"read" and import outlook (template) emails into table

[susannanam]

hi all,

i am thinking about a task that i have to solve... outlook emails (a template with fields) will come to a mailbox and i have to "read" and import the answers in the fields into a table where i then keep working on them with forms/lists, etc.
the person who sends emails is not connected to our database, so i cannot offer a form for data entry (unfortunately), that is why we will have to go for outlook email templates... unless there is a better option...i am open for everything and still thinking does anyone have an idea how i could best do that?

thanks
susanna

 

[troester]

What do you mean with "is not connected to our DB"? If he can send emails he has internet connection.
Isn't is possible to give him access to your site? Or an other "public" site with just a form from where you can copy to your DB?

 

[susannanam]

hi troester, unfortuantely they dont want those "dealers" to be connected to the site. so i am trying to find a way, how they can send an email to a certain address and their answers (i can make a template) would automatically import into my database... i am currently thinking and googeling like mad...

 

[cheesegrits]

A starting point would be the 'gmail' scheduled task plugin.

I haven't used it for quite a while, but it's basically an IMAP mailbox reader. Although it's called "gmail", technically it should work with any IMAP server. And I think Exchange would be on port 143 or 993, with /novalidate-cert, so your server would be ...

{mail.yourdomain.com:143/novalidate-cert}INBOX

Try that, and see if you can get it working with your Exchange server.

Unfortunately, with the code as-is it just reads the entire message body into one field (you can specify date, subject, from and body fields). So it won't handle parsing a template out into different fields. But I could probably add some generic way for you to do that in the plugin, like some eval'ed PHP that could return an array of field names and values.

-- hugh

 

[susannanam]

thank you Hugh, i will have a look into it

 

[cheesegrits]

As I said, I haven't tried it for ... oooh, probably 4 or 5 years. So there may be issues. But nothing insurmountable.

-- hugh

 

[susannanam]

thanks troester and hugh for your ideas, much appreciated. for now, i managed to convince the client to go the "normal" route and make an input form...so i am safe for now )))))))

 

[cheesegrits]

Yup, prolly best.

-- hugh