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Sending Email Best Practices - What are they?

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    Sending Email Best Practices - What are they?

    Web app running 6488 (standard app server).

    Within my app are a variety of automatic emails (and some manual). Currently I'm using Alpha to send these emails: email_send_noprofile(). This works fine, but, there is a pause that the user experiences as Alpha connects to the email server, sends the email, and waits for a response back. It's this pause I want to avoid. I'm imagining many users sending or initiating an automatic email within my app and the app server instance gets bogged down.

    I've recently started to have the Microsoft SQL database handle my automatic emails through triggers using: msdb.dbo.sp_send_dbmail. This works well too but I am wondering if my SQL DB is sending a lot of emails if that would slow down the responsiveness of the DB. Anyone know?

    There is also the option of building my email system in runtime and initiating that as needed. Often times the user wants to email a file that was already uploaded to AWS S3 so the pause in Alpha is even longer. I'm leaning towards making all my automatic emails send through the DB and the manual emails sent through a custom runtime routine.

    I'd like to hear other developers thoughts on this. Thank you.

    Mike Brown - Contact Me
    Programmatic Technologies, LLC
    Programmatic-Technologies.com
    Independent Developer & Consultant​​

    #2
    A work queue and runtime processor for that is highly recommended.

    Selwyn's example when the work queue was first released was about the email delay. We've implemented a work queue, processed by a separate runtime instance. The runtime processes work queue records every 60 seconds. We've added much more to that over the years including long-running reports.

    -Steve
    sigpic

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      #3
      Thanks Steve. I've found this Work Queue in the documentation. I'll read up on it.
      Mike Brown - Contact Me
      Programmatic Technologies, LLC
      Programmatic-Technologies.com
      Independent Developer & Consultant​​

      Comment


        #4
        This work queue is intriguing to me. Reading up on it, it seems that Alpha basically provides you the ability to add tasks to a Work Queue, but leaves the developer in charge of actually processing it. Alpha recommends possibly using an Xbasic script (or other process) that does the work specified and then possibly sleeps for a minute and then checks for more work. Sounds simple enough. My question (forgive me if this is obvious) is what actually kicks off the worker queue? How do I ensure it is always running? I can manually start it, but if the server is ever restarted, do I have to manually remember to start it every time. What is the best practice for this? I am using IIS Server and Alpha build 6488 if that is helpful. Thanks.

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          #5
          I use Windows Task Scheduler to run a bat file how ever often I need. The bat file runs a command line string that initiates and runs a script in Alpha runtime. I think your first step is to (if you don't already have it) buy a runtime license. I don't know how much that is. You'd have to talk to Alpha sales.
          Mike Brown - Contact Me
          Programmatic Technologies, LLC
          Programmatic-Technologies.com
          Independent Developer & Consultant​​

          Comment


            #6
            Yes I have used Runtime before. Perhaps I can just schedule it to run on Logon of the server. Then my Work Queue processor can just sleep for a minute if there is no work to do. Not sure if there is any downside to this continuous loop method as opposed to simply running the task every few minutes and then exiting.

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              #7
              Originally posted by Steve Workings View Post
              A work queue and runtime processor for that is highly recommended.

              Selwyn's example when the work queue was first released was about the email delay. We've implemented a work queue, processed by a separate runtime instance. The runtime processes work queue records every 60 seconds. We've added much more to that over the years including long-running reports.
              Hi Steve,
              I have never looked at the workQueue before but it could really be powerful,
              I watched all of Selwyn's videos. The missing bit for me is it ends with him showing the Work queue record with the xbasic Script in the field... How do create a process to run that xbasic?

              Thanks Bruce

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                #8
                A couple years ago at Alpha Devcon, Pete Conway asked me for info on how to implement this. I made a video for him, and I think a file/sample package. My method works with A5 runtime, and uses the timer on a runtime form to trigger the process every 60 seconds.

                I know I still have the video - just checked to verify that. So if you want the video -- and if I can find it any file/code examples -- send me an email at [email protected]

                -Steve
                sigpic

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                  #9
                  Yes - Thanks Steve it was very helpful.
                  Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.
                  Albert Einstein, (attributed)
                  US (German-born) physicist (1879 - 1955)

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