Sending attachments in email

[pokrakam]

Greetings all,

Apologies if this is more SapConnect than Workflow-related, but I figured folks here are pretty knowledgeable

I have inherited a setup which is moving from a Lotus Notes connector to a standard SMTP internet mail server setup. The fun part is a certain workflow which sent a SOFM attachment as an attachment via Notes/Domino, which dutifully arrived at a .txt attachment with the original contents.

Switch to a standard SMTP-compliant server and all I get is an attachment which contains a persistent object reference:

<SID><client> SOFM FOLnn000000000004EXTnn000000000nnn <OBJECT>

The attachment filename itself is:

Q99_999 SOFM FOL99000000000099EXT99000000000999 OBJECT.OBJ

So it is clearly referring to the object, but where it was previously actually attaching the SOFM document itself it is now attaching the object reference.

My question: Where is this setting stored? I've gone through the varios SCOT settings and have tried to adjust settings for object/document type (started getting errors along the lines of 'conversion type not supported' or similar).

Any input appreciated.

Muchos grazias,

Mike

[Former Member]

Hello Mike,

the first thing I thought of was the conversion rules in SCOT and I don't know of any other option (customizing) that could affect the way it works.

I have solved a similar problem in SCOT w/workflow which went like this:

- The (old) RSWUWFML-report attaches the persistent object reference to the workitem (as the old-style-SAP-Shortcut-Format) that enables the user to execute this workitem from the mail.

- When we installed the new SAP Gui it didn't worked anymore (because shortcut format .SAP changed).

- I have implemented in SCOT a conversion-exit that transformed the attachment into a .SAP-Shortcut that called a self-made-transaction to execute this workitem.

So, if no one else has any good idea of what to do about, I would propose to use a conversion exit in the SCOT. This scans for a FOL...object reference, uses some kind of function module to retrieve the content as text and then outputs a .txt-Attachment. This should work (but is more effort, as well).

Best wishes,

Florin

[pokrakam]

Hi Florin,

Thanks for your input. I did play around with the conversion exits, and it looks like something that should be working isn't.

As far as I remember SOFM objects should be easily convertableinto TXT or HTML, but it's failing with various errors, I think it was SX_CONVERT_OBJ_TO_HTM return code 1 (I'm at a different client right now and lost the exact message...). Found some irrelevant notes, but OSS are on the case as well.

At this stage am a little restricted in changing too much as this is an inherited system with a few workflows, a custom conversion exit would apply to all messaging and require too much testing (of course this is a productive problem and its's only one particular message we have a problem with. I probably will look at changing the attachment itself if we do not get much joy out of OSS.

Cheers

Mike

[Former Member]

Hi Mike,

I have startet the development by just converting everything to the same attachment as a sample process just to see, if the conversion exit is triggered in the correct process. After that I continued to check the prerequesites.

As far as I can remember, the source-format is part of the import parameter in the user-exit so you can filter those one.

Debugging will be a little bit nasty though

Well, to change at the source of the problem is a good practice anyhow. Maybe you could convert the SOFM to a multiline-Text-Table, put this into the workitem text and send the workitem.sendTaskDescription-thing.

Be well,

Florin

[pokrakam]

For various reasons changing the attachment setup was not an option... until now. Latest update is that the client has a temporary workaround for the original problem they switched to SMTP in first place.

This means that if/when I get back to client site (in a few weeks) I can do some redesign - and the SOFM attachment WILL be the first thing to go.

Though not solved, I won't be working on this angle anymore, but would still welcome anyone's input if there is a straightforward answer - just for my own curiosity.

Thanks for the input anyhow,

Cheers

Mike