Email settings?

Management and Administration
1

gobruins wrote on Friday, January 15, 2010:

hi,

i have a question regarding email settings, if i could. my current test platform is:

- Xampp on a Windows XP box acting as the server
- Another Windows XP box loggin on as client

i’ve created a dummy pharmacy, and i’ve tried to email an Rx. the error message i’m getting is “There has been a mail error sending to Could not instantiate mail function.”

i’ve read a thread about modding the globals.php file, but i’m not seeing entries in that file related to email settings, etc.

is this happening because i’m using Windows boxes?

thanks in advance.

2

gobruins wrote on Friday, January 15, 2010:

the manual for the OpenEMR appliance entails installing “postfix” and setting up the email settings that way. i’m assuming that’s only linux-centric?

ultimately, the server will be a linux box, but does this mean that the client must also be using linux to make the email work?

sorry for all the newbie questions.

3

bradymiller wrote on Saturday, January 16, 2010:

hey,

Check out this wikipedia for explanation of an outgoing email server:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simple_Mail_Transfer_Protocol#Outgoing_mail_SMTP_server

The computer that openemr is on should have an outgoing email server, which can be done on both windows and linux. Once the email gets into an outgoing email server, it then gets sent to the mail server that your email address is associated with(ie. yahoo.com, hotmail.com etc.), which you don’t worry about; they maintain that server. Your email client (windows/linux/mac) can then read that email no matter where it came from.

OpenEMR has several different places that use email, not clear how they all work:
controllers/C_Prescription.class.php
interface/drugs/drugs.inc.php
interface/drugs/dispense_drug.php
interface/batchcom/batchEmail.php
modules/sms_email_reminder/cron_functions.php

The sms stuff is associated with this wiki page: http://www.openmedsoftware.org/wiki/Sms_and_Email_Notification_Howtos (there has been discussion of possible bugs in this email mechanism).

I’m gonna post a message in development thread here to consider creating a standard email mechanism from OpenEMR (especially since lots of certification code re: pt reminders and such are now being actively developed).

-brady

-brady

4

anonymous wrote on Saturday, January 16, 2010:

thanks Brady.

i’m going to install an email server on the Ubuntu machine. the OpenEMR appliance manual mentioned Postfix. is this a good one? or can anyone recommend a better one?

5

bradymiller wrote on Saturday, January 16, 2010:

hey,

Since there are instructions in the appliance manual for you to follow, I’d go with Postfix for now. Note I made these instructions really to ensure an admin of the appliance would get ubuntu system type emails. I am not completely sure if Postfix is compatible with all of the above OpenEMR email mechanism I mentioned above, although I see no reason why it shouldn’t.

-brady