Send by Mail

"Can you send me that list?" is the most common follow-up to any report. The job: a button next to the data, a small form for the recipient, the data as an attachment, and a clear answer whether the mail left the system. Nothing in it is specific to abap2UI5 except the form - the rest is the mail API of the system and its configuration, which is where most of the trouble is.

The worked example is Z2UI5_CL_SMPS_APP_023 in abap2UI5/samples-stack (package 13). It sends a table as an .xlsx attachment with cl_bcs_mail_message.

The Shape of the App

Part	What it does
Form	Sender, recipient, subject, text - bound attributes, filled in where the app knows the answer
Attachment	Written in the backend at the moment of sending, from the data the app holds
Send	cl_bcs_mail_message: sender, recipient, subject, body, attachment, send( )
Answer	The status the mail system returns, or the text of the exception

Step 1: Fill In What the App Knows

A mail form that starts empty is a form the user abandons. Fill the subject and the text when the app starts, and the recipient where the record knows one - the customer's contact, the creator of a request:

IF client->check_on_init( ).
  subject = `Products as XLSX`.
  text    = |Hello,\n\nthe current product list is attached.\n\nSent from an abap2UI5 app.|.
  view_display( ).

The sender is a configuration question, not a user's choice. Most mail setups accept only addresses of the own domain, or one fixed sender per system. Fill it from a customizing table or a constant, and show it read only, rather than letting each user type one the mail server then refuses.

Use type Email on the address inputs, so a phone shows the keyboard with the @.

Step 2: Build the Attachment When Sending

Write the file in the handler of the Send button, from the rows the app has, not from a file the browser kept. The attachment then shows exactly the data the user saw, and nothing large travels through the roundtrips before it is needed:

DATA(xlsx) = z2ui5_cl_smps_xlsx=>write( t_cells ).

The same idea works for any format: a PDF from a form (see Print Forms as PDF), a CSV built with concat_lines_of( ), a ZIP of several files with cl_abap_zip.

Step 3: Send

cl_bcs_mail_message is the mail API of ABAP Cloud, and available on on-premise releases from 2023 on:

TRY.
    DATA(mail) = cl_bcs_mail_message=>create_instance( ).
    mail->set_sender( CONV #( sender ) ).
    mail->add_recipient( CONV #( recipient ) ).
    mail->set_subject( CONV #( subject ) ).
    mail->set_main( cl_bcs_mail_textpart=>create_text_plain( text ) ).
    mail->add_attachment( cl_bcs_mail_binarypart=>create_instance(
                              iv_content      = xlsx
                              iv_content_type = CONV #( z2ui5_cl_smps_xlsx=>mime_type )
                              iv_filename     = `products.xlsx` ) ).
    mail->send( IMPORTING ev_mail_status = DATA(status) ).

  CATCH cx_bcs_mail INTO DATA(error).
    client->message_box_display( text = error->get_text( ) type = `error` ).
ENDTRY.

Everything that can go wrong arrives as cx_bcs_mail: an address that is not one, a sender the configuration does not allow, a system without outbound mail. Show its text. It is the one piece of information the user can pass on to the person who runs the system.

On older on-premise releases the API is cl_bcs with cl_document_bcs - E-Mail shows that variant, attachment included.

Step 4: Say What Happened

send( ) hands the mail to the outbound queue of the system. The status it returns says whether the mail left already or is waiting there. A mail that is queued is not an error, but it is not delivered either, so say which one it is instead of a plain "sent":

client->message_box_display( text = |Mail handed over to the mail system, status { status }| type = `success` ).

What the System Needs

The code is the small part. A mail only leaves the system when outbound mail is configured:

Stack	Configuration	Where to look when nothing arrives
ABAP Cloud	A communication arrangement for the scenario SAP_COM_0548	The communication arrangement and the mail monitoring app of the launchpad
On-premise	SMTP in transaction SCOT	Transaction SOST

Agree on the sender address with whoever runs the mail server before the first test. Most failures that look like a bug in the app are a sender the server does not accept.

Testing

• Send to yourself first, and open the attachment: a file that downloads fine can still be refused by a mail client if its MIME type is wrong.
• On a development system without a real mail server, an SMTP sink such as a local test server shows the mail exactly as it would be sent.
• Large attachments are the mail server's limit, not the app's. Several megabytes are usually fine; beyond that, send a link to the record instead.

Related

• E-Mail - the classic BCS API.
• Report and Export - the report a mail button usually sits on.
• Spreadsheet - writing the attachment.

Working Samples

Complete apps from the sample catalog that use what this page describes. Each is a single class in abap2UI5/samples unless its row names another of the three sample repositories — pull that repository with abapGit and start the class with ?app_start=<class>.

Sample	Class
E-Mail — Send a Table as XLSX Attachment — A mail with an .xlsx attachment, sent with cl_bcs_mail_message - recipient, subject and text from the screen, the attachment written with the XCO XLSX library	Z2UI5_CL_SMPS_APP_023 · samples-stack, branch 13-excel-email