Posting email attachments to web server

[tybeej]

BACKGROUND: I work for a mortgage brokerage and receive rate sheets via email from various lenders. Some send their rate sheets as attachments (usually pdf), others send them as links within the email. I have an Outlook script that runs whenever I receive one of these rate sheets and posts the attachment (if there is one) to a folder on my web server. It also inserts a record into a table in my SQL Server database for the rate sheet. If there is no attachment, the code parses out the text of the email, finds the link and inserts a record into the table putting the link into the FilePath field. Then, an asp page displays the contents of the table to the company employees on our intranet.
MY QUESTION: Outlook sometimes hangs on this script for no apparent reason. If this happens when I'm not here, the rate sheets do not get posted and everyone gets upset. I'd like to find a different solution for posting these rate sheets. I can ONLY get them via email, and I haven't been able to come up with a different solution that doesn't depend on Outlook. If you can think of something, I'd be most grateful.

 

[Sheco]

So a web page that allows lenders to upload a file to your server is out of the question?

 

[tybeej]

Yes, unfortunately

 

[Sheco]

Then to get around Outlook you'd either need another different scriptable POP3 client to retrieve the messages or write your own.

It would be really slick to find a POP3 ActiveX/COM component that could be used from inside a SQL Server DTS package.

What email server? Just something your ISP has or do you have MS Exchange running in-house?

 

[tybeej]

We're actually betwixt and between email servers right now. We're using an outside provider to send and receive emails to all external (i.e. non-company) addresses and we have an in-house Exchange server for the intra-company email. Eventually, the Exchange server is going to replace the outside provider for all emails. Why? Can I run a script on the Exchange server directly?