mail Command

IconMail is a legacy internal communication interface and should no longer be used. It is highly recommended that you use an external mail utility and that all users are defined with a non-3DEXPERIENCE Platform email address.

IconMail is an internal mail system that enables users to easily exchange business objects and text messages. This mail utility is similar to other electronic mail systems. However, as its name suggests, the icon of the discussed object is sent with the message, allowing the recipient to view or edit the object from within the mailbox. You can also send mail without sending a business object at all, or send more than 1 object in 1 mail.

While the IconMail utility is most often used from within the 3DEXPERIENCE Platform, you can access it through MQL. This enables the Business or System Administrator to send messages while performing other MQL commands. For example, the Administrator can use MQL to load external files for a group’s use or assign a person to a role. Once the action is completed, in MQL the Administrator could send a mail message to notify the appropriate group that the job is done.

Do not modify or delete the persons creator, guest, or Test Everything using MQL. Modifying or deleting these objects could cause triggers, programs or other application functions not to work.

Every user has access to IconMail unless it has been disabled in the user’s person definition by the Business Administrator. For example, a user can create business objects and could use IconMail to notify the appropriate people about the existence and states of the objects.

The sender of mail does not know how it is received. It could be received as IconMail, email, or both. With email, the type, name, and revision of sent objects are added; but the email recipient has no direct access to objects from the mail message.

This page discusses:

User Level

Business Administrator

Syntax

The command uses this syntax.

[send|print|delete|renumber] mail {CLAUSE};
  • CLAUSEs provide additional information about the mail.

Send Mail

You use the Send Mail command to send mail to another 3DEXPERIENCE Platform user. You can send just text, or you can include 1 or multiple objects.

Syntax

send mail [businessobject BO_NAME {businessobject BO_NAME}] [in VAULT] to 
USER_NAME[{,USER_NAME}][{ITEM}];
  • BO_NAME is the type name and revision of the business object, or the ID of the business object.
  • VAULT is the vault where the business object is held.
  • ITEM is any of these optional Send Mail command clauses:
    cc USER_NAME {,USER_NAME}
    bcc USER_NAME {,USER_NAME}
    subject VALUE
    text VALUE

To Clause

This clause identifies who should receive the message you are sending. It can contain a list of users:

to USER_NAME {,USER_NAME}
  • USER_NAME is the name of a person, group, role, or association defined within the database. Depending on your system setup, user’s names might be case sensitive. If the name is not found, an error message is displayed. The fact that you can insert a role name or group name means that you not only have existing mailing lists, but also can send a message to a person whose name you do not know but whose function it might be to process the information you have.

For example, you might want to send an announcement to everyone working on your project to inform them that certain materials are available for use:

send mail to “Vehicle Manufacturing”
   subject “Materials Now Available”
   text “The materials for the V34 Solar Vehicle are now available. 
   For more information contact Mike Zimmerman at ext 511.”;

When this message is sent, it will go to every user defined in the Vehicle Manufacturing group. If additional groups are needed, you can list them also by separating the names with a comma.

CC Clause

This clause circulates the mail to additional people. While the message could be intended for a single individual, this clause lets you notify others that the correspondence has taken place. Use the following syntax:

cc USER_NAME {, USER_NAME}

  • USER_NAME is the name of a person, role or group within the database. Depending on your system setup, user’s names might be case sensitive. If the name is not found, an error message is displayed.

BCC Clause

This clause circulates the mail to additional people in such a way that the mail each person receives does not contain the complete list of recipients who also received the mail. Each person can see all the user names specified in the To: and Cc: fields but cannot see the user names (other than their own) specified in the Bcc: field. Use the following syntax:

bcc USER_NAME {, USER_NAME}
  • USER_NAME is the name of a person, role or group within the database. Depending on your system setup, user’s names might be case sensitive. If the name is not found, an error message is displayed.

Subject Clause

This clause places a header on the mail message. This header is usually a short synopsis of the message’s content. Use this syntax:

subject VALUE

  • VALUE is any string of characters following the MQL syntax rules. VALUE is limited to 255 bytes.

By examining the subject header, the message reader should be able to identify the content or purpose of the mail message. For example, the following Subject clauses clearly indicate the content of the mail message:

subject “Testing of Building Fire Alarms this Weekend”
subject “Company Christmas Party December 19”
subject “Safety while using the new test equipment”

Depending on the purpose of the message you are sending, you might not include any text at all.

Text Clause

This clause contains the bulk of your mail message:

text VALUE

  • VALUE is any length character string you want to enter. The message can be short or quite lengthy.

When writing the text of your mail message, you must enclose the entire content within either single quotes (‘ ’ ) or double quotes (“ ”). If your message includes apostrophes, enclose the message in double quotes. If your message includes double quotes, enclose the message in single quotes.

Print Mail

IconMail is always sent to the server to which you’re connected. However, in a distributed environment, you must point to the server from which you want to read mail.

You can read mail from MQL using the Print Mail command:

print mail [server SERVER_NAME] [# | all];
  • SERVER_NAME is the name of the server from which you want to read mail messages.
  • # is the message number to print. The message number equals the mail message OID (Object ID).
  • Use all to print all messages from the specified server, or from the default server if no server is specified.

The print mail command without arguments prints all messages in the current user’s mailbox.

Delete Mail

After you are through with a mail message, you can delete it with the Delete Mail command.

delete mail [server SERVER_NAME] [# | all];
  • SERVER_NAME is the name of the server from which you want to delete mail messages.
  • # is the number of the specific message to be deleted. The message number equals the mail message OID (Object ID).
  • Use all to print all messages from the specified server, or from the default server if no server is specified.

Searches the list of existing mail messages. If the number is found, the mail message associated with that number is deleted along with any mail references to any business objects. If the number is not found, an error message is displayed.

If you want to delete all your IconMail, use the Delete Mail All command:

delete mail all;

When this command is processed, all your IconMail messages and the references to any business objects associated with them are deleted.

Only the mail reference to a business object is deleted—the business object remains untouched. Do not worry about inadvertently deleting an object when deleting an IconMail message.