[AccessD] redemption

Hi John

Arthur is right. No reason to mess with Outlook for this task.

I did something similar years ago using Access with a timer form, a command line POP3 client, Postie, and a mail server, Mercury. It worked with zero errors for about six years until the client changed business.

These days, as your received mail volume probably is quite low, for 1) and 2) you could use a simple library as this:

http://dotnetctrlext.sourceforge.net/smtpop.htm 
http://sourceforge.net/projects/dotnetctrlext/

Mercury is not free anymore, and you may use a hosted POP3 service to receive the mail. But if you prefer to store the mail at own premises, you could benefit from the little-known simple POP3 server included in Windows Server 2000/2003 (not 2008). It is installed via Add/Remove Windows components under IIS.

Having stripped the attachments, the remaining topics should be trivial for you.

/gustav


>>> jwcolby at colbyconsulting.com 31-05-2011 18:36 >>>
Arthur,

I am setting up an automated system for:

1) Receive an email with an Excel attachment
2) Strip the attachment, create a directory and place the attachment into it.
3) Create a SQL Server database (temporary)
4) Import a list of zips in each page of the spreadsheet into a matching table in the database
5) Count the household / population in those zips
6) generate an email back out with the counts in the body of the email.

The objective is that the client sends an email that matches strict criteria (Count name in the 
subject, files have count name pattern in the file name etc) and have the system automatically pick 
up the email (pull it into the server), get the attachment and process it.

I went looking and all I could find for automating GMail was web crapola, IOW if you wanted to do 
stuff with it on your web site.  I need it on my server.

I am not using outlook per se, I am trying to get an object that is a POP or CDO or whatever. 
Something that will pull data into a email store local to my computer that I can manipulate.

No one spoke up when I asked how to do this.  Now everyone has an opinion.  OTOH I have actual 
running code that does this now, so opinions at this point do me no good.  I already paid to develop 
this.

I have a business to run, you know?  When I ask and get no response I go figure it out myself.

John W. Colby
www.ColbyConsulting.com 

On 5/31/2011 11:13 AM, Arthur Fuller wrote:
> OK, regard this as a stupid question, but Why is anyone using Outlook? I
> just don't get it. There are so many superior alternatives, my current
> preference being gmail, but there are many others.
>
> Arthur