“Google Apps for Business” & “MicroStrategy Distribution Services”

Enterprises using Google Apps for business have been growing in the last few years. Based on a recent post I read, among the mid-size companies, almost 60% host their email with Google. And among the Y Combinator startups – mostly very small companies with some funding, but often tight budgets – 92% host their email with Google.

I am sure there are companies that are using “Google Apps for Business” as corporate email service and MicroStrategy for analytics. And if such companies are planning to use “MicroStrategy Distribution Services” for delivering reports & dashboards via emails, there are some steps to be followed by Google Apps administrator & MicroStrategy administrator to configure the system. I thought I will take a few minutes and detail this out.

MicroStrategy Distribution Services transmits in one of the two ways – “Direct Mode” & “Smart Host”. Direct mode using the recipient’s email domain incoming setting to deliver emails. Example: When email is sent to XXXXXX@mymstr.com, mymstr.com email incoming setting are used. Smart host uses the details provided by the administrator.

Google Apps’s SMTP relay service can be used as “Smart host” to configure distribution services. Below is the step-by-step approach:

  1. Google Apps administrator should enable “SMTP relay service” under “Google Apps > Setting for Gmail > Advanced Settings”.
  2. Under “1. Allowed Senders” one of the three options can be selected.
  3. Under “2. Authentication”, check “Only accept mail from the specified IP addresses:” and provide the IP address of the MicroStrategy I-Server.
  4. “Require TLS encryption:” should be UNCHECKED as MicroStrategy does not support this feature at this time.

Example Screenshot:

sample

 

After the above steps are completed, under MicroStrategy “Administration > Devices” a new device can be created or existing device can be modified to use “Smart Host”.

  1. IP Address / Server Name should be “smtp-relay.gmail.com”
  2. Port number should be set to 25.
  3. “Always use smart host” should be checked.
  4. Under “Transmitters” edit “Email” to change the “From” and “Reply-to” email addresses. Both should be from the same domain where SMTP reply service is configured. Based on the above example it should be “mymstr.com”

The above device that is created/modified should be used when configuring new email addresses. This will let MicroStrategy distribution services send out emails using Google Apps SMTP service.

Hope this helps!

 

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