HOW TO MAKE A RULE RESPOND TO AN EMAIL ADDRESS IN THE BODY

[gbstelecom]

Dear Sirs,

I have a question that perhaps one of you can help me with, or possibly send me in the right direction. Right now I am using OE for sending and receiving email. I would like to be able to make a rule that allows a response to be generated each time an aemail is received. The only problem is that the response is not to be directed to whom the email is arriving from but to an email address located in the text of the email. AS an example:

to: xyz@xyz.com
from: abc@abc.com
subject: hey

Dear Sir,

Please contact qwerty@qwerty.com

Thanks,

Mr. So and So
abc@abc.com
----------------------------------------------

In the above example if I were to make a rule that responded by looking for the words "Please contact" that would be fine enough. The problem is that my rule response would make my response go to the person from whom the email arrived rather than the email address in the body of the text. Does anyone know if there is software that will do this sort of thing? Or is there an add-on for message rules? I have heard that Outlook has macros that can be used but I am not sure if it will accomplish this. I highly appreciate your response.

Sincerely,

GBS

 

[gbstelecom]

I asked this same identical question, last year DEC 28, 2004 and I got the same response: nada. Does anyone have any idea where I might go for the answer?

GBS

 

[smah]

There is no answer. This type of behavior is beyond the scope of a simple mail client (which is what OE is). What you seem to be looking for is some sort of mail processing application. The other thing that might make some people hesitant to reply is that this type of behavior could have spam related uses, which no one wants to help with.

 

[gbstelecom]

Hi Smash,

I am unclear how this couild involve spam related issues, I presume you arespeaking of those folks that intend on doing things wrong. Of course, that is not my intention. You cannot keep knowledge from the wicked, the wicked jut do evil things, even with good. My intention is very forthright. I receive an email froma a vendor that is always in the same format. In the email it had the email address of a new client of ours. I just want to be able to drop them a note saying: "We have recieved your email and will be calling you soon." That's it. I have been pondering this question for well over a year now and cannot find any direction. As it relates to OE, I can change to Outlook or any other mail client if that would make it easier. I am not sure that is the answer though since It can never be clear what you have purchased until you use it, and with software, well by then, it's too late- you own it. I would very greatly apprecate your response. I appreciate your time.

GBS

 

[smah]

Again, this is beyond the abilities of any e-mail client softare that I've ever seen. This is more like something that would be handled by a mailing list server or something. There are some things that could be done to somewhat automate the process; like making a template & then doing a manual cut & paste of the customer address. There are other possibilities as well. Some more information might help to come up with a workable solution. For example, how does your vendor create these messages to you - could the process or layout be changed? Or, since the vendor is sending out an e-mail anyway, could they just send this message directly to the customer on your behalf?

As for the possible spamming implications, think of some e-mail (probably a good joke) that you might have received in the past that has many included addresses because of forwarding multiple times. Now, the possiblility of harvesting these addresses & automatically sending some message (a Rogaine ad or something more annoying, perhaps) would be considered spamming.

 

[gbstelecom]

Hi again Smash,

Well I guess I could see your point, but again I listed an example at the beginning that should serve as an example of what it is that I am trying to accomplish. NO, the vendor would not be interested in doing any of my work, but hey it certainly was worth a mention. Primarily, what I receive from the vendor is an email that is always in the same format that says please contact XYZ Company at 555-555-5555 and their email address is: xyz@company.com. What I would like to do is have a pre-generated form email that says: Dear XZY, We appreciate you contacting our company. Within 48 hours a representative will contact you to gather additional information. This really doesn't seem to me to be like "rocket-science" but NOONE seems to have an answer, and that is after looking for over a year(not consistenetly) All of your responses are valuable. I just do not know what direction to look in.

Sincerley,

GBS

 

[smah]

Something like this might work

http://www.xequte.com/maillistking/index.html

You might need to create a rule to move the messages to a seperate folder, then have that software process all the mail in that folder.

There might be other possibilities in the list at

http://www.slipstick.com/addins/mail.htm

You're trying to create some of the behavior & features of a mailing list server, and that can't be done with just a simple mail client.

 

[gbstelecom]

Hi Again Smash,

I appreciate the direction. That's what I have been looking for, good direction. I have emailed a gentleman named Nigel on the site you referred me to. At least I know the name of the type of application I am looking for now. I didn't know I was looking for a mailing list program. A friend of mine that runs a Data company said that I was looking for an email "parser", I believe was the phrase. Either way it will be a trEmendous answer for me to finally find what it is I am looking for. Like I said before I have had this problem in my mind for over a year, I just want some results now. I did download the trial version of the program they were offering on the website. I am reviewing it now to see if it will work for my application. I will get back with the results.

On another note, I have another questions but I do not know where to publish the question(to which group). Here is the question. Currently we have a form on our website that after being submitted winds up in an email box that currently is checked on one of our workstations. How would it be possible that once the form is submitted the form is automatically gone over and then a response is written based on the information being provided?

Thanks again in advance,

GBS

Thanks Again,
GBS

 

[smah]

This question also does not have a simple solution. You would probably need a database server with some scripting language along with a mail server to send out the response. You probably won't find an 'off-the-shelf' solution.