Netmailer

 Overview

 Netmailer is a fully integrated Alpha Five AddIn for sending the same e-mail message or customized messages containing information from your database, to each person on your mailing list.

 With additional features, Netmailer Professional helps you to maintain your e-mail lists, add addresses to your lists by monitoring messages sent to an e-mail address that you designate, and remove addresses from your lists when you receive a Remove request.

 Contents

 "Using Netmailer"

 "Creating a New Netmailer Job"

 "Running a Netmailer Job"

 "Stopping and Resuming a Mailing Job"

 "Creating a Maintenance Job (Netmailer Professional)"

 "Function List"

 Sending Bulk E-mail

 Using the Netmailer Bulk E-mail feature, you can do the following tasks:

•  Use a table or set as the data source for your mailing.
•  Send the same message to each e-mail address on your list, or customized messages using data from a table or set.
•  Specify a filter expression for sending e-mail to a subset of your list.
•  Skip e-mail addresses in specified Exclude lists.
  •  Avoid sending e-mail to addresses in your Remove list, without having to remove the data from your list.
  •  Avoid adding back an address from the Remove list. (Maintenance jobs only)
•  Check for duplicate e-mail addresses and send e-mail to unique addresses only.
•  Send e-mail messages in HTML format, plain text, both, or HTML conditionally.
  •  Send messages in both text and HTML formats, and display the text version if the recipient e-mail client cannot display HTML.
  •  Send an HTML message conditionally, based on an expression.
•  Include multiple attachments with each e-mail message; you can send the same attachment, or custom attachments with each e-mail message.
•  Specify custom e-mail headers for each mailing.
•  Create a log file containing information on whether messages were sent successfully.
•  Update a field in the source table or set that indicates whether an e-mail was sent successfully.
•  Stop and resume a mailing; for example, if you are sending a mailing to a very large number of recipients, you can stop the job, at any time, and resume the mailing from the stopping point.
•  Send messages in batches, when sending the same message to each recipient, to speed up the mailing process.
  •  Specify the batch size. For example, if you specify a batch size of 10, Netmailer sends the same e-mail message to each group of ten e-mail addresses on your list, making only one connection per batch, instead of ten.
  •  The maximum batch size depends on your SMTP server. Netmailer attempts to determine the maximum batch size for you.
•  Send messages containing conditional text; for example, a customer meeting one set of conditions would get one message, while another customer might get a different message.
•  Send messages containing pre-defined boilerplate text.

 Maintenance Jobs (Netmailer Professional)

 Netmailer Professional helps you to maintain your e-mail and Remove lists, and automatically or interactively validate e-mail addresses.

 Netmailer Professional can scan e-mail messages at specified e-mail addresses that you designate. For example, you might instruct your mailing recipients to change their subscription status by doing one of the following tasks:

•  Send an e-mail message to remove@xyz.corp
•  Send an e-mail message to mailings@xyz.corp, with Remove in the subject line
•  Send a message to mailings@xyz.corp, with Subscribe in the subject line

 Using Netmailer Professional, you can do the following tasks:

•  Check an e-mailbox for Subscribe and Remove requests and add them to a list.
•  Check an e-mailbox for undeliverable e-mail and add them to a list of bounced addresses.
•  Add the messages at a specified e-mail address to a Subscribe or Remove list, or add only messages with specified keywords in the subject line.
•  Automatically or interactively validate e-mail addresses.
•  Save invalid e-mail addresses in a table for review.

 Using Netmailer

 You can get started using Netmailer by performing the following steps:

1.  Start Alpha Five and open a database.
2.  Right-click on a table or set, and select Addins > Netmailer.

 
 

 From the right-click menu, you can create, edit, run Netmailer jobs, and maintain Netmailer lists (Netmailer Professional only).

 In the next procedure, you create a new Netmailer job, using the Netmailer Genie.

 Creating a New Netmailer Job

 You use Alpha Five Netmailer to create and send bulk e-mail, and to maintain your e-mail lists. In the first procedure, you learn how to specify your requirements for a new e-mailing job.

 To create a new Netmailer job:

1.  Open the AlphaSports database.
2.  Click the Exit AlphaSports button in the menu bar.

    The AlphaSports Control Panel opens.

3.  In the Control Panel, right-click on the Customer table, and select Addins > Netmailer > Create New Job.

    The Netmailer Genie appears.

 

 

 In the Source Table drop-down list, you can select a table or set, or select More Files to locate any DBF or SET file, as a data source for your mailing.

 

 To create a Netmailer job, you must specify a table or set with a field containing e-mail addresses.

4.  From the Source Table E-mail Field drop-down list, select the field in the source table containing the e-mail addresses for your mailing list, and click Next.

    The E-mail Profile window appears.

 

5.  To create an e-mail profile, click the E-mail Settings button.

    The E-mail Settings window appears.

 

 

 You use the E-mail Settings window to create or edit an e-mail profile for your mailings. E-mail profiles let you specify multiple e-mail accounts, and sending and receiving preferences for your mailings. For example, you might define different e-mail profiles to separate promotional mailings from invoice mailings, or the mailings for one business account from another.

 You also can access your e-mail profiles by selecting View > Settings > System > E-mail from the Alpha Five menu bar.

6.  Click the Account tab.

 

 

 

 Specify the following e-mail account settings:

•  Incoming (POP) and outgoing (SMTP) mail servers.
•  Your name, that appears on the From line; for example, John Smith.
•  Your e-mail address.
•  User name and password for logging in to your incoming mail server.

7.  Click the Receiving tab.

 

 

 

 Specify the following settings for receiving mail:
 

Setting	Description
Delete	Whether to delete mail from the server after retrieving it.
Receive Count	Number of messages to retrieve from the incoming mail server for Netmailer. Should be set to -1, which retrieves all messages.
Inbox	Table for storing incoming e-mail.
Attachments	Directory for storing attachments.

8.  Click the Sending tab.

 

 

 Specify the following settings for sending mail:
 

Setting	Description
SMTP Authentication Method	Most SMTP servers do not require authentication, but some do: * Outgoing server does not require authentication. * Use the same settings as your incoming e-mail server. * Log on using the username and password provided. * Log on to incoming mail server before sending mail.
Outbox	Netmailer ignores the outbox and does not store outgoing mail.

9.  Use the Advanced tab to specify the following settings.

 

 Typically, you keep the default port settings.

10.  When you finish specifying your e-mail settings, click OK, and then click Next.

     The Netmailer Genie appears.

 

 

 

 Use Send Type to specify whether to send the same or a custom message to each recipient. If you select send custom e-mail to each recipient, a separate e-mail and SMTP connection is made for each address in the source table. This takes longer than sending the same e-mail message to every recipient.

 Selecting custom e-mail disables the batch option.

11.  Keep the default selection, send same e-mail to each recipient.
12.  Specify a Batch Size of 25.

     The batch size specifies the number of recipients for each copy of the message. For example, if you specify a batch size of 25, Netmailer sends one message to 25 recipients, making only one server connection.

     Note that spam filters might block the delivery of batch mailings or put them in bulk folders.

13.  Click the Test button.

     Netmailer contacts your SMTP server and determines the maximum batch size allowed, if your SMTP server supports this feature.

14.  Adjust the batch size number to 1, and click Next.

     In the next window, you select whether to send your message as plain text, HTML, both, or HTML based on an expression.

 

 If you select Send both HTML and plain text, the recipient e-mail client determines which version to use.

 If you select Send HTML based on an expression, you can use the Expression Builder and type in the expression that Netmailer uses to determine whether to send a plain text or HTML message to a recipient. The HTML expression must evaluate to a logical value. If the HTML expression evaluates to true (.T.), Netmailer sends HTML, otherwise (.F.) it sends plain text.

15.  Select Send both HTML and plain text, and click Next.

     The next screen introduces you to the Netmailer configuration dialog, where you compose your e-mail message body.

16.  Click Finish.

     The Netmailer Genie closes and the Netmailer Editor appears. In addition, the Netmailer menu and toolbar appears.

 Configuring Netmailer

 You use the Netmailer Editor to compose your e-mail message and finish specifying the parameters for your mailing.

 To configure Netmailer:

1.  In the Tables window, you specify your E-mail and Exclude lists, whether to update a field in the source table, and create a log file.

 

 

2.  Use the Filter and Order Builders to specify the records to include or exclude from your mailing list, and the order that messages are sent. The default order is ascending alphabetical order, by e-mail address.

 

 Use the E-mail Field drop-down list to specify the field that contains the addresses for your mailing.

3.  Under Exclude Lists, click the green plus sign (+) to specify an Exclude list table.

 

 The Exclude list contains addresses that should not receive e-mail. Netmailer excludes the e-mail addresses in this list from the mailing. The exclude list is where you store removed and invalid e-mail address lists.

4.  Select Update a field in the source table.

 

 Specify the field to update and the update expression. If you selected a batch size number greater than 1, the field update option is disabled.

5.  Specify a name for a Log File table, which catalogs the e-mail addresses and time stamps for when e-mail was sent.

    Tip: If your mailing job is interrupted, and you are unable to resume the mailing, you can use the log file as an exclude list and avoid sending e-mail to logged addresses.

6.  Click the Options tab.

    The Configuration Options window appears.

 

 

 

 In the Options window, you specify the following parameters:

•  Subject of your e-mail message

   Custom e-mail subjects can contain Alpha Five expressions, and include fields from your source table or set. For custom e-mail, the Subject edit box becomes an Expression Builder field.

•  E-mail profile to use for mailing job
•  Message text format
•  Expression for sending HTML
•  Same or custom messages
•  Batch size
•  Delay between sends
  Lets you pause between sending each message for the specified interval. This feature accommodates servers that limit the number of connections that you can make to the server within a certain time interval. For example, if your server lets you make only ten connections per minute, you would specify a delay between sends of 6 seconds.  
•  Netmailer Maintenance job to be run before sending the mailing (Netmailer Professional only)
•  Unique addresses only, to prevent recipients from receiving multiple copies of the same e-mail
•  Attachments methods:

  Method	Description
  From a List	Type in or select a file to include with the message.
  Embedded	Attachment is included and sent with the message. For more information, see "Including Images in HTML E-mail".
  Based on an Expression	For example, if you are sending attached PDF files, that are named by Lastname, you can enter the expression: "c:\PDF_files" + chr(92) + Alltrim(Lastname) +".pdf" For recipients, John Smith, Aaron Brown, and Selwyn Rabins, the files smith.pdf, brown.pdf, and rabins.pdf, respectively, would be sent.

7.  Click the Text or HTML E-mail tab.

 

 

 

 You can type in your e-mail message or load the message body from a file.

 When creating custom e-mail messages, you can select from the following options:
 

Option	Description
Load Message Body From File	Inserts text from a file.
Insert a Mail Merge Field	Display fields from the source table or set.
Insert a Mail Merge Expression	Display any valid Alpha Five expression.
Insert Command	Display text based on a condition.
Copy From HTML Text	Copy and paste the HTML text to the plain text.

 
 

 A custom e-mail message using the AlphaSports Invoice set as its data source, might appear as follows:

 

 This message body includes fields from the Invoice set, which contains a one-to-many linked child table.

 Using the Insert Command, you can insert values into the custom message body.
For more information, see "Inserting Commands in E-mail".

 To view the custom messages, click the Preview button in the toolbar, and use the navigation buttons below the text pane.

 

 Click Close when you are finished.

8.  In the Netmailer Editor, click the Headers tab.

 

 

 

 When sending the same e-mail message, with a batch size of 2 or more, you can select from the following Header options:
 

Option	Description
Put all e-mail addresses in the To field	Addresses in the To are visible to other recipients.
Put the first address in the To field, and all others in the CC field	Addresses in the To and CC field are visible to other recipients.
Put the first address in the To field, and all others in the BCC field	Addresses in the BCC field are not visible to other recipients.
Supply an e-mail address for the To field, and put all others in the BCC field	Specify a custom or bogus e-mail address, that is visible to all recipients. The recipients' e-mail addresses will not be visible to other recipients.

 
 

Option	Description
Reply-To Address	Address to which message replies should be sent.
Custom Headers	Specify message header information here, such as X-mailer, or other user-defined information. Heading information is not typically visible to recipients, unless they examine the message header directly.

9.  When you finish specifying your mailing information, you can select from the following options:

   Option	Description
   Preview	Netmailer builds the e-mail job, displays recipient addresses, formats and displays the message body. Use the navigation buttons to view the messages or click the Explorer button to view the HTML version.
   Save	Name and save Netmailer job. Displays the job name in parenthesis and removes the asterisk from the title bar.
   Run	Netmailer builds the e-mail job, prompts you for confirmation, and then sends the mailings.

 Including Images in HTML E-mail

 When including images in HTML e-mail, you have the following two options:

•  Embedding the image and sending each recipient a copy of the image.
•  Placing the image on a public website and including a reference to it.

 In the first option, your HTML e-mail message includes an image, for example, using the image tag <img src="mypic.jpg">. The embedded image potentially produces a very large message size that could bog down the server and slow down your mailing. If you select to use the image tag in this format, and do not attach the image using the embedded method, the image does not appear in the message.

 In contrast, using the second option, referencing the image on a public website, for example, using the image tag <img src="http://mydomain.com/images/mypic.jpg">, results in a smaller message size, since the image is not sent along with the message.

 This is the preferred method for sending images in HTML e-mail, however, the drawbacks are that you must have a public website to which you can upload the image, and your message recipients must connect to the website to view the image.

 Inserting Commands in E-mail

 In the Netmailer Editor, when you click the Insert Command button, Netmailer displays the following Insert Command dialog:

 

 

 Netmailer supports commands that let you perform the following tasks:

•  Include conditional text in the body of the e-mail.

   For example, if a "DaysOverdue" field is greater than 90, you might include a more strongly worded paragraph asking for payment.

   [.IF days_overdue < 90]
   If you have not yet sent in payment, can you please send it in as soon as possible
   [.ELSE]
   Your account is now more than 90 days overdue, and we would appreciate your immediate payment.
   [.END_IF]
•  Include content in the body of the e-mail that is dynamically loaded from disk files. This lets you include boilerplate text in your e-mail messages. You can control which boilerplate text is loaded by an expression.
•  Suppress lines in the e-mail that are blank. For example, if you include a Company, and an Address2 field in an e-mail, and the field contains no data, Netmailer can suppress the blank line.
   <<Customer->Firstname|>> <<Customer->Lastname|>>
   <<Customer->Company|>> [Suppress Blank Line]
   <<Customer->Address_1|>>
   <<Customer->Address_2|>> [Suppress Blank Line]
   <<Customer->City|>>, <<Customer->State|>> <<Customer->Zip|>>
•  Include fields from one-to-many linked child tables. This option is only available if the data source for your Netmailer job is a set which has one-to-many child tables.
   [.ONE_MANY:Invoice_Items]
   <<Invoice_Items->Product_id|>> <<Invoice_Items->Price||10|2>>
   [.END_ONE_MANY]

 Running a Netmailer Job

 Additionally, you can run Netmailer jobs by using the Netmailer Job Genie:

1.  Start Alpha Five and open a database.
2.  Right-click on a table or set, and select Addins > Netmailer > Run Job.

    The Netmailer Job Genie appears.

 

 

3.  Select the job you want to run, and click Next.

    The Job Genie lets you specify additional record selection criteria for your mailing.

 

 

4.  Click Next.

 

 You can view and copy the Xbasic commands for executing your Netmailer job.

5.  Click Finish to start sending e-mail.

 Stopping and Resuming a Mailing Job

 Perhaps, your mailing job involves sending e-mail to a large number of customers. You might need to interrupt the mailing before it is completed. With Netmailer, you can stop a partially completed mailing job, then resume mailing from the stopping point, when you are ready.

 To stop a mailing before completion:

1.  Start Alpha Five and open a database.
2.  Right-click on a table or set, and select Addins > Netmailer > Run Job.
3.  Select a Netmailer job, and click Next.
4.  Click Next again, and click Finish, to run the job.

    A Netmailer Progress window appears displaying the mailing job status.

5.  Click the Stop button.

    The following message window appears.

 

 

6.  Click OK.

 To resume a mailing job:

1.  Right-click on a table or set, and select Addins > Netmailer > Run Job.
2.  Select the partially completed Netmailer job, and click Next, Next, and Finish, in the Job Genie.

    The following message window appears.

 

3.  Click Yes.

    Netmailer completes the mailing job.

    If you click No, Netmailer restarts and runs the job from the beginning.

 To stop and resume a job, using the Netmailer Editor:

1.  Right-click on a table or set, and select Addins > Netmailer > Edit Job.

    The Netmailer Job selection window appears.

 

 

2.  Select a Netmailer job, and click OK.

    The job appears in the Netmailer Editor.

3.  Click the Run button on the toolbar.

    A confirmation message appears.

 

4.  Click Yes.

    A Netmailer Progress window appears displaying the mailing job status.

5.  Click the Stop button.

    The following message window appears.

 

6.  Click OK.

    The partially completed job appears in the Netmailer Editor.

 

 Next to the mailing job name, Netmailer displays [Partially Completed] in the title bar, indicating that this job has been partially sent, but there are additional messages to send before its completion.

 The asterisk (*) in the title bar indicates that changes have been made which require you to save the job. If you click the close button in the Editor window, the following message appears:

 

7.  Click Yes.

    Netmailer saves the partially completed job. You can complete the mailing job at another time.

 Creating a Maintenance Job (Netmailer Professional)

 Netmailer Professional helps you to accomplish the following e-mailing tasks:

•  Process subscribe requests
•  Process remove requests
•  Validate e-mail addresses
•  Identify undeliverable e-mail addresses

 Netmailer can monitor a designated e-mail box for subscribe and remove requests, and process the requests as you specify. In addition, Netmailer can validate and check e-mail addresses for incorrect syntax, remove them from the mailing list, and optionally, add them to a list of invalid e-mail addresses.

 To create a new Maintenance job:

1.  Start Alpha Five and open a database.
2.  Right-click on a table or set, and select Addins > Netmailer > Maintain List, then click the New Job button.

    The Netmailer Maintenance Job Genie appears.

 

 
 

3.  From the Add Table and E-mail Field drop-down lists, select a table and e-mail field for storing subscription e-mail addresses.

    The table you select should be the Source table for a Netmailer job.

4.  Click Next.
5.  From the Remove Table and E-mail Field drop-down lists, select a table and field for storing Remove requests.

 

 The table you select can be the Exclude table in a Netmailer job and must be different from the Source table.

6.  Click Next.

 

 This table must be different from the Source and Remove tables. If the table does not exist, Netmailer will create it for you.

7.  Click Finish.

    The Maintenance Job Genie closes and the Netmailer Maintenance Editor and toolbar appears. In the configuration dialog, you finish specifying the parameters for your Netmailer Maintenance job.

 Configuring a Maintenance Job

 You use the Netmailer Maintenance Editor to specify Subscribe, Remove, Undeliverable, and Validation parameters.

 To configure a Maintenance job:

1.  Use the Subscribe window to specify the following parameters:

 

 

•  E-mail profile to check for subscription messages.
•  Criteria for adding a message to the subscribe table:

   You can specify multiple keywords in the subject field that identifies an email as a subscribe request.

•  Field for e-mail addresses added to the subscribe table.
•  Advanced Options for specifying what to do with messages on the POP3 server.

 

 

•  Only download messages with matching keywords for subscribe requests or download every message on the server.
•  Delete all messages from the server.
•  Check for subscribe messages when the maintenance job runs.

2.  Use the Remove window to specify the following parameters:

 

 

•  Table to store remove requests.
•  E-mail profile to check for remove messages.
•  Criteria for adding a message to the remove table.

   You can specify multiple keywords in the subject field that identifies an email as a remove request.

•  Field for e-mail addresses added to the remove table.
•  Advanced Options for specifying what to do with messages on the server.
  •  Only download messages with matching keywords for subscribe requests or download every message on the server.
  •  Delete all messages from the server.
•  Check for remove messages when the maintenance job runs.

3.  Use the Undeliverable window to specify the following parameters:

 

 

•  Table to store undeliverable e-mail addresses.
•  E-mail profile to check for undeliverable messages.
•  Criteria for undeliverable messages, including the specified subjects and senders.
•  Check for undeliverable messages when the maintenance job runs.

4.  Use the Validation window to specify the following parameters:

 

 

•  Validate e-mail addresses interactively.
•  Perform specified action on invalid e-mail addresses without prompting.
•  Specify how to handle invalid e-mail addresses.
•  Table and field for storing invalid e-mail addresses.
•  Check for invalid addresses when the maintenance job runs.

5.  When you finish specifying the Netmailer Maintenance job information, use the toolbar buttons to save and run the job.

 Function List

 The following table contains Netmailer functions.
 

Function	Description
L a5_run_netmailer_job ( C name, [C filter [,C order]])	Run a saved Netmailer job with additional filter and order criteria. Name is a fully qualified name name@<data dictionary>, i.e.Mailing@customer.ddd. lUI defaults to .T. and if set to .F. will not display any user interface.
C a5_run_emmj ( C table_set_name )	Choose a Netmailer Maintenance Job from a table_set_name and run it.
L a5_email_valid(C address )	Returns .T. if address is a correctly formed email address, .F. otherwise. Example: ? a5_email_valid("aaron@alphasoftware.com") = .T. ? a5_email_valid("aaron@alpha@alphasoftware.com") = .F.