Recipe7.Mail Merge

Recipe 7. Mail Merge

Email has long been recognized as a true killer appand it's a vital communication tool for workgroups of any size. Although individuals send email all the time, a mass email capability is advantageous in many situations, especially where workgroups are concerned. One advantage of a Web applicationbased emailer versus individual email clients is that a history of all sent email is maintained. Another plus is that email can be sent to dynamically created groups.

The Mail Merge application allows workgroups to search for a group of recipients or to email a series of individuals. If the user chooses to send to a selected group, those recipients' email addresses are listed in the BCC field of the email. The email can be composed of either plain text or HTML. The user can even set the priority of the email. The application includes both a master page and a detail page of email information for administrators.

The most difficult part of developing an email application is actually sending the emailand, with a little custom code, it's not difficult at all. After the custom email function is executed, a standard Insert Record server behavior stores the relevant data for later inspection. Our Mail Merge application includes three user-based pages and two administrator-oriented ones.