Outlook pauses before sending email

[AlanBarker]

I want to employ a automatic send an email, when a user has created &/or modified an existing record. I can trap for the condition, and invoke the send email step - BUT Outlook 2003 (which our company uses across the board) pauses to let the user know that an external program (FileMaker) is accessing their e-mail; do they want to allow it.

 

I've not found any way to skip this step, so it is a long way from seamless. Has anyone found a workaround for this? If there is no Outlook solution, what other options do I have. I'm not really wanting to buy a plugin seat for potentially hundreds of users. Is there any sort of server side email plugin available?

 

Thanks for any and all advice,

Alan

[AHunter3]

I seem to recall that there is a setting in Outlook wherer you tell it to trust this foreign guy "FileMaker", but I've managed to avoid Outlook my entire life so I can't for the life of me recall where it hides.

 

I don't suppose it's as easy as a checkbox akin to "Always trust maito requests from FileMaker" along with the "Some upstart program named 'FileMaker' wants me to send an email, allow/cancel?" message ?

[Ted S]

I'm not 100% sure but I believe Outlook Express has the user controllable setting that Mr. Hunter mentions but standard Outlook does not have such a setting.

 

I've been using SMTPit from CNS for a few years and I'm pretty happy with the results although it's not a server side plug-in. If you're going to do "email automation" as you describe you probably won't want to rely on Outlook anyway. In my own situation we have common PCs in the conference rooms but users generally don't configure to their Outlook profile there. When FM tries to launch Outlook it prompts the user to setup a new profile which is really annoying and unexpected when working in front of a crowd. The SMTP plug-in can be made to be completely transparent so the user never even realizes that he or she has sent a message.

[buckwheatpie]

I've had this same problem for ages (using FMP8 and MS Outlook 2003) and all the solutions i've seen - COM add-ins, registry changes, outlook object blahdeeblah - all seem a bit beyond my capabilities (unless i can find really straightforward instructions of how to do it) and also i don't want to compromise security and leave our system vulnerable.

 

But today i've just seen this Sendmail plugin (http://www.filemakertoday.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=49&Itemid=9) - i'm currently in the process of downloading and trying their free trial - does anyone know if it will do the trick in solving this irritating problem? cheers!

 

The website for the plugin download is http://fusionplugins.com/sendmail/

 

Also, Ted, you might want to read this discussion:

 

http://www.tek-tips.com/viewthread.cfm?qid=1165838&page=3

 

and look at the Clickyes program as a solution - i haven't tried this yet but it's next on my list if the plugin doesn't cut it. Also, ClickYes is free.

[Ted S]

Hello Buck, or is it Wheat?

 

The CLICK YES program doesn't address the problem that I have with conference rooms. I'm in a larger organization and we have a number of different conference rooms and many users. As I said, most people have not taken the time to do the initial configuration of Outlook on each and every conference room PC so they likely would become quite annoyed if during a meeting they were forced to configure their Outlook profile in front of a crowd of people. Unproductive time is annoying in itself but in front of a group coworkers or customers it is especially troublesome.

 

The SMTP plugin is a much better solution for me because as the developer I have complete control over the operation of my FM database and its ability to send a message. As I said, most users are completely unaware that a message has been sent.

 

Also, how is CLICK YES installed? It it something that has to be manually installed on each PC? If so then the SMTP plugin is a better option for me because it can be made to install itself automatically.

 

The only downside is cost... maybe. Free is often better that having to shell-out dollars but not always.

[aislinn]

Hi Ted

 

Just wanted to find out if you managed to get this to work in your organization, cos it's been causing problems on my side as well.

 

Also, do you know if the SMTP-plugin allows for a user to have different "FROM" addresses? This is also a problem I need to solve, as FM doesn't seem to provide the opportunity to insert a FROM field and here users have access to different mailboxes and need to select the appropriate FROM address every time.

[Ted S]

I've been using SMTPit for a few years in an Exchange/Outlook environment. It works really well but I really only use it to send messages to internal recipients. It can send messages to external addresses but your IT folks will have to specifically enable this ability in Exchange and they may be reluctant to do so.

 

Yes, you can choose your different FROM addresses.

 

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