Send email from database fields

Hello,

I would like to get some advice on the following:

I have two forms. One is a form is a contact form that contains Name, Organization, Email and Mobile Email. The other is a simple form that has date / time field and a textbox area which will be used to send email notifications in case of an emergency. I would like to have the alert form connect to the database fields that hold the email addresses and mobile email addresses (two separate fields) and send the message to these addresses. I currently can send emails by manually adding these addresses to a custom action but I would like to automate this by allowing users to create and edit emergency contacts via the contact form and be able to immediately send a message without any backend programming. Any help is greatly appreciated.

Alex Benavides

Hi Alex,

I don't understand quite how you want this to work? Is every email sent to everyone on the list?

You can get the names and addresses from the table by using a DB Load action; then you can send to the list of Emails if you use my custom Email [GH] action - that will accept an array or comma separated list.

Bob

Thank you for your reply. The purpose of the contact form is to give our analysts the ability to add and edit emergency contact information into a database (for easy management). The second form will send an email and SMS to all email and SMS addresses in the database. What I am attempting to create is an alert system so that our analyst can notify important contacts in case an emergency occurs. Would I need to use the DB Multi Record Loader and your custom Email [GH] action to accomplish this? Or is there a more efficient method for accomplishing this?

Thank you,
Alex B.

Hi Alex,

I don't think that there is a more efficient method in ChronoForms. That will work fine if the number of emails is relatively small, a few tens - maybe a hundred. For more than that I'd suggest that you link to a purpose built mailer/SMS component or service. Handling bulk emails really isn’t a ChronoForms design feature,

Bob

Hello Bob,

I appreciate all of your help. I have both forms working now but as I read your message realize that I may need to rethink my direction. I currently have two of your custom Email [GH] actions set to send approximately 120 individual emails each via SMTP. This of course would be only in case of emergency (this year we have had two which would warrant an email). Would this be too much for ChronoForms?

Thank you,
Alex

Hi Alex,

There are two potential problems with using ChronoForms for 'mass' mailing.

+ There is nothing to manage the email flow - so if the mail server overloads then the mailing will invisibly fail. The Email [GH] action does have an option to send out individual emails by looping through the list which may be enough to make this work.

+ There is a risk - if your list gets large - that some users start to report emails as spam (this may not be so with your specialised application). If this happens too much your domain can get black-listed or blocked. If this is at all possible you should use a professional mailing service who have ways to handle the problems.

Bob