Feasibility Question

[Ridge Kennedy]

Dear All,

Working in Office, 2003 with XP Pro workstations.

We have a primary membership database running on Pervasive contains all our
member data. It includes, from a recent upgrade, the ability to open a word
template with merged date (using bookmarks) from the primary data file.

We have a clipping service that provides images of clips, via a web site,
that are stored as .pdf files. We have the ability to save these .pdfs
(with odd numeric filenames) or "print" these .pdfs "via" Acrobat Distiller.

The goal is to have a staff member who is reviewing clippings, be able to
look up a member in our database and open a template that will run VBA on
autoopen to automate sending the clip on screen to the members.

So I'm speculating that it should be do-able, using VBA, to grab the member
data -- name and e-mail address, save or print the "clip" file in the TEMP
directory on the local workstation, open an outlook e-mail message, populate
the address field, attach the attachment and leave the message open for the
user to put in a personal note and click "send."

Sound reasonable? Any hidden gotchas to watch out for?

Sincerely,

Ridge

 

[Jezebel]

Certainly feasible, and not even very difficult if you have a competent VBA
programmer. It's a bit loose as a spec to say whether it's an optimum
solution. If you're doing a *lot* of these, you might find it a bit slow (as
opposed, say, to writing it in a DB application).

 

[Ridge Kennedy]

"Jezebel" said:

Certainly feasible, and not even very difficult if you have a competent
VBA programmer.

That would be me. Mere apprentice, but learning.

It's a bit loose as a spec to say whether it's an optimum solution. If
you're doing a *lot* of these, you might find it a bit slow (as opposed,
say, to writing it in a DB application).

Yes, the spec is loose. We've just switched from paper clippings to online
clips (which at this point, are nothing more than the same old paper clips
that have been scanned and posted on a web site as .pdfs. Now the folks
involved are trying to figure out what to do with all this. We assumed it
would be easier to share the information, but the step-by-step process going
through the clipping service site and e-mail is about 10-12 steps and a
couple of minutes or more.

This is probably something that would be done in ones, twos and threes vs.
tens and twenties. On average, we only get 100 or so clippings a month and
many of them would not qualify.

When you say "writing it in a DB application" though, what does that mean?
A new DB, a module in our report writing DB? Per above, probably not a
likely course, but . . . ?

Thank you for the reply.

Sincerely,

R.

 

[Jezebel]

When you say "writing it in a DB application" though, what does that mean?
A new DB, a module in our report writing DB? Per above, probably not a
likely course, but . . . ?

There are two parts to the application you're proposing: storing all this
info (ie the DB part) and the mechanics of delivering it. Currently you're
talking about writing the app at the delivery end, pulling from a DB in the
background. You could equally write it at the DB end (eg Access, although
I'm loath to recommend that), and *push* to the delivery method, via Word or
email or whatever.

You might also ask whether the requirement is likely to evolve (assuming
your business is successful) into a web-based system --- in which case,
maybe you should develop it in Java. Which has a better future than VBA, and
the great virtue of being independent of Microsoft's marketing whims.

 

[Ridge Kennedy]

You make good points. Thanks. R.