How to send automated Welcome mail

sure, easy.

Have an agent check each person document, and send a welcome message if its new.

code follows:

In its easiest implementation, you need a simple agent, created in the public address book:


Set the agent to run on schedule, against "unprocessed" documents.
------------------------------------------
select Form = "User" & WelcomeSent = "";
Subject := "This is the subject";
Msg := "This is the body of the message, put anything here";
Field WelcomeSent := @Now;
@MailSend(FullName ; "" ; "" ; Subject ; Msg ; "" );
------------------------------------------

Now, you could do quite a bit more, including defining the text in a form and doing a lookup to it, sending a stored form with rich text on it, etc.., but at its core, this is what you're doing.

The agent selects user documents that don't have the time stamped into "WelcomeSent" field.   It stamps that time then sends the message.

That means if you want to re-send one, you could have a button on agent that runs on selected documents and contains only this line:

field WelcomeSent := @DeleteField;

If you want to NOT send one, simply stamp it manually with a quick agent or button that runs on selected documents which has the single line:

field WelcomeSent := @Now;

ah, didn't see the stationary mail and requirement for your ID --

In that case, you'll want to use lotuscript.
Code follows:

oh, and if you prefer, you could create a non-user mailfile from template, and put the draft message in there.  It will still come from you, just point to that file in teh agent.

too much info for 50 ! But you are on top buddy!

:-)

Well, I doubt I'm going to find 4000 points today -- so I'm not gonna make top 15 within just 30 days.  Oh well.   Making 10,000 isn't a bad accomplishment.  ;-)

I got better news though --

http://www.lotus.com/news/news.nsf/link/BA2003finalist

I'm a finalist for a 2003 IBM Lotus Beacon Award!

Hey Andrew,

If you are looking for points, I could post a 500 point question (is that the max points you can give to a question?).

It's a problem with my Notes mail - not a big problem, but still an annoying one. Also, my entire company will migrate to Exchange this month, so the problem will become irrelevant after that anyway. But if you (or other experts) want to tackle it merely as an intellectual exercise, let me know and I will post it.

Cheers,

Scott

shoot, Scott!  I'd love to take a shot at it.

Gosh, there are so many ways of doing this!

If I understand right you essentially want to be able to add a stationary document containing an attachment to new mail files?

Depending on how complex the stationary is you could write a simple agent to create a new document, this can the be triggered either from another database or even in the database script of the template.  The issue with the latter would be that you would need to have the attachment stored on an accessable file area and attach it in the code.  The advantage of such a method though is that there is nothing you need to do, the message will be created when the mail file is first opened (and you can create a profile document to flag when it has run so it doesn't run again).  One downside is that because the code will be executed by the person opening the mail file it will be signed by them, not you.

What method is best comes down to how you can run the agent.  For me all new user requests come via Notes databases so it is very easy to add functionality into our workflow databases to know which accounts are new and therefore do the work as part of a button which handles the request.  If you don't have anything like this and don't want to use the database script method then you could add a scheduled agent to the Domino Directory to detect new creations and do the work.

I didn't think a new database included any documents stored in the template, I've seen too many that contain a lot of junk, but a quick test revealed you are right!

(This also explains a problem we had recently where a mail database appeared to someone as a template, my assumption was that there was a timeout during the creation and it remained in an incomplete state.  Rather than creating a blank database and copying the design elements Notes must just copy the template and then change bits and pieces).

As what is needed is stationary you can connect to the template as though an ordinary database, set it up as you'd like (create stationary, put a welcome message in the inbox etc.).  I'd also right an agent to run on the template to delete any CalendarProfile document that would have been created when you first entered the database (otherwise any mail the user sends out will have your name as the reply address).  Then just use that template.

Cool method, but do you do this with all teh possible mail templates?  (notes, notes+web, inotes)?

also, be careful of the template getting over writen when you upgrade.  If you're going to use this method, I strongly recommend making a NEW template that is your own companies.  Just make a copy of the one you use now, give it a different name, make the changes as described, and pick that template for the mail template when creating new users.

Definitely.  I would recommend when you make any modification, no matter how small, to a Lotus (or other third party) template that you make your own copy.

No comment has been added to this question in more than 21 days, so it is now classified as abandoned.

I will leave the following recommendation for this question in the Cleanup topic area:
    Split: AndrewJayPollack {http:#7541757} & stltt {http:#7550434}

Any objections should be posted here in the next 4 days. After that time, the question will be closed.

Zvonko
EE Cleanup Volunteer