchange Server. The mailbox should be reserved for the exclusive use of Active Roles.