An Introduction to Email Notifications

It’s important to cover email notifications in some detail because they are one of the most commonly used type of notifications on FME Server.

“Email” is a protocol that may be used by both Publication and Subscription components. Email Publications receive incoming email from external clients, and Email Subscriptions send outgoing email.

Email Protocols

In fact, email is not a single protocol. There are several protocols (methods of email transfer) that exist. FME Server supports two of these email-related protocols: SMTP and IMAP.

SMTP (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol) is the ability to directly receive an email through an email server built into FME Server, or indirectly send an email through an SMTP service, for example, a Gmail account.

IMAP (Internet Message Access Protocol) is an indirect process that connects to an email account on a server elsewhere. When that account receives an email, the IMAP protocol passes it on to FME Server.