Claremont Oracle E-Business Suite Blog

Workflow Notification Mailer with Microsoft Office 365 Exchange Online

Written by Kevin Behan | Aug 4, 2022 4:07:00 PM

Microsoft has announced that as of the 1st of October 2022, Basic Authentication in Exchange Online will be permanently disabled and connectivity will only be allowed via OAuth2.0.

Oracle Workflow in E-Business Suite can be configured to use cloud-based Microsoft Office365 email servers and accounts to send and receive email notifications. Typically, this involves configuring the Outbound Email Server to point to smtp.office365.com and the Inbound Emails to point to an account that exists on IMAP server outlook.office365.com

Communication between Oracle EBS and the O365 servers is via basic authentication (Basic Auth)

Microsoft has announced that as of 01-Oct-2022 Basic Authentication in Exchange Online will be permanently disabled and connectivity will only be allowed via OAuth2.0.

 

This means that Workflow will no longer be able to talk to the Office365 email servers and emails sent out from or back into Oracle via Office365 will stop working as of that date

In response, Oracle have released an update for eBusiness Suite 12.2 that will allow Workflow Mailer to support OAuth2.0.

 

It is crucial that anyone that uses Office365 for Workflow emails should apply this update before the 1st of October 2022.

 

The steps that need to be performed are documented in Note Configuring Oracle Workflow for OAuth 2.0 in Oracle E-Business Suite Release 12.2 (Doc ID 2884072.1) on:

My Oracle Support:

  • Apply patches
    • Patch 31042881 (‘SU Patch [7BIA]: Update JavaMail API library version to 1.6.2 within WLS 10.3.6’)
    • Patch 30628681 (‘R12.AD.C.Delta.12’). Note that 32394134 (‘R12.AD.C.delta.13’) is available which supersedes 30628681, so the later AD minipack is recommended
    • Patch 30735865 (‘R12.TXK.C.delta.12’). Note that 32392507 (‘R12.TXK.C.delta.13’) is available which supersedes 30735865, so the later TXK minipack is recommended
    • Patch 34246039 (‘1Off:R12.2.3+:OAuth2.0 for IMAP connections to Office 365 Exchange Online’)
  • Generate a self-signed key pair
  • Amend the Workflow Mailer configuration in the application front end to use OAUTH authentication

 

On the Microsoft Azure side:

  • Register Application with Azure Active Directory
  • Add Certificate Credentials to Application
  • Add IMAP Permissions to Application
  • Grant Tenant Admin Consent
  • Register Service Principal in Exchange Online
  • Add Mailbox Access to Application
  • Record Setup Details

At the current time (July 2022) this fix is only available for Oracle E-Business Suite R12.2.

According to My Oracle Support Note EBS Workflow Mailer Configuration with OAuth 2.0 Token-Based Authentication for Cloud-Based Email Services (Gmail, Yahoo, Office365, etc) (Doc ID 2650084.1):

Any solution will first be delivered on top of the new 12.2.x techstack. It is unclear at this time if EBS R12.1.3 WF Mailer will be adapted for this change, considering EBS Release 12.1.3 has been in Sustaining Support since Jan 1, 2022 and uses an older technology for its techstack, which might not be able to handle OAuth 2.0 authentication. 

There is an active Enhancement Request 12.1.3 Enh 30505419 - WORKFLOW MAILER SUPPORT OF OAUTH2 - GENERIC PLATFORMS to backport the fix to E-Business Suite 12.1.3.

 

Choosing the right Managed Services Provider

If you are looking for an Oracle partner who can help you with your Oracle Managed Services and goes about it the right way and can back up the talk, then contact us.  If you would like to find out more about Oracle EBS you can email us at info@claremont.co.uk or phone us on +44 (0) 1483 549004.