Outgoing mail and mail templates

Collabase sends mail for invitations, password resets, security notices, mentions, assignments, meetings and more. All of it goes through one sender that you configure under Administration → Mail Server. Administration → Notifications decides which kinds of mail members get by default, and Administration → Mail Templates shows every mail for review. Who can do this?


Role	System administrator
Edition	All editions

Collabase can also read a mailbox and turn mails into work items. That is set up on the same screen, see Inbound mailbox.

Before you begin

A way to send mail. One of these three:
- an SMTP server and an account on it, for example your company relay or a mail service;
- a Google account with an OAuth client in Google Cloud Console;
- a Microsoft 365 mailbox with an app registration in Microsoft Entra ID.
A sender address your mail provider allows this account to send from, for example noreply@example.com.
Network access from the Collabase server to the SMTP server, or to Google or Microsoft.

Choose how Collabase sends mail

The card Mail provider offers three ways. Pick the one your organization already uses.

Provider	How Collabase signs in	Choose it when
SMTP	Host, port, user name and password	You have a mail relay or a mail service with SMTP. This is the most common choice.
Gmail	OAuth, through a Google account you connect once	Your organization uses Google Workspace and does not offer SMTP.
Office 365	OAuth, through Microsoft Graph and a mailbox you connect once	Your organization uses Microsoft 365 and has switched off SMTP sign-in.

Only one provider is active at a time. The card of the saved SMTP provider shows Active, the card of a connected Gmail or Office 365 account shows Connected and the address it sends from.

Set up outgoing mail

SMTP
Gmail
Office 365

Open the mail settings

Go to Administration → Mail Server and click the SMTP card under Mail provider.

Enter the sender

Under Sender, fill in Sender name (for example Collabase) and From Email Address. Recipients see both in their mail program.

Enter the server

Fill in the card SMTP Configuration:

Setting	Details
SMTP Host	The host name of your mail server, for example `smtp.example.com`. Required.
Port	`587` in most cases.
Username	The account Collabase signs in with. Some providers want the full mail address. Leave it empty for a relay that accepts mail without sign-in.
Password	The password of that account. Stored encrypted. When you edit the settings later, the field shows a masked value: leave it as it is to keep the stored password.
Authentication	Leave it on Automatic (Recommended). The other choices are PLAIN, LOGIN and CRAM-MD5.

Send a test mail

Click Test Connection. Collabase signs in to the server with the values on the screen, before you save them, and sends a test mail to your own address. Test email sent successfully! Check your inbox. confirms it.

Save

Click Save Settings. Mail settings saved successfully confirms it.

Collabase connects to the port in plain text and switches to TLS when the server offers STARTTLS, which is the usual setup on port 587. It checks the server’s certificate, so a server with a self-signed certificate is refused.

Create an OAuth client at Google

In Google Cloud Console, create an OAuth client of type web application. Collabase asks for two scopes when you connect: sending mail (gmail.send) and reading the account’s mail address (userinfo.email).

Select Gmail in Collabase

Go to Administration → Mail Server and click the Gmail card. The card Gmail Configuration opens.

Enter the client and the redirect address

Fill in Client ID and Client Secret. Click Copy URI next to Redirect URI and paste the address into the field, so it is stored. Then add the same address in Google Cloud Console under Authorized redirect URIs of the OAuth client.

Enter the sender and save

Fill in Sender name and From Email Address under Sender, then click Save Settings.

Connect the account

Click Connect Gmail on the Gmail card and sign in with the Google account that should send the mail. Back in Collabase, Gmail connected successfully! appears and the card shows the account’s address.

Send a test mail

Click Test Connection. The test mail goes to your own address.

Create an app registration with a client secret. Collabase asks for the Microsoft Graph permissions Mail.Send, User.Read and offline_access when you connect.

Select Office 365 in Collabase

Go to Administration → Mail Server and click the Office 365 card. The card Office 365 Configuration opens.

Enter the registration and the redirect address

Setting	Details
Application (Client) ID	The ID of the app registration
Client Secret	The secret value of the app registration. Stored encrypted.
Redirect URI	Click Copy URI and paste the address into the field, so it is stored. Add the same address in the app registration under Authentication, as a redirect address of the platform Web.
Tenant ID	The ID of your Microsoft Entra tenant. The field suggests `common`.

Enter the sender and save

Fill in Sender name and From Email Address under Sender, then click Save Settings.

Connect the mailbox

Click Connect Office 365 and sign in with the mailbox that should send the mail. Back in Collabase, Office 365 connected successfully! appears and the card shows the mailbox address.

Send a test mail

Click Test Connection. The test mail goes to your own address.

The test mail arrives in your inbox, and the provider card shows Active or Connected. Then ask a colleague to request a password reset on the sign-in page and check that the reset mail arrives.

With Gmail and Office 365, the provider may replace From Email Address with the address of the connected account. The screen points this out once an account is connected.

To switch from Gmail or Office 365 back to SMTP, click Disconnect on the connected card. Provider disconnected confirms it.

Notification defaults

Administration → Notifications sets what every member gets until they choose for themselves. Each category has two switches, In the app and Email:

Category	Examples
Mentions and comments	@mentions, comments on a member’s work item, suggestions on their page
Assignments and work items	A work item is assigned or changes
Pages and shares	A page is shared or a followed page changes
Projects	Status reports, phase gates, budget warnings
Time tracking	Timesheets submitted and reviewed
Meetings	Invitations, changes, cancellations, meeting notes
Spaces and access	Added to a space, a guest accepted an invitation
Automation and apps	Messages from automations and apps. Email is off by default.
Searches and filters	A filter is shared with a member, subscribed filters by email, a filter that stopped working. Administrators: shared filters lost their owner
Security	Account notices. Always on, the switches are locked.

Below the categories, set the Email frequency members start with: Right away, or Once a day as one summary email at the hour you choose. Click Save. Notification defaults saved confirms it, and the audit log records which values changed. A default applies at once to every member who has not changed that switch in their own notification settings. A member’s own choice always wins. Nobody is mailed about something they are not allowed to open.

Before this screen, mails were switched off one by one under Mail Templates. On update, a category starts with email off only if every mail of it was switched off there. A category with only some of its mails switched off starts with email on; check those categories after the update.

Mails that always go out

These tell a person that their own account changed, or they are the only way into Collabase, so turning them off would hide exactly what someone must see: account security (new-device, password-changed, account-locked, mfa-changed, mfa-reset, passkey-added, sso-linked, api-token-issued, agent-connected), getting in (welcome, welcome-credentials, password-reset) and guests (guest-invitation, guest-sign-in, guest-removed).

Preview the mails

Administration → Mail Templates lists every mail Collabase can send, one row per event, with the languages it exists in. Preview Template opens the mail in a side panel, with one tab per language. Values such as names and links are samples. Every mail carries your logo at the top, your accent color on its button and a small Collabase logo at the bottom. It arrives in the language of the person who gets it. See Name and logos for where these come from. Every notification mail has a link at the bottom that turns off that category of mail for the person who got it.

The wording of the mails is fixed. The screen shows them for review, it does not edit them.

Troubleshooting

What you see	Cause	What to do
Test Connection is greyed out	With SMTP, SMTP Host is empty. With Gmail or Office 365, the account is not connected yet.	Fill in the host, or connect the account first.
Test failed: followed by a message about authentication	The user name or password is wrong, or the provider wants an app password.	Check both. Try the full mail address as Username.
Test failed: followed by a timeout or a refused connection	The server cannot reach the SMTP host on that port.	Check the host name, the port and your firewall.
Test failed: followed by a message about a self-signed certificate	The SMTP server uses a certificate that is not issued by a public authority.	Install a certificate from a public authority on the mail server, or use another relay.
After Connect Gmail or Connect Office 365, Google or Microsoft shows an error about the redirect address	The Redirect URI stored in Collabase and the one in Google or Microsoft differ.	Copy the address again with Copy URI, save, and enter exactly the same address at the provider.
After clicking Connect Gmail or Connect Office 365, a page says Gmail is not configured or Office365 is not configured	Client ID or Redirect URI was not saved.	Fill in both, click Save Settings, then connect.
The test works, but members get no mail of one kind	Email is off for that category, as a default under Administration → Notifications or in the member’s own settings.	Check the category in both places.
Mails land in spam	The sender domain does not authorize your mail server.	Ask your mail administrator to add the server to the SPF record of the domain and to sign the mails with DKIM.

For more causes, see Email not sending.

Inbound mailbox

Let members create work items and comments by mail.

System settings

Every screen of the administration area and where it is documented.

Security policies

Password rules and sessions, which decide when security mails are sent.

Troubleshooting

Logs and common problems of an installation.

Install and run

Members and access

Instance settings

Work configuration

AI

Time tracking

Operations

Outgoing mail and mail templates

Before you begin

Choose how Collabase sends mail

Set up outgoing mail

Notification defaults

Mails that always go out

Preview the mails

Troubleshooting

Inbound mailbox

System settings

Security policies

Troubleshooting

​Before you begin

​Choose how Collabase sends mail

​Set up outgoing mail

​Notification defaults

​Mails that always go out

​Preview the mails

​Troubleshooting

​Related pages

Inbound mailbox

System settings

Security policies

Troubleshooting

Before you begin

Choose how Collabase sends mail

Set up outgoing mail

Notification defaults

Mails that always go out

Preview the mails

Troubleshooting

Related pages