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Email Attachments

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    #1

    Email Attachments

    I need alpha five to automatically overwrite attachments of the same name when it downloads them and puts them in the attachments directory, rather than adding a number string out at the end.

    Anyone have any ideas?

    Thanks,

    Brandi
    Tags: None
    #2
    RE: Email Attachments

    By design, A5 will not overwrite attachments when downloading email.

    While you may have a specific need for this, I think that most people would not want this because a new email that you received would mess up your historical record of emails.

    Why do you need the attachments to be overwritten?

    A simple solution would be to copy all of the attachments in the attachments folder to a backup folder and then empty the folder before downloading email.

    Comment

      #3
      RE: Email Attachments

      That won't work for me. I already delete the attachments, but there is a possiblity that the user will receive two emails at a time that have the same named attachment.

      What I am doing exactly is this:

      I have store level clients that process data on a daily basis. Each day as they close out for the day, the system automatically generates an email message that gets sent to their corporate office with the most recent 15 days of history in a zip file.

      The controller at the corporate office then checks his email, it downloads the attachments, and puts them in a directory that I have defined. He then in turn imports that data so that he can print reports at his office.

      All works perfectly in theory, except that the stores are open 7 days a week, and the office only 5. My solution to that was to tell the system not to email on the weekends, but where I run into trouble is that if the controller ever is away from the office for a day, the emails will stack up in his box, and in order for the imports to work correctly the files have to have a specific name, so when it downloads them, it adds a zero, a 1 etc to the end of the file name. So there is one file that has the correct name, but the newer files, the ones that really should be getting imported, are the ones getting renamed.

      You are right about "most people", I don't argue that, but your application has to work and be customizable for all people to be truly successful. I think that it would be wise to have a flag setting of some kind, so that the "weird" people like me can accomplish the tasks they need to accomplish. If you really think about it, when you check your email in outlook or yahoo or whatever, you are given the option whether or not you want to download an attachment, but we aren't given that option in Alpha5. It just does it. We have no control or very limited control, so I think we should have the option of overwriting files of the same name. If either of those options were available either the overwrite, or actually having to tell the system to download, my problem would be solved.

      Comment

        #4
        RE: Email Attachments

        Brandi,

        If I understand your situation correctly, if Alpha worked the way you wanted (overwrote files), you would end up losing a days worth of information which I doubt you want. What you should instead do is have your processing script look for all files with a specific prefix and process all files that match. In that way, you can process several days of data at once.

        -Lenny

        Lenny Forziati
        Vice President, Internet Products and Technical Services
        Alpha Software Corporation

        Comment

          #5
          RE: Email Attachments

          You won't loose data unless it uses the first file that it receives. And even then you really wouldn't because it would pick it up the next day. That is why the system exports 15 days at a time.

          It processes several days at once now. I want to avoid unzipping and processing several files from the same store, because it will take too much time. If I just process the last one sent, I get all of the data.

          Comment

            #6
            RE: Email Attachments

            Hi Brandi....

            I skimmed through this pretty fast, but from your last post I think that I get the idea. What If you used Xdialog to list all the files in that special folder in an array & let you choose which one to use as the import. You know that the file names are incrimented so filename03.txt is more current than filename02.txt. Then either delete the all of the files except the most current one that you selected & either rename it to the standard filename that you have setup for the import or continue with your import the file that is left?

            just a thought

            doug



            BRANDI MARQUINA wrote:
            -------------------------------
            You won't loose data unless it uses the first file that it receives. And even then you really wouldn't because it would pick it up the next day. That is why the system exports 15 days at a time.

            It processes several days at once now. I want to avoid unzipping and processing several files from the same store, because it will take too much time. If I just process the last one sent, I get all of the data.

            Comment

              #7
              RE: Email Attachments

              Doug, I like that idea. Even better would be to have the script which does the import build the array of potential import filenames, and where the 'root name' matches, discard all but the one with the highest extension. Would be invisible to the user.

              -- tom

              Comment

                #8
                RE: Email Attachments

                Tom....

                Its great when your only limit is your own creativity..... There are several ways to handle any given situation! Filtering out the unwanted files in the background sounds like a good way to handle it, I agree!

                doug

                Comment

                  #9
                  RE: Email Attachments

                  ...... Now if I could just learn to be creative....life would be good!!

                  Comment

                    #10
                    RE: Email Attachments

                    Thanks everyone for your support. This is what I had done last week, but I guess I was just whining, and wanted there to be an easier way.

                    Thanks,

                    Brandi

                    Comment

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