Database E-Mail Merge

[NozSpark]

Hi guys,

We're developing a database at our sailing club to take away some of the grind that occurs when the invoices etc go out. Our ex-commodore is quite savvy with MS Access and has started to build the front end; he has imported the current spread sheet and has created several reports, one of which is an invoice.

Now this invoice report is nearly 200 pages long and rather than print it out and post each individual invoice to the person concerned we'd like to be able to automatically email them to those that we can (we will still print and post to those that can't) - generating the required reports isn't a problem,,, its just the emailing.

When we have it up and running then we will buy a laptop and the required software, we're not stuck on MS Access but we will not be buying a Mac

So if anyone (especially Deke) has any ideas they'd be very gratefully received

 

[Barx]

Not sure if current versions implement other solutions now but you used to have to use VBA (Visual Basic for Applications). It's a lot easier if you use outlook for emails, but very possible without, using smtp.

 

[septiclecky]

if you are using Outlook then all you have to do is make a group email listing with all the members email addresses in the group.

All you have to do is click on this group and it will send it out to all your members.

Try this link http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/outlook-help/grouping-contacts-HA010266586.aspx

 

[NozSpark]

Not sure if current versions implement other solutions now but you used to have to use VBA (Visual Basic for Applications). It's a lot easier if you use outlook for emails, but very possible without, using smtp.

Yeh, a search I did indicated that you could do it with VBA.... take it that we have a bare laptop and will install whatever software that we need.

if you are using Outlook then all you have to do is make a group email listing with all the members email addresses in the group.

All you have to do is click on this group and it will send it out to all your members.

But that would send the whole of the 200 page report to everyone,,, we only want to send them their own invoice

 

[septiclecky]

Yeh, a search I did indicated that you could do it with VBA.... take it that we have a bare laptop and will install whatever software that we need.

But that would send the whole of the 200 page report to everyone,,, we only want to send them their own invoice

Whoops misunderstood

 

[Hefferl]

If you kept a flag in the database to indicate email or snailmail for each recipients preference, you could then in MS access code do something like

(pseudo code):

if flag = email then

    create email object

    send email object

else

   print report

end if

have a look at

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-gb/library/ms269113(v=vs.80).aspx?cs-save-lang=1&cs-lang=vb#code-snippet-1

and

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/office/aa210946(v=office.11).aspx

Not very detailed but HTH