Service Connect - testing an email Output Channel

Hi All,
We’re looking to change our current email relay setup and one of the last things on the list to move is the Service Connect setup
I’ve created an Output channel to use the new relay, but I’ve got no idea (and it’s not obvious) how to go about testing that it actually works correctly
The email output channel is used very rarely as it’s only used when we have an error (so it’s not used often, but when it is used it’s kind of important)
Is there a way to test this new Output channel, that doesn’t involve waiting until the Output channel is used and hoping that it works?

I know very little about SC, so the most idiot proof way to test this would be great :slight_smile:

Hi Graeme,

Assuming the output channel is set up in Service Connect administration console with necessary To: address, SMTP server and credentials (those can be overridden in Service Connect workflow, but we will not be creating it), you can trigger it to send a message by starting Epicor DESPoster utility (part of Service Connect client) and sending the following XML using Send to DES button (replace name-of-the-output-channel with the exact actual name of the output channel you want to exercise):

<msg:msg xmlns:msg="http://Epicor.com/InternalMessage/1.1">
  <msg:req tag="name-of-the-output-channel">
    <msg:dta>
    </msg:dta>
  </msg:req>
</msg:msg>

An alternative way (but that one is more SC-involved) is to:

  1. Create a new Service Connect Process (workflow) that looks like:
    Start → Poster → Finish
  2. Set up the Poster to reference the necessary output channel and customize the configuration as necessary (email template, etc), save the workflow.
  3. Trigger that workflow using Epicor DESPoster utility by putting its name in the form Package\Process in the tag attribute, as above.