Mass email (to clients) but listing only their name...

[WillShakespeare]

Hi all,

Our CEO has asked that we send an email (monthly report) to clients, which is a substantial list for this sort of thing (>100s). But he wants the people who receive the mail to:
1) See only their name in the to field, rather than the block over a couple of pages, of other people in the list.
2) Be able to reply to him, thus see his name in the from list only (not his name, sent by:jane bloggs), even though one of our people is sending this out for him, and does not have access to his machine.

I know we can place everyone in bcc, but this does not include the recipients name... the to field is simply blank (of course).
When we set the Tools > Preferences > Basics > User Configuration to his name, the from does list his name when in the inbox, but there is also a smaller, normal font "Sent by: Jane Bloggs/U.K." or something similar.

Can anyone help?

Will

 

[rdannand]

Yours is a tall order, and if the BCC function is not used, I'm not sure you can do it without a lot of reprogramming. A recipient will see only their name on the cc field, but you probably want the list on the TO: field so you can check it that way in the SENT folder?

One way you can fulfill question #2 will involve trust. Your executive can provide a copy of his User.ID file to be placed on the computer sending the report. The trusted person would have the password for it, and can switch User.ID's (and thereby personas) by choosing FILE--TOOLS--SWITCH IDS, then navigating to the exec's ID and signing in. Once in, the trustee can use FILE--DATABASE--OPEN to find and open the exec's mail file, and can then send the letter from his account without the appended line of who did the sending. After the trustee is done, they just switch back to their own User.ID. The only drawbacks are time needed for setup, and trust. Of course, you can always take the ID file back and/or change the password.

 

[FredWagner]

The problem is more easily solved if the person sending the message for the CEO has delegated rights to Originate Mail for the CEO. Then the message is originated from the CEO's mail account, so it comes from him, and the BCC feature should work nicely for the rest of the requirement. Fred Wagner
frwagne@longbeach.gov

 

[pmonett]

I would suggest designing a small db containing a doc per mail recipient (with the address) and the content of the mail in a parameter doc of sorts.
Then make an agent that goes over the recipients list and creates a new memo for every one with the content of the parameter doc.
No trust or ID file needed, the customers will be none the wiser, and it is not too difficult to develop. Moreover, no customization of the mailbox is needed either.
If you need further help, I would be happy to provide it.

Pascal.

 

[WillShakespeare]

Thanks pascal,

Is it possible to do this for a single doc email? Are we talking an nsf db? If you could provide steps, that would be great...

Thanks in advance,

Will

 

[pmonett]

What do you call a single doc email ? Is that an email only sent to one client ?
If yes, no problem.

What I suggested was to create a small Notes application to handle sending mass-mailings. You would indeed need an .nsf database containing the following :

- a view listing all sent messages
- a view listing all new messages (unsent)
- a form (Message) to record new messages
- a view listing all the contacts you have
- a form (Contact) to record the contact details
- an agent to activate (manually or scheduled) that will send the message to every flagged contact

What I would suggest is to create a form Message allowing for the recording of a message to send, along with a field destined to track the email addresses the message was sent to, as well as a Status field set to New by default.
On creating the Message, you would fill in the message body and save the document. That doc would show up in the New Messages view. I would suggest only creating one new message at a time, to keep it simple.
With this in mind, when it is time to send the message, you could just go to the Contacts view, select all Contact docs that are concerned and activate the agent.
The agent should perform the following steps :

1) make a collection of all selected docs
2) retrieve the first Message doc in the New Message view
the agent then iterates through the following :
3) create a new Memo
4) put in the necessary client details from the collection
5) write the email address in the Message tracking field
6) send the mail
Once the collection is done, the agent changes the Message status to Done, records the change, and ends.

With that, you can pretty much spruce up the Contacts view as much as you like. If you have categories or customers, record then in the doc and have the view categorize them. It might make it easier to send a mailing to all East Coast clients in one go, without making a mistake ;-).

If you have any questions or need help with the design, let me know.

Pascal.

 

[WillShakespeare]

My mistake... when I re-read what I asked, and then re-read your original reply, I couldn't figure out what I was asking! But it did suddenly dawn on me what you meant, which I had not caught before! This sounds just the ticket, but I have been away for a week ill, and all hell broke loose since then, so I am up to eyeballs until Jan...
But I will definitely follow the above steps and see where I get to, posting back if I have any trouble.

Thanks again,

Will

 

[pmonett]

Well, I hope you're feeling better now.
Just to get you jump-started on the agent, don't forget you need to use a notesuidatabase object to collect the selected documents.
I'm on holiday until the 10th, so I have some time if you need help, don't hesitate and contact me.

Pascal.