Hi -

Well, some time ago, I had  programmed my database to use my own e-mail program to send e-mail and have been very happy with it.  Click on a button and a new e-mail is opened pre-addressed.  When sent, I have a copy in my "Sent-Mail" folder, etc. etc.

But, now, I have experienced a new "toy" (sendmail) and I want to explore it further, since I am very excited about it.

One reason I am eager to use it is so that it will be easier for me to program for "clients."  Instead of having to be familiar with code for the various e-mail programs, I simply need to change the name of the out-going mail server, to match theirs, and all my other sendmail programming will work "as is."

I do have my own ideas but I am very curious as to whether you have any recommendations for recording (or at least knowing) (1) who the e-mail(s) was/were sent to (2) the fact that the e-mail(s) was/were actually sent (3) whether you keep a copy of the e-mail (and how & where) and (4) any other uses you have made of the sendmail program.

I used @msg to indicate "E-mail being processed to Name" but don't like the message line since it is obscure and stays until I remove it. 

One thing I have tried, so far, is to create a multi-line layout element for the body of the text to be written within the form  and, when the e-mail is sent, I "prefix" it with Sent to (name) and the date time sent.

Once again, I am interested in hearing from everyone who uses sendmail .... with other ways in which you have tweaked the programming.  It seems to me that the possibilities are endless.

Thanks!

Hello Spencer,

I have seen a handful of users who have a multi-line element on their form that stores the e-mail that was sent, when it was sent, and what address it was sent to.

I have seen one database that each time @SendMail() was used it would write out a line to a text file that included Date e-mail was Sent, Time e-mail was sent, e-mail Address, Subject of e-mail and e-mail Body. Then at the end of the week or whenever the user wanted to he opened up another database that was called EMailHistory, or something along those lines, Clicked a button and it imported all the data from that text file into new records and then deleted the text file. So each e-mail had it's own record. This way he could search his e-mails by whatever he wanted to.

I have seen a few users who bcc themselves in the @Sendmail() that way they have a copy in their e-mail program.

One database had a subform that when the e-mail button was clicked it would create a new subform record, put the date and time in it as well as what e-mail address the e-mail was sent to.

-Ray

Spencer,
Are you feeling OK?   Today your picture just does not look like you!   Hope you get your bandwidth up.  
Foster

Spencer,
Sorry, I was just joking about your picture, which has been replaced by a MyFamily.com message that you have exceeded your bandwidth for the day! My apology for the confussion I caused.

Spencer,

In regards to your original question; we use the Sendmail command all day, everyday to keep our customers up to date on their order status, shipments, tracking numbers, invoicing, etc.

In more detail; we use Sesame as a Point of sale system that imports, creates, and maintains orders and generates invoices. When we need to email a customer, we press a button that runs an xlookup to an external database and grabs the appropriate email, and plugs in specific data into the email including links to tracking results, po#, items on our website, etc. (the links become active when the reader opens the email.) The emails are stored in a seperate database to keep our orders application small, and to allow easy adding and editing of the email without having to open Designer.

This is all done from a 'form view' subform in our orders form that shows the email (using @fedit command if the email is lengthy....thanks for the tip!) and shows the 'to', 'cc','bcc', etc on the form and a command button to "send email". If the mail is sent successfully, the 'user log' is updated with the date the mail was sent, the userid of who sent it, and the email address from the order that it was sent to.

We would be LOST without Sendmail. I hear that 2.0 will allow for passing user login and passwords to mail servers, which will be greatly appreciated as smtp servers are starting to require it.

I hope this gives you some things to think about. Let me know if you have any specific questions.

Steve

(Side note to Lantica: Comcast is rejecting all our emails from Sesame because our ISP is forcing us to use a 'public mail server' since we can not currently pass to them our login name and password. We'll be eagerly awaiting any updates to the sendmail command....Thanks!)

Steve -

Thanks much for the feedback.  This is the type of information I have been asking for and I appreciate it .... and, eager as I am, I would still like to hear from others on this topic.

It sounds to me like your e-mails are sent on a case-to-case basis, i.e. one at a time.

Do you ever send e-mails using mass update and, if so, how is that done?

There's another thing I would like to know:  Is it possible to send an attachment with an e-mail? Judging from the structure of the sendmail command I would think not.  If it is not presently do-able, that would make a wonderful program enhancement.  hint!  hint!

Thanks!

Steve -

I don't think I will have a problem with my ISP but that is not my concern.

My conern is how do you set up e-mail to be used with mass update so that the user doesn't have to know programming.

The only way I could figure it out is to put it in the programming statement for a mass update.  The following code may NOT be correct.   I had it working right but wanted to make some modification to it and created some flaws which I just haven't had time to correct (although the last few times I ran it, it worked just fine).  In any event, I'm showing it here anyhow just to give you the idea.

var ii as Int  


If
@askuser("Is this the message you want to send?","","")

then
{

ii = @SendMail("SMTP-SERVER.TAMPABAY.RR.COM",
"Testing SendMail", Email Address,
"swulwick@tampabay.rr.com","SpencerWulwick@myfamily.com",
"swulwick@tampabay.rr.com", "Hi " + First Name + ", " + @newline()
+ @newline() + LastEMail+@newline() +@newline() + "Spencer Wulwick" +@newline() +
"Silver sOlutionS of Tampa, Inc." + @newline() +  "www.SilversOlutionS.org")

If ii = "0"
then

@Msg("Your e-mail is being processed")
LastEMail = ("The following e-mail was sent to " + First Name + " " + Last Name + " on "
+ @month$(@date) + " " + @dom(@date) + ", " + @year(@date) + " at " + @time + @newline() + @newline()  
+ "Hi " + First Name + ", " + @newline () + @newline() + LastEMail+@newline() +@newline() + "Spencer Wulwick" +@newline() + "Silver sOlutionS of Tampa, Inc." +@newline() + "www.SilversOlutionS.org")}

else

@msg("Type your new message and press the Send button again again") 

(The code currently resides in the on-element-entry event of a command button named Send - which is right at the foot of the element where they type the body).

This is very simple - when used on a record-by-record basis,  because all the user has to do is enter the body of the e-mail in the LastEMail element.  The "greeting" and closing is automatically entered by the programming.  A copy of the email is kept in the database; however, ONLY the MOST RECENT e-mail.  The bcc that comes back to me goes in a special folder within my e-mail program for "historical" purposes as long as needed.

Now, individual e-mails are no problem because the user simply has to change the message in the field.  BUT, suppose I wanted to send the message to 50 recipients.  The only approach I could think of is to put the programming - including the "body" portion of the e-mail in the mass update program spec.  That is no problem for me, but I don't want the casual user to have to do that.

So, I guess what I'm asking is how can I have the user type the message in one record but have it sent to that person and 49 others?

The only thing I could think of is to retrieve the 50 records, type it in once and then mass update the other 49 records to contain the same e-mail "body" and then run mass update again, with a saved mass update spec. But somehow, I feel like I am missing something and that there should be a "smoother" way to do this.

So, that's what I'm looking for ideas about.  I have got to get this worked out because I am sending MYSELF HUNDREDS of e-mails and I AM TIRED OF HEARING FROM ME.  I even sent a few cc's to Ray to see whether he was getting them; however, I never heard from him.  (I guess he didn't want to encourage me to keep doing it).  lol

Anyhow, I just want to "master" this issue and move on to other things.  After all, I don't want to look like a "complete" dummy when Erika gets here to train me. Speaking of which:



Thanks!

Quote:


Hello Spencer,

I did receive the e-mails from you. I figured they did not need a reply and moved on to actual support requests.

-Ray