How to develop an application for sending email

[user_1]

Hi All

So far i was working with database oriented applications.

Now i have to develop an application to send emails to users.

ie,an application to sen emails to different users and the content of the email being taken from the database.

I dont know the how to set up the email option.How do i start with?

Any special tool kit needed for developing an application like this?

Can anybody help me?


Thanks in advance....

[BillMe]

What version of LabVIEW are you using? Under 8.2 you would use the SMTP (Simple Mail Transport Protocol) VIs under "Data Communication...Protocols...SMTP". There are LabVIEW examples under "Help...Find Examples...Networking...Internet&Web". Take a look at the "E-Mail Notification.vi".

[user_1]

Thank u so much for your reply sir.

I am using labview 8.0.

How can i start with?

Thanking you

[mikeporter]

There are several ways that you can accomplish this:

First, you can use the VIs that Bill mentioned. They come with LV.

Second, you can use a ActiveX control that implements SMTP, like the one from Ostrosoft. I can send you drivers for it, and have had more luck using it in situations where I needs to get emails past corporate spam filters.

Third, depending on the database you are using, the database might be able to send the emails directly. For instance Oracle and SQL Server bith support this sort of functionality.

Hope this helps...

Mike...

[user_1]

Hi Mikeporter,

Thank u so much for your reply.

I could not use the example vi that Bill mentioned as i am using Labview 8.0.

With LV 8.0 also there got one email example-shock absorber performance report.vi but when i was using that i was getting the following error.

"A program is attempting to send email message on your behalf.Would you like to send this message."

If i click ok also,i was not able to send the message even i was trying to send to out look express.

I will have to use MS Access application development environment/MySQL

Can u please help me by providing guidelines using ActiveX control that implements SMTP.Can u send me the drivers also if possible? 

Thanks once again

[mikeporter]

Well the VIs that Bill is referring to ship with LV so you should have them. The message you got is annoying, but if you said yes it still should have sent it. Just make sure that you have all the setup information entered properly.

Something to remember is that email is not point-to-point communications. When you send an email you are actually sending it to a server application that will forward it on to the receiver. Therefore make sure that you can ping the email server that you are using to sent the message. To do this, open a command prompt window and type the command:

ping <the IP address or server name you are wanting to use>

You should get a series of responses back indicating how long it took to communicate with the address. These checks are important because the last time I looked at the SMTP code that NI shipped timeouts are not considered important enough to tell you about. As a result the connection to the SMTP server could timeout and the code would not tell you that the message wasn't sent.

For the ActiveX solution, first you have to download the drivers from the Ostrosoft website. I'll email my VI for using them this evening when I get home.

Mike...

[user_1]

Hai Mikeporter,

Thanks a lot for your informative reply and timely help.

Now i managed to connect to outlook express using a VI that uses SMTP ustilities.

but still i can not send mail to other addresses other than outlook .

I checked ,the SMTP server address is proper but fails to send.

I think i will have to check with  the network Administrator .Because if i can send to

Outlook there should not be problems with others also.

Thanks once Again

[mikeporter]

Sounds like a good course of action. Feel free to come back with more questions after you get over this initial hurdle.

Mike...

[user_1]

Hi Mikeporter,

I have still some doubts on email application.

Iam using SMTP vis that is supplied by Labview.

I have changed the VIs so as to suite for my purpose.

The application can send mails to multiple recipients provided eache recipient's id should be seperated by ' , '

Now i am thinking if i can add cc and bcc options in my application it will be better.

Is there any way to accomplish this?

Thanks in advance

[BillMe]

Far as I can tell, this is not supported by the SMTP VIs in LabVIEW. The recipient list is simply converted to Unicode, there's no distinquishing between "To:", "BCC:", or "CC:" fields.

If you have to have that functionality, I think you're stuck with an ActiveX control.