Getting Currently logged in user email & pw

[gaby_h]

Context: application is used by a specific companies with a limited nbr of users/employees. No outside users are allowed

When sending emails I am using:
email_smtp_open(ps, "your.domain.com", 25, "[email protected]", "UserPassword")
where:
"your.domain.com" is the same for all employees
"[email protected]" specific to each logged in user/employee
"UserPassword" specific for each logged user/employee
So evidently the last 2 (pieces of info must be grabbed upon user login so that they can be used later on in the session when the user needs to send an email. Therefore they must be stored in a table. My current thinking is:
- Create a new table to store email data, and use user's ulink value to create a record in that table; meaning I have to personally create the records with the ulink values and dummy email data for each employee and then get them to login and assign their own email values. It would be much more practical if in the Users&Groups Alpha allowed free fields where such info can be entered.

I am curious how other developers are handling this issue (grabbing current user email data to be used in email_smtp_open()) and if there is a more intelligent approach

[aburningflame]

Re: Getting Currently logged in user email & pw

Does your ulink already link to a table?

Usually you have the websecurity_users table. Then you create a web_users, or person, or personnel, or employee or whatever table name you'd like.

The ID field in this matches the ulink in websecurity_users.

Based on your requirement that each user has a SMTP address and password you would add 2 fields to your web_user, person, personnel table (smtp_address,smtp_password) respectively.
Also you might want to store the "your.domain.com" and the port in a generic system_setting table (Setting Name, Setting Value).

You can write a function to SendEmail where you pass in the user id, and this would open a connection and lookup all your information and you would be able to re-use this functionality anywhere in your application.
Example:

SendMyEmail(ulink,pointer_email_message)

You're on the right track.

If you need any help implementing it you can send us an email and we would love to help..

"I am curious how other developers are handling this issue (grabbing current user email data to be used in email_smtp_open())" - Normally, I dont think each user has a username/password for the SMTP. In some of our systems we have a generic SMTP user/Password. Example [email protected] and then in the Email SUbject you can append the user's name who is sending the email.

In this case you would store all the smtp information in the system settings tbale (as it is not user specific) and you would write code to append information to any outgoing emails.

E.g

Sent From: {first_name} {last_name}

If you need assistance with any of this, feel free to shoot me an email and we can discuss what level of assistance you need.
We could possibly even build you samples if required.

Good luck Gaby!

[gaby_h]

Re: Getting Currently logged in user email & pw

Thanks Scott for you informative post. It has shed light on my path but still a bit confused:

Does your ulink already link to a table?

I have an employee table with the usual empid, name, etc... and emailusername which is different form the user login name. In our system each user has his/her own email address: [email protected], [email protected], etc...
Then in Web Security Users&Groups I have everybody with userlogin name (not the same as email username) and pw, and ulink which is his/her empid
Then in my tables I have a userid that gets populated with ulink/empid value on record creation.
Is that what you mean by 'Does your ulink already link to a table' ?

Usually you have the websecurity_users table. Then you create a web_users, or person, or personnel, or employee or whatever table name you'd like.

That's where I get confused. What's the 'websecurity_users' table? Is that something that I should create or is it generated by Alpha5?
I suppose websecurity_users table is different from my employee table. If 'websecurity_users table' is internally generated by Alpha, is there a way to access it and add fields to it or not?

You can write a function to SendEmail where you pass in the user id, and this would open a connection and lookup all your information and you would be able to re-use this functionality anywhere in your application.

How do you lookup the info? With sql_lookup() function or some other mechanism?



Thanks again Scott

[aburningflame]

Re: Getting Currently logged in user email & pw

Hi Gaby,
Based on your responses I'm assuming you are using DBF format.

When you use the Web Security in the Alpha IDE you are adding to tables named websecurity_users, websecurity_groups,websecurity_members (user-group relationship table).
The reason you don't know about these tables is because they are generated by Alpha. A user who has migrated to MySQL will have seen these tables at some point.

'Is there a way to access it and add fields to it?'
Alpha IDE (when youre adding users), programatically using the a5ws_* functions such as a5ws_save_webuser_values

How do you lookup the info? With sql_lookup() function or some other mechanism?
sql_lookup function is used with AlphaDAO connection strings (MySQL and SQL for sure, I dont know about other dbs).

Im not sure if you can use sql_lookup with the alpha DB, although based on that I am sure there is a lookup() function.


At the moment I am working on a client project, so I can't spend time giving you an example. However, if you are looking for someone to help you
with this piece, we would be able to help. (We can work 1-on-1 so that you get this done and learn at the same time). - Im actually replying to you from home on my own personal time.

Our support rates are pretty flexible and I'm sure if you shoot me an email, we can discuss a reasonable support rate.

[gaby_h]

Re: Getting Currently logged in user email & pw

Thanks Scott for your time. I am using mysql. I see more clearly now. Thanks again.

[aburningflame]

Re: Getting Currently logged in user email & pw

No problem.

Based on the new information:
add a user_smtp_username and user_smtp_password columns to your employee table. Then you can do this

if eval_valid("session.__protected__ulink") then
      dim args as SQL::Arguments
      args.set("ulink",session.__protected__ulink)
      dim user_smtp_username as C=convert_type(sql_lookup("::name::conn","employee","empid=:ulink","user_smtp_username",args),"C")
      dim user_smtp_pass as C=convert_type(sql_lookup("::name::conn","employee","empid=:ulink","user_smtp_password",args),"C")
     if user_smtp_username<>"" .and. user_smtp_pass<>"" then
          dim pm as P
          pm.to="[email protected]"
          'other email variables

          if email_smtp_open(yada yada, port, user_smtp_username,user_smtp_pass)
               'handle send email call
          else
                'handle errors
          end if
     else
          ?"Could not send email [Could not load SMTP Information]"
     end if
else
    ?"Could not load SMTP information [No User Logged In]"
end if

Once again, if you do require any assistance with your programming or support or you just want to ask a few questions as to how to accomplish something,
feel free to shoot me an email.

Hope this helps gluck!

[gaby_h]

Re: Getting Currently logged in user email & pw

Thanks Scott:
This goes back to my original thought: store the email username and pw somewhere and look them up upon email creation. Thanks again