My Boss going crazy: database access via email 1

[uladzik]

Dear gurus,

First of all, I hope it's not too mch off-topic, because I think this problem that we have can be implemented in VBScript and ASP.

So here the situation. We have a Web-based application for our consultants (a virtual helpdesk). There are two groups of users: experts (or consultants) that answer questions on-line, and normal mortal users who ask those (sometimes stupid ) questions.

An expert goes to a special Web page protected by password, looks through all the questions and answers some of the them in a Web-based form. His/her answer gets stored to the database and also a copy of the answer gets sent to the user who asked the question.

Experts are not very computer-friendly and they would like to answer questions exactly the way they did before, i.e. via e-mail. So my boss asked if it's possible to setup a special e-mail account on the mail server that would handle emails from our experts, somehow analyze it and store appropriate data in the database.

I think I am aware of all the difficulties involved, but I would be happy to hear your own comments regarding the whole scheme. How do you envision the whole thing? How would you setup such an automated email account? What techonologies/protocols/languages would be involved? Has anyone done this thing before? Is there anything related on the Web?

Just FYI, the original Heldesk application runs on Windows NT, IIS, and it's implemented in ASP and VBScript (so that's basically what I know); Access and SQL Server as backend.

Thank you very much in advance!

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http://www.geocities.com/uladzik/

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[Swany]

I have a system that is very similar to what you are using.

I simply send HTML forms via e-mail. When the users submit the forms in thier e-mail client (usually outlook express) a web browser pops up pointed to the ACTION="..." of the form and the server side script runs.. This is how it works:

User goes to order entry web page and makes a "special request" with the "special request form". Special requests fall into various categories. The script that handles the form entries sends an approval e-mail to the person that handles requests of that type.

The person opens thier e-mail and fills out the approval form with lead times, prices, etc. When they click submit, a browser opens, they are asked for a username and password and then are notified that the e-mail response has been sent.

The original requester gets a notification that the request has been approved or denied. If the request was denied, they click a link that takes them to the request page to make applicable changes and request the product again. If the request was approved they click "Add to order" which adds the special request item to the appropriate order via another server side script.

I have three main scripts:
sof_oe.asp (order entry special order form script)
sof_process.asp (actually updates the information from the oe script and the e-mails)
sof_notify.asp (sends the notifications via e-mail)

sof_process redirects to sof_notify to handle sending out the e-mails.


Hope that helps.

 

[uladzik]

Swany, thank you. This was quite helpful. I found your solution most appropriate for me (because it involves technologies that I know - HTML,VBScript,ASP). Other programmers and some colleagues proposed several other possiblities:
- Lotus Domino specialist told me that this could be implmented on Domino platform in one day.
- Microsoft Exchange specialist told me that there are special triggers allowing to implement such system this on Exchange server. The advantage is that the language agian is VBScript.
- To schedule an application on web server (again it could be a VBS on IIS) that scans e-mail box using
POP3 client and does conversion e-mail->database entry.

Thanks again.
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http://www.geocities.com/uladzik/

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[Swany]

Your welcome. Glad to help.

If you have any more questions or problems just post them and we'll see what we can do