Launch Email Template

[Chris]

Hi All,
I have an equipment reservation database. We are required to send an email
confirmation when we make a reservation. Right now, I have an email template
that is launched when the user clicks on a custom button in Outlook. It
works. What I would like to do is have the email automatically generated
with the fields (user name - lookup in global address list, checkout date and
expected return date) completed in the email. Is there a way to utilize the
already created template in Outlook and pass the fields to the template?
Would it be better to recreate the email in the code for easier field
handling? The reservation would be a new record in the database and the
email would need to be generated after the record is completed.

 

[Mark Andrews]

I don't do Outlook automation much so can't comment on using the already
created template, but you can always just use code so you are building a
string that represents the body of the email and start that string off by
using some HTML from an email template. You can extend that concept further
by storing the actual email template in a table and come up with a variable
substitution scheme that is used at runtime. I wrote some code to do this
exact thing http://www.rptsoftware.com/products/email/ it might help you out
to write what you want faster.

If you send me an email I could point you to my newest product (in beta
testing) which has email templates in the mix. It goes a bit further than
the little email template product in the way it lets the user build an email
template. I use it for acknowledgement letters and monthly newsletters for
my donation software. I could share some of the code I used for this
emailing feature.

Other is approach is use a service such as Constant Contact to send HTML
emails.

HTH,
Mark Andrews
RPT Software
http://www.rptsoftware.com