Email Plug ins Mac OSX?

[schuey100]

Hi all

I'm having a bit of trouble. We've just created a new contact management database in Filemaker and are in the process of extracting data from our old 4D database.

I'm looking for a plug in that allows us to send emails to a number of contacts, (1,000+) at a time without having to go outside of Filemaker.

It would also be really good if it could record un-deliverables. I've checked on Versiontracker and haven't been able to find anything that's any good. I've looked through these forums and have still not found the right plug in.

Anyone know of any good commercial plug ins that will allow us to email directly from Filemaker, keep

records of what has been sent and record undeliverables?

Thanks in advance

[andygaunt]

SMTP-it by Community Networking http://www.cnsplug-ins.com is a great plug-in

They are working on a brand new version for FM7, but I beilieve the current version does not have too many problems (main one that springs to mind is the File Path, but you can use a feature in 7 for that now anyhow)

as to checking undeliverables, it will record problematic email addresses off the bat, but to capture all undeliverables you may need there second plug-in POP3it.

HTH

[Fenton]

I have had good luck with SMTPit

http://www.cnsplug-ins.com/products.htm?product=SMTPit

[i see Andy and I have the same advice.]

The plus side is that it has many commands to do practically anything with sending email, including html email, attachments, signatures, etc.. The downside is the same. You have to script it. It comes with a few example files, including bulk email. If you create your fields you can import the scripts.

As far as logging what happens, you can do that in FileMaker. You need a Email_log table. The way it works (in pseudo code)

1. Set up general parameters, "from", contents, etc.

2. Loop, set up specific parameters for each

3. Send email to each person

3. Trap the result in a global (it traps a lot of text, so parse out whether it was successful or an error)

4. Log the result in the Email_log table (you could stop the script, but this will halt the loop when an email address is malformed also

5. If there were errors, let them know

Your ISP may not allow 1000 to go through at once, and will return an error. An error means it was not sent. It doesn't mean it didn't arrive, or was even a working email address.

To receive mail you need a separate plug-in, POP3it. Or buy them as a bundle. There is also a plug-in by Dacon, Mailit, which I haven't used, but hear works fine. Probably much the same thing.

Oh yeah, Mac OS X. You have a couple other less expensive alternatives. 24uSoftware has an email AppleScript Scripting Addition (OSAX) that does much the same as SMTPit, but is only $27. I haven't used, but it looks pretty complete. You'd have to know AppleScript, but I imagine they have examples. I'm not sure what error would be returned.

http://www.24usoftware.com/EmailOSAX

There's also a free email OSAX, XMail.