Difficulty setting up email on PowerChurch 9

[billgrant]

Our PC users asked that I setup email to allow them to email out some contribution receipts. We run PC remotely, via Remote Desktop. The remote machine on which it is installed is running Windows Server 2008 R2 Enterprise Edition. From looking at some of the Forum posts, it appears that PC uses Outlook to send the mail. I assume therefore that either Outlook or Outlook Express must be installed on the remote machine. Is that correct?

[Zaina]

No, a version of Outlook installed on the server is not a requirement. However the same settings that get your email working in the Outlook versions is the same kind of information that PowerChurch needs to work. What is your email providers outgoing email, (example: mail.myemail.com, or smtp.myemail.com)? What is the security it requires, none, SSL, TLS? What port does your email require? And does it require you to authenticate, username and password?

Often if you look up how to setup up Outlook for use with your email provider, then you have the information needed to setup PowerChurch to use your email account to send email through PowerChurch.

[billgrant]

I have several email accounts and have tried to configure all of them unsuccessfully. I wanted to use one of my Gmail accounts. I am accessing that through Outlook successfully but cannot through PC. In Outlook the account is set as IMAP. The SMPT server is smtp.gmail.com. Outgoing server is set to require authentication. SMPT uses port 587 with TLS encryption.

In PC, logged in as admin user, I configure System setup Options/Email to have my Gmail address in both E-mail address and User name fields; Outgoing e-mail server is set to smtp.gmail.com:587. Outgoing e-mail server requires authentication is checked. The password for my Gmail account is supplied.

When I click Test PC detects a problem and generates a log. Here is that log:

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1/24/2014 10:03:59 AM <-- [00000050] 220 mx.google.com ESMTP nw5sm2377393obc.9 - gsmtp
1/24/2014 10:03:59 AM --> [00000018] EHLO POWERCHURCH
1/24/2014 10:03:59 AM <-- [00000050] 250-mx.google.com at your service, [50.56.178.57]
1/24/2014 10:03:59 AM <-- [00000018] 250-SIZE 35882577
1/24/2014 10:03:59 AM <-- [00000013] 250-8BITMIME
1/24/2014 10:03:59 AM <-- [00000013] 250-STARTTLS
1/24/2014 10:03:59 AM <-- [00000024] 250-ENHANCEDSTATUSCODES
1/24/2014 10:03:59 AM <-- [00000013] 250 CHUNKING
1/24/2014 10:03:59 AM --> [00000012] AUTH LOGIN
1/24/2014 10:03:59 AM <-- [00000073] 530 5.7.0 Must issue a STARTTLS command first. nw5sm2377393obc.9 - gsmtp

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[Zaina]

The typical setup for gmail is going to be:
smtp.gmail.com
enter your username and password (login info for gmail)
Security: SSL

[billgrant]

In version 9 I do not see an option to specify the security... Am I missing something? If I leave the port number off the specification of the SMTP server, I still get the same error log generated.

[NeilZ]

In version 9 I do not see an option to specify the security... Am I missing something? If I leave the port number off the specification of the SMTP server, I still get the same error log generated.

FWIW ... version 9 is now over 12 years old, and is really no longer supported. I seem to remember that the security options may have been added in v10.x. If I'm right, you may be out of luck unless your ISP has a mail server that can be accessed using the standard SMTP port.

It may be time to upgrade, upgrades from versions 10 and earlier is only $149.00. Its well worth the upgrade for the added features and options.

[Zaina]

Neil is correct. My apologies in missing that part of this post!

[billgrant]

I have already downloaded the 11.5 demo and have been exercising the calender/scheduling functionality. Let's consider this thread closed and I'll open another one for my questions about that functionality.