Thinking of switching: Mailing custom emails?

[superhua]

Hi all,

I'm thinking about switching from MS Access to FM Pro, and thus trying to learn everything I can about it in a short amount of time.

Before I even d/l the trial version, could you answer this question:

Given a typical address book database (say for an organization), is it possible to send out custom emails? That is:

1. Typical "mail-merge" like commands so that "John" gets an email which starts, "Dear John".

2. "IF-clauses" in the body of the email are allowed so that because John is on the A/V team, he gets an extra paragraph about the A/V team meeting this week that Sally does not.

Basically, I could do this with MS Access and a program called Gamadyne Mailer and was just wondering if this was possible (moderately easily) with FM Pro.

Many thanks!

[CobaltSky]

Hi superhua,

In short, yes it is possible. There are several ways to achieve it.

In fact all the basic requirements you have outlined can be achieved native FM Pro features, provided that the workstation it is running on is configured to use an email client application supported by FileMaker's Send Mail feature (Eg on Windows, you require Exchange or any other MAPI complient mail app).

The 'Send Mail' script step allows the To:, CC:, Subject: and Message: to be supplied by fields within the database (or a related file) - and these in turn can comprise calculated composite text which conditionally includes components relevant to the recipient.

For more complex email requirements (ie beyond the above), there are also some excellent plug-ins which enable FileMaker to operate independent of the defaulkt email client, to send inline HTML, to conditionally include appropriate attachments on the fly and more. It's all available if you need it. :