mail merge to email - schedule send time

  • Thread starter Thread starter Diane
  • Start date Start date
D

Diane

Group,
I am trying to test a mail merge to an email and then set a scheduled time
for Outlook to send the emails. Currently, I create the body of the email in
MS WORD 2003, then select the option to merge to email. My document merges
into Outlook 2003 and immediately begins sending emails - this is where I
want to set a scheduled time. Can I configure my OUTBOX to send at a
specific time? If I need to create code with VBA, I'm fine with this, I just
need to know how to handle a "schedule" for my Outlook OUTBOX. Also, I am
not on an Exchange Server.

Thanks,
 
You can't set the outbox for that but the e-mail. See the
DeferredDeliveryTime property.

--
Best regards
Michael Bauer - MVP Outlook

: Outlook Categories? Category Manager Is Your Tool
: VBOffice Reporter for Data Analysis & Reporting
: <http://www.vboffice.net/product.html?pub=6&lang=en>


Am Mon, 9 Feb 2009 08:04:00 -0800 schrieb Diane:
 
Michael,
I'm researching the DeferredDeliveryTime. If I'm understanding this
correctly, the mail merge process will be moved from MS Word to vba code in
Outlook - correct?
With the Outlook vba code, it will connect to my datebase, create the email,
and then use the property of deferreddeliverytime to set the time.

Am I correct on this, I would no longer use the mail merge process from MS
Word?

Thanks for your response.
 
I'm sorry, that was a misunderstanding. I thought you have it in VBA.
Actually, re-writing all the merge stuff yourself in VBA just to get it sent
at a later time seems to be too much of work.

Maybe this could work: You could catch the ItemSend event, set Cancel=True
and the DeferredDeliveryTime, then call the Send method again. The problem
is, you need to know for what e-mails to do this, maybe you can identify the
e-mail by its subject?

--
Best regards
Michael Bauer - MVP Outlook

: Outlook Categories? Category Manager Is Your Tool
: VBOffice Reporter for Data Analysis & Reporting
: <http://www.vboffice.net/product.html?pub=6&lang=en>


Am Mon, 9 Feb 2009 11:36:01 -0800 schrieb Diane:
 
Michael,
Your comment about "re-writing all the merge stuff" being too much
work....actually I think this is where I'm probably headed. But for testing
something simple right now, I'll keep with the MS Word merge to email
process.

Your suggestion, "You could catch the ItemSend event, set Cancel=True and
the DeferredDeliveryTime, then call the Send method again." -- Clarify this
for me, when I process the merge now, MS Word merges to "email", the email is
sent directly to the outbox of Outlook. Are you telling me that I could
catch the ItemSend event while these emails are sitting in the Outlook
outbox?

I'm very familiar with VBA code with MS Word, haven't done any in Outlook,
but assuming there won't be much difference.

Thanks for your interest with this post.
 
I haven't tried with a merge from Word but from Outlook. When you click Send
and the e-mail goes into the outbox, the ItemSend will be fired.

Simply put this into ThisOutlookSession in Outlook to test whether it works
for you or not:

Private Sub Application_ItemSend(ByVal Item As Object, Cancel As Boolean)
msgbox item.subject
Cancel=true
End Sub

It should display the subject of the message and cancel it. (Don't forget to
remove at least the Cancel=true, else you won't be able to send an e-mail
anymore...

--
Best regards
Michael Bauer - MVP Outlook

: Outlook Categories? Category Manager Is Your Tool
: VBOffice Reporter for Data Analysis & Reporting
: <http://www.vboffice.net/product.html?pub=6&lang=en>



Am Wed, 11 Feb 2009 11:42:00 -0800 schrieb Diane:
 
Michael,
I've tried your suggestion, although it did not work for me, the emails sent
with the "cancel=true", although, I'm not certain that the "ItemSend" was
invoked. This was the first example that I have tried with VBA in Outlook,
I'm can easily follow your example.

OK - let me ask....
Right now, I have a process that sets up on an average 30,000 emails.
The MS WORD document connects to a server database, merges the email addres,
salutation, customer #, etc... It works, although, I want this to be an
unattended process. I have a user that will mail merge 1 - 5000, 5000 -
10,000, etc, until all complete.

Can you offer advice to me, would you:
1) Create a VB program to process this with Outlook
2) Move the mail merge process from MS Word to Outlook, allowing me to have
control of the "time send" property. I'm assuming I can connet to a server
database with Outlook, just the same as I do with MS WORD.

I am using MS Office 2003. I have access to VB.Net, and also have VS Tools
installed. Now, knowing what I'm doing, and what I am tring to accomplish,
what would be your suggestion for me?

Thanks for your continued posts!!
Diane
 
Diane, right now, Outlook or Word can do all the merge stuff - and that's a
lot. Before coding all of that from scratch I'd look for a workaround to get
the e-mails sent at a later time.

Please try my suggestion, and use a mail merge from Outlook. Then you just
need to know the subject (or anythign else) to identify which message to
defer.

--
Best regards
Michael Bauer - MVP Outlook

: Outlook Categories? Category Manager Is Your Tool
: VBOffice Reporter for Data Analysis & Reporting
: <http://www.vboffice.net/product.html?pub=6&lang=en>


Am Fri, 13 Feb 2009 08:52:01 -0800 schrieb Diane:
 
Back
Top