How to create an agent to send a non-Notes document 1

[ekim]

I need to send a Word document (a survey form) to non-Notes Users when they send me an e-mail with specified text in the subject.

I can send a simple message with an agent on reciept of mail but I need to send the Word document as is (or an Ecel spreadsheet). It is a Word form. Most if not all of the intended participants have Word. Few if any have Notes. The simple action reply to sender will not let me copy the document with Paste Special and a regular paste loses all formatting.

I have reviewed the survey example in Isis Sandbox but that pertains to a situation among Notes users. This form is being sent to users outside of our organization.

I have guessed that I may have to use Lotus scripts or an agent calling an second agent but I have been searching everything I can get to for some clue where to start and have found nothing useful. Most discussions are very generic and stop way short of specific examples (code snippets or even suggestions). I have found nothing on how to use non-Notes documents in Notes.

This business of sending out a document is not (in my opinion) an unusual requirement. It is a snap for me to do this in Outlook but the company is on Notes and obviously I can manually send email with an atachment but I need to do this unattended.

Any specific suggestions will be appreciated.

 

[Phooey]

Why not just use an agent to create an email object and attach the Word document to it in LotusScript? This would then be fired off when the specified email has been received.

Hope this helps. Phooey
Andrew.j.harrison@capgemini.co.uk
Otherwise known as Windy Bottom.

 

[ekim]

Thanks for the response -- I was beginning to wonder if there was anybody out there.

Your suggestion was already tried by our inhouse 'experts' and there were a couple of problems with it.

One is that in order to fill out the form the recipient would have to start a Word session and then save as and then re-attach the form to the reply email.

The second is that even if this is done for some reason the data fields in the form are blank on the response document.

This is a form for teachers and others who may not be very computer savy and/or have much patience with multiple steps or minor missteps.

The goal was (I thought) a simple one of sending a form on a request (i.e. certain key words in the subject line) and then allowing the recipient to bounce back the filled out form inside their e-mail application by simply hitting "Reply with History" and filling out the form and hitting "Send". I had no idea it would be so convoluted and difficult.

I have been thinking that we should re-create the form as a Notes form or as Sationery (we are in R5). But then we would have to go through the in-house developers each time we wanted to send a new or revised form. They are pushing us to use a Website but we need to keep the budget down and development time avalable is very short. In addition, the above mentioned intended recipients can handle email but a significant number would require too much coordination / 'training' to use the Website in the short period of time avalable for this project.

In any event, I would appreciate an outline of the code to
create the email object you spoke of and thanks again for responding.

 

[Phooey]

Do your users currently run a Notes database, or is this a project startup. Just wondering, because I may have an idea.

Settting up a Web enabled database is not that much work. As long as you get the HTTP server and stuff right then all you need is a domino database with HTML in the forms. A couple of static forms for a home page and such.

Something which may keep the users happy while all o the develoment work is going on may be a small domino database designed to collect survey results. The Process would be kicked off using a hyperlink in an email sent to the user. The user opens the hyperlink and is present with an online survey.. User completes survey and submits straight to database.

Hey presto..

Don't know what you think of the idea, but I can't honestly see any other way of completing the process from the information you've given. Unfortunately, even software has it's limits, but you gotta break them or work around them.

Hope this Helps

Phooey
Andrew.j.harrison@capgemini.co.uk
Otherwise known as Windy Bottom.

 

[ekim]

Thanks again for your response. It may be that our in-house guy is thinking along the same lines by suggesting a website. My main aversion to this approach is that it ties our department to a centralised and presently overburdened support staff. I was hoping to have a solution that would distribute the day to day tasks out to the periphery (empowerment?).

Also since R5 split out Designer we (end users) only have the simple actions and @functions to work with. I still feel there is a way to work around this to use the tools I have to do what I want. I feel like I am talking about a low tech tool that would not be that uncommon or unususal -- send a non-notes document or even a pre-formatted notes document using an agent.

Anyway, there is also the security issues of a website -- would it be inside or outside the corp. firewall -- which gets yet another group in yet another state involved.

There is a corporate website and an intranet but departments have been specifically prohibited from considering that as a resource due to security concerns.

In desperation I have almost gotten to the point of letting the department use my personal website and construct what I need there but that is obviously untenable.

The users of this project are all over the country and are not connected to our Notes environment and are almost certainly not using Notes except in rare cases. I assume the Domino server would just be another Website to them -- no Notes-specific issues here -- am I right??

I guess the hyperlink could be sent via a response agent. If that is so I would almost rather send them the address to our ftp site and have them download the form from there but my program managers say this is too technical for the people they deal with.

Thanks again. Any thoughts on how to use the built in simple actions or @functions would be helpful -- the documentation is bad.

 

[Phooey]

Redirecting people to an FTP site is too technical? How?

If you include a link sent from a response agent, the link would be directly to the document itself, which would automatically ask for a place to save it to. All the user then has to do is fill in the details and send it back.

Is that such a hardship for them.? Phooey
Andrew.j.harrison@capgemini.co.uk
Otherwise known as Windy Bottom.

 

[ekim]

I think FTP may be too technical for our Program Managers -- their eyes sort of glaze over when I start talking about redirection, FTP etc. I for one can't think of anything simpler that opening a browser and typing in a web address but oh well ..........

However, your response is intriguing. I was under the impression that the simple action "Send Mail Message .../ Include link to document ........" was refering to a notes document ,specifically the document you had highlighted when you selected "link" or identified by the search criterion.

"..the link would be directly to the document itself...."

How, specifically, using simple actions or formulas available to the end user in the agent wizard, would you send a link to a non-notes user to a non-notes document located at an ftp site.

".......which would automatically ask for a place to save it to. All the user then has to do is fill in the details and send it back. ......"

Secondly, how would (without Script or Java programming) would opening that (non-notes, non domino server located) document automatically prompt the end user to "save as" and permit resend as email after updating?

In my experience, opening, say, a Word document on an ftp site, starts a session of the application which would be outside of whatever e-mail clinet the user happens to be using -- even if that client were currently active. Few casual users know without prompting that they have the ability to send email out of Word.

Since the response agent criterion can only refer to one set of documents, I was thinking of having the response agent fire when an email was recieved with the filtering phrase in teh subject line. It would in turn fire an agent that would send out the form. To simplify things, I know that the form would have to be a notes document -- probably an email memo format. It would have to reside in the mail database and it would have to populate the To field somehow with the address of the original requestor's 'From:'

What I would really appreciate is help with specifics. If the strategy I am suggesting above is reasonable I would appreciate specifics on how to set it up -- @functions, code ---- whatever.

If your sugestion is something different (and hopefully simpler) please assit me by passing along specifics -- step by step. Thanks

 

[Phooey]

Forgive me, I'm getting a little confused at the moment.

The process you're trying to describe is:

User sends email to central location.
Central location automatically sends out an email refer to Word document in some way.
User fills in Word document.
User send word document back to central location.

Is this right?

In which case use a response agent to send an email containing a hyperlink to ftp://my.site.com/word/document.doc . When the user clicks on this link it will fire up the relevant browser and either open the document or prompt to open/save the document.
At this point the user fills in the document using word and emails the document back from within word.

Just include some simple instructions with the email consisting of:

Please fill in the details of the following document, <put link here>.
When all details have been entered, select FILE/SEND TO/MAIL RECIPIENT and include the email address to send it back to.
Or include a mailto: link at the bottom of the document to do most of it for them, all they have to do then is to attach the document.

Does this help as am becoming a little confused. Phooey
Andrew.j.harrison@capgemini.co.uk
Otherwise known as Windy Bottom.

 

[ekim]

Thanks again. You have described one of two options exactly. Many thanks.

The other option which was the preferred option as described to me is that:

1) User sends email to central location.

2) Central location automatically sends out an email which contains the desired form.

3) User hits 'reply with history' or in some way fills in form inside their email.

4) User returns (submits) the document back to central location.

I had described the process to the program manager who is driving this effort and her first reaction was that it was too many steps. I have set up a trial run based on your model for her to try out.

It seemed to me that the prefered option would require an agent to fire another agent to send out a pre-formatted Notes form -- e-mail memo or a stationery form. The sent document/form would have to grab the requestors e-mail address and stuff it into the To: field. I think that could be done fairly easily but I'm a little gunshy at this point. Any specifics/sdvice you could offer on this option woul dbe appreciated.

PS you have been very helpful -- I have temporarily forgotten how to vote for you but as soon as I remember I will. Again, Many thanks.

 

[gamesman]

You have a few problems to overcome with your preferred solution.

1. Form functionality is worth crap between different mail systems. it's fine Notes to Notes or Exchange to Exchange. you can even get it to work (with a LOT!! of work) if it's consistent between Notes to Exchange or vice versa. But in the mixed environment you've described it's nothing but a nightmare as you've already seen.

2. Notes does not contain the funtionality to create automatic attachments to email.

Ok then.

There is some file import functionality. It requires the use of an @command and you mentioned restricted designing privelages. Can you do @commands? The file Import only supports certain file types. Including both word and excel, however, you need to check the versioning. I have 4.6 notes and we can only support excel 5 and word 6. Users with more current versions (almost everybody) will adversely effect your formatting.

Even if you can use the file import, you have no way of pre-providing the answers to your form. I'd get more clarification from your program manager on that. Unless they sent the reponses to questions you haven't asked in the original email, reply with history wouldn't help either.

If you absolutely can't use a web page then one solution would be create this &quot;central location&quot; as a new user on your notes server. Access their mailbox and edit the Memo form. You can use html coding to create the form you want. Include a hidden field with some pure gobbeldygook in it. As long as people have fairly new word processors they should still display and work correctly. Once you edit this form, you can never repair or update this mailbox.

Then create an agent that runs on new mail that doesn't include the exact gobbeldygook that you entered into your hidden field. Have it reply to sender and attach a copy of the original message. Your users will recieve the modified form and a copy of what they originally sent just in case there is something in there to cut and paste or whatever. They should then be able to reply directly to the sender. You can also include in your memo a default replyto so that when it's returned it goes to someone to evaluate and not back into that same mailbox.

You'd be much better off with even a one page website. The message comes in. An agent replies with a link and something polite enough to get your users to click onit. It takes them to the website where they fill in their answers. they click submit and they're done. Your central location gets an email with the reponses. Or they go directly into a db. Much easier for everyone and no one cares what mail server or browser or skill level.

 

[ekim]

Thanks again for hanging in there with me on this. I surrender! It looks like the web page is the way to go. (Now to powwow with the IT group! -- oh well)

I am going to tinker with you ideas above (yes I do have @functions -- and may get the muketymuks to approve instalation of Designer on my workstation) but I promise to let this one go.