Purpose

 

This example demonstrates how to send an email using the mail merge features in NetMailBot. The database used is an MS Access database (Access 2000 version) which contains some sample data. An HTML file is used as the message body.

 

NOTE: You should change the email addresses in the Access database to your own email address(es) before running a test. 

 

Additional Prerequisites

 

Using this feature requires Microsoft Access and working knowledge of creating and editing an MS Access database.

 

Prepared Example Files

 

 

The -bodyfile parameter in NetMailBot uses full paths. We have assumed a particular path as shown in the batch file contents below. Therefore, download this file to C:\tmp on your hard drive or edit the -bodyfile parameter to reflect wherever you unzip the archive.

 

The archive contains four files:

 

• MailMergeAccessHTML.bat - The batch file that will instruct NetMailBot to send the email message.
• test.mdb - The Access database that contains the mail merge data.
• body.html - The HTML page that will be the email message body.
• log.txt - A log file of the invocation of MailMergeAccessHTML.bat for studying

 

Batch File Contents

 

This is the content of the batch file:

 

netmailbot -to test@exclamationsoft.com -from test@exclamationsoft.com -subject "Mail Merge Example" -server localhost -logfile c:\tmp\log.txt -dsn "Provider=Microsoft.Jet.OLEDB.4.0;Data Source=c:\tmp\test.mdb" -dbquery "SELECT * FROM Customers" -dbemailcolumn "email" -dbreplacementids "$first_name$=first_name,$last_name$=last_name" -bodyfile "c:\tmp\body.html" -personalize

 

Steps

 

1. Unzip the MailMergeAccessHTML.zip file. This will produce a directory called "MailMergeAccessHTML". Open this directory.
2. Open the Access database.
3. Change all of the email addresses to your email address (for the purposes of this test run, they can all be the same).
4. Close the Access database.
5. Open Notepad and edit the batch file "MailMergeAccessHTML.bat". Note these important parameters used in the batch file:

• Change the parameters: -to test@exclamationsoft.com -from test@exclamationsoft.com to your own email address.
• Change the parameter: -server localhost to your own mail server.
• Note the use of -dsn "Provider=Microsoft.Jet.OLEDB.4.0;Data Source=c:\tmp\test.mdb". This is a normal connection string that instructs NetMailBot on how to connect to the Access database. If you have not unzipped the archive to C:\tmp, you will have to edit this accordingly.
• -dbquery "SELECT * FROM Customers" instructs NetMailBot to select all of the columns of data from the Customers table in the Access database.
• -dbemailcolumn "email" instructs NetMailBot to use the data in the column named "email" to address the message to the data contained in that column for the current row.
• The parameter -bodyfile "c:\tmp\body.html" instructs NetMailBot to use body.html as the email message body. If you have not unzipped the archive to C:\tmp, then edit this path accordingly.
• -dbreplacementids "$first_name$=first_name,$last_name$=last_name" instructs NetMailBot to replace the strings in dollar signs with the data contained in the mapped column for the current row. For example, in the message body, NetMailBot will replace the string $first_name$ with the data contained in the column named "first_name".
• -personalize instructs NetMailBot to make the replacements. Without this parameter specified, NetMailBot will not perform any replacements.

6. Invoke the batch file by double-clicking the icon or straight from the command line.
7. NetMailbot should start up and, upon finishing, the email addresses specified with the -to parameter should each receive an HTML email message.
8. Have a look at the log.txt file included in the archive to see how a NetMailBot session of this type proceeds.