Best way to mail newsletter to a large group

[wvdb]

The compnay I'm working for mails a newsletter to about 2000 members. They have it scripted to put all these names in the TO field of an email.

This causes multiple problems for them. What is the best practice for doing a mailing like this?

Thanks

[Ted S]

I would suggest that if you are going to be doing mailings of this size, and doing them regularly, you should be using an SMTP plug-in for Filemaker.

If you're not familiar with plug-ins, they are small (generally third party) applications that operate from within Filemaker. It will cost you a few bucks per computer to purchase a plug-in. SMTP plug-ins are around $50 USD.

The plugin will allow you to send your messages seamlessly from within Filemaker.

As you have already noticed, the native emailing capability of Filemaker is really suited to sending messages to a single or a handful of recipients.

[bcooney]

I'm not sure that I agree with the need for SMTPit. I would suggest changing the script to loop thru the members and send 1 email per member.

SMTPit and the like, will allow for multiple attachments and html email. If that's a need, then by all means go for the plugin.

Also, check with the ISP about spamming limitations. Many will stop you from "blasting."

[Ted S]

If he's using a newer version of Outlook for his email client then he will have a dialog box pop up for each and every message that is sent. The popup says something like:

"A program is attempting to send a message on your behalf, do you want to allow this?"

He will have to hit the ALLOW button 1000 times to send 1000 messages.

If he's on an older version of Outlook that doesn't have this warning message then I agree with you.

[comment]

Isn't there a way to turn this off in Preferences?

[Ted S]

Nope. In Outlook Express (the light, or home version of Outlook) it can indeed be disabled but in Standard Outlook (the business version) it's always there.

I understand that there is some sort of third party add-on that automatically clicks the ALLOW button but the other thing that should be noted is that it takes 5 to 10 seconds before that annoying dialog box appears. So this means that sending 2000 messages could tie up a PC for a few hours.

[Joe King]

Email support within FileMaker is fairly simple. I aggree that the plug-in approach give much more control, plus there are about a dozen email plug-ins on the market- most have a sample file which does mass email.

Another approach would be to use PHP on a web server to send the mail. It's more complicated but it save you from having to purchase a plug-in.

I also think that the guys at productive Computing have a dialog surpressor for Outlook which you may look into...