A common problem I see when I analyse the logs is a failure to send emails because the email address is invalid.

This post refers to entries in the SystemOut.log /

Maximo doesn’t validate email addresses when they are first entered. This means that an invalid email address isn’t noticed until Maximo tries to send the email.

In that case the error is often only reported in the logs with errors like this:

[10/2/16 15:17:21:510 BST] 00000126 SystemOut    O 02 Oct 2016 15:17:21:509 [ERROR] [MXUI1] [] Failed to send messages.

psdi.util.MXApplicationException: BMXAA3536I - Enter the e-mail address(s) that you want to send this report to. Separate multiple e-mail addresses with a comma.

From a user’s perspective they don’t see these error messages and may carry on working believing that the email has been sent.

The scheduled report functionality to send emails can show that reports have been successful even if the email operation failed e.g. because of an invalid email address

These failures to send emails can lead to records not being processed and repeated errors if escalations keep trying to send the emails.

I’ll talk more about the problems of repeated errors in a later article and highlight the delays they can cause when investigating problems.

Improving the situation in the short term

Common problems to look for:

• @ not in the email address – sometimes users think that providing a userid will result in an automatic lookup of the email address
• Space in the email address
• Email addresses separated by space or ";" the email addresses should be separated by ,
• Use of “na” or “n/a” or similar instead of null where there is no email address

A small investment fixing the email addresses can:

• Ensure that records are handled properly by escalations
• Save a lot of time when you are analysing the logs because you don’t have to wade through repeated error messages where the email address is invalid

You may be tempted to fix these via SQL and this will be possible for some records.

IBM can close down PMRs where custom SQL has been used against the database. There are very good reasons for this and the dangers of applying changes via SQL will be discussed in a later article.

Improving the situation in the longer term

Please consider voting for RFE 96646 which asks IBM to implement additional checks when an email address is entered.

Vetasi customisation – Email report

We have developed a report that checks common tables for invalid email addresses and easily shows them for administrators to fix.