Link Access 2007 to outlook 2007

[saoconnell]

Hello,

I currently have a large database of clients in Microsoft Access. Every
month my company send out news letters and invites to the seminars that we
host. I currently do all of this manually which as you are probably aware
very time consuming.

1) Is there a way I can link my access database to outlook so our clients
would be in both, without me having to double input.

2) Once into Outlook can I send a mass mail but keep it personalised, for
example Dear ........?

I hope somebody can help me as this takes up so much of my time and I'm sure
there is an easier way to do this.

Many Thanks in Advance!

Shane

 

[Banana]

Hello,

I currently have a large database of clients in Microsoft Access. Every
month my company send out news letters and invites to the seminars that we
host. I currently do all of this manually which as you are probably aware
very time consuming.

1) Is there a way I can link my access database to outlook so our clients
would be in both, without me having to double input.

2) Once into Outlook can I send a mass mail but keep it personalised, for
example Dear ........?

I hope somebody can help me as this takes up so much of my time and I'm sure
there is an easier way to do this.

Many Thanks in Advance!

Shane

Yes you can link Outlook tables. I don't have 2007 in front of me, but I
imagine that if you click "External Data" on the ribbon, Outlook ought
to be listed among the Import & Link. In the 2003 & earlier, you linked
Outlook by going

File -> Get External Data -> Link Tables

and selecting Outlook as file type in the file dialog.

As for sending mail, it may depend more on how you want it to behave.
For example, you can use DoCmd.SendObject, but it will require user
interaction because of Outlook security requiring that user clicking a
popup agreeing to send the message. Using CDO or Redemption (I've only
used CDO) let you do this fully automatically without any clicking. As
for personalizing the email, I've not done it before but can't imagine
it being too difficult. One possible approach is to loop across a
recordset and update the variables then send the email with the body
referring to the variables and thus personalizing the email.

Best of luck.

 

[Mark Andrews]

Probably best in the long run to just keep client data in the database and
do everything off that.

For emailing:
- lots of ways to send email (docmd.sendobject, smtp components, other ways)
- use a service like Constant Contact

I have some email template code that could help:
http://www.rptsoftware.com/products/email/

Personalization is just a matter of customizing the strings that makeup the
email (body, subject, to, from etc...) at runtime before sending each email.
You can code everything if the email template doesn't change much and just
loop through a recordset of all the clients and send one email at a time.
Just don't send too many or your ISP will shut down your email.

Send me an email if you want to see my new software product that has
built-in email templates for things like sending out monthly newsletters to
clients.

HTH,
Mark
RPT Software
http://www.rptsoftware.com

 

[David W. Fenton]

Yes you can link Outlook tables.

But you don't get access to all the fields in Outlook. Indeed, it's
a rather confusing and random group of fields that the link gets you
and I've hardly ever found it helpful. Automation is the only way to
guarantee access to all the fields you may need.

On the other hand, if the fields you need are there, it should
suffice. I've just never had a situation where it worked out.