| Email Enhancements for QAD MFG/Pro |
| The email enhancements for QAD's MFG/Pro came about from a need to send the output of a report or inquiry directly to an email address. As of version 9.0, with which I started, the was no build in way to do this. On the UNIX side we were able to define an MFG/Pro printer that sent an email address to a shell script which emailed the output. This worked for UNIX users, but it was conviluted. Since we used Windows GUI and UNIX CHUI, it did not make sense to create separate MFG printers to output to email for each environment. That's 2 printers defined for each user. It's bad enough we had to have 2 printers defined for each of our physical devices one GUI and one CHUI. So, I made a few changes to some of the MFG printing include files which are compiled into reports and inquiries. My changes give the ability to choose email as the output and enter the desired address. It will also save the address for the user. For UNIX I still utilitze the email script mentioned before, but for Windows I created a batch file that runs a command line emailer (your choice). I did not have to modify very many files and it should also work with some versions prior to 9.0. I have all ECO's up to version 9.0 SP4. For kicks I also added the ability to output in non-paged mode so users don't have to strip the heading off of each page when importing into other applications like Excel. There is an option to not have the criteria page output. MFG/Pro eB 01 does have email enhancements, but it also relies upon a external command line emailers. My changes overlap eB 01's and it is really a super set. I used the email definition maintenance in eB and I was able to email reports using a couple of different mailers. I found that I could not get the email to work if a report was batched, well mine won't work either since the MFG batch processor would have to modified. There are many things that could be done to enhance the MFG outputl capabilities: add distribution lists, define printers for different environments and filter there use,... I may one day roll my changes into eB and do a little more too. Money would be an incentive. |
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| Command Line Emailers for Windows: |