PDM Professional and Office 365 Support

Problem

When setting up messaging for SOLIDWORKS PDM Professional, does it support Office 365 for messaging? The move to Cloud from traditional in-house mail servers, such as Microsoft Exchange, has prompted this question. Using Office 365 for messaging would allow greater flexibility with message configurations in PDM Professional.

According to Dassault Systèmes, Microsoft Office 365 SMTP messaging is not officially supported to be used with SolidWorks PDM Professional for versions prior to 2025. Microsoft® Office 365® uses Exchange Online, which is a cloud-based email server solution. SOLIDWORKS PDM Professional does not officially support hosted or outsourced mail servers. SOLIDWORKS PDM Professional officially supports locally hosted SMTP servers, such as a Microsoft Exchange server.

Solution 1: SSL Option for SMTP Notification Settings

Starting with the SolidWorks PDM Professional 2025 version and above, support for SSL has been added for SMTP notifications. Within the PDM Administration Tool and Messaging System, there is now an SSL option under the SMTP settings menu tab. Prior versions of SolidWorks PDM do not have SSL support for messaging.

1. Within the PDM Administration Tool, select the 'Message System' icon. 

   

   2. Verify under the 'General' tab that SMTP is selected for the message system.

   3. Select the SMTP Settings tab within the 'Message System' dialog window.

   4. Enter the downstream mail server in the 'Server' field.

   

   5. Check the 'Enable SSL' box, then click the 'Apply' Button.

   6. Click the 'Ok' button to close the 'Message System' dialog window.

Solution 2: Email Proxy

The workaround would be to create an email proxy application that will act as an email forwarding application. When using an email proxy, the SOLIDWORKS PDM Professional database server service will communicate with the local proxy application, which then relays the email to the external SMTP mail server. 

One such proxy solution is the open source application "E-mailRelay" from http://emailrelay.sourceforge.net/

The setup process is simple, and the attached document shows an example of how to configure the application to relay SMTP emails to a corporate mail server. Hawk Ridge Systems does not provide support for configuration or troubleshooting of the email proxy. 

For further technical support, please contact Hawk Ridge Systems at 877.266.4469 for the U.S. or 866.587.6803 for Canada and support@hawkridgesys.com