Running a process in background

rocketman

Morning all - I only have 24 hours to do this after which time I must press the button. I also don't have the ability to test (for reasons which will become obvious) So I'm looking for a definitive answer

It's the annual membership renewal time I have a routine which is of necessity spread over two processes. It involves creating a merged Word document, attaching it to an email and then sending it to a member .... 171 times with each merged Word document unique to each member.

The processes are working perfectly and on limited testing to 5 members - best guess estimate to complete is 2 to 2 1/2 hours

Process 1 has a user interaction (PICK ONE OR MORE FROM) and I'm reluctant to automate the process which would deny the option to make final adjustments (although I will if someone says that's the only way)

Process 2 has no user interaction it just creates the mail with the appropriate attachment and sends it to the list picked in process 1

I currently have BOTH processes set to "If process takes longer than 10 seconds run in background" The problem is the routine never goes to sleep So I figured that although it takes about 14 seconds to comlete - neither process is taking more than 10 seconds per iteration.

So My questions are

1) Can I set the "Longer than" duration as low as say 1 second (and if so, will that clobber the pick from statement

2) Do I need the timer on process 2 or should the "sleep" state be termine by process 1

3) Should I perhaps put the the Pick from statement in its own opening statement so that the (then) processes 2 and 3 contain no interaction

4) If I can get it to work - what would happen if the initiator user logs off and goes to bed - or that user's session times out?

RocketRod

I'm probably not answering your questions but what I always do this type of processing in two steps.

Step 1 creates the message with the attachment. Step two involves sending it. This allows me to do a random check on emails before they are sent and I can then send them off either altogther knowing they are ok or in batches .

I always play safe and by splitting the creation of the email and attachment and sending of the email into two parts it puts the processing times into reasonable limits.

Cheers Rod

rocketman

Hi Rod,

Thanks for the reply - in actual fact after a full morning of playing around, I've bitten the bullet and automated the process so it will kick off on Friday when everyone is asleep. We've been through our lists and are confident they are clean - so fingers crossed.

No matter which way I tried - I just couldn't get the processes to go to sleep (I went down as low as 1 second) . I guess this is one area which AwareIM should do some work on - but as it's not a real show stopper - I won't hold my breath. There are other things I'd rather have than the abilty to put the odd process to sleep. An Explicit "RUN IN BACKGROUND" might be a good option for the future

[deleted]

Rocketman,

I am curious how this went? Did the process complete successfully?

rocketman

Hi James,

It all went very smoothly thanks for asking. I use the scheduler a lot to cut down the workload for our part time office staff. Things like Duty reminders, negative account balance reminders, reminding pilots to get their medical certificates renewed. All the things a machine is great at but humans sometimes forget.

So if there is a reason behind the question, just post it and I'll do my best to help

[deleted]

I will need to do the same sometime. The 2-2.5 hour estimate seemed a long time for 171 emails, what was the actual time.

I will have over 2000 in one mail out.

rocketman

No idea how long it took. I only checked the mail logs to make sure they all went.

The attachment which was a 5 page merged Word Document containing a total of around 60 merged attributes and 2 List_tables was the bit that took the time. The actual mail send was a matter of minutes

Gabbitas

Rocketman,

If I read your posts correctly you are managing to create a merged word document containing data from AwareIM and then your are attaching it to an email also created in AwareIM and then sending it to a user of your business space?

Would you be able to share with me how you manage to accomplish this?

The biggest question I have is how do you manage to create the merged document and then 'bring it back' into AwareIM? When I create merged word docs they are downloaded to the clients machine?

Thanks,

Andy

rocketman

Hi Andy,

Sorry for the delay - been a bit busy these past few days.

This May not be possible unless you have a developer edition because you may not have a BS called UserDefDoc

I create the Word document locally using the <<BS.Attribute>> syntax wherever I need to insert variable data into the doc - and then upload it into UserDefDoc (Example <<Members.Firstname>>)

Now here's the key. You also need an attribute of the document type in the BS that contains the people you want to send to. In my case it is members in your case it might be contacts or customers etc etc. For the sake of understanding my code, mine is called Members.RenewalLetter.

So - before you start the email process, you need to a) select the letter you want to merge and b) transfer the document into the Members record - AND you need to split this into two processes

In my case, I also create the email text and save it in a BS I call BulkMail. This is just for the email text and subject - DON'T attach anything to this email

So now I have my document prepared AND the email text I want to send

So process one would be something like
PICK FROM BulkMail (allows me to select the correct email)
PICK FROM UserDefDoc (allows me to select the correct Word Document
FIND (or PICK FROM) the users/customers/members you want to email to

Then I chain to a second process which must have three BO's listed in the right column for process input - mine are called BulkMail, Members and UserDefDoc. These are all the items that were selected n the previous process and which need to be carried over

The process does:
Members.RenewalLetter=UserDefDoc.UDD_Name THIS IS THE IMPORTANT LINE - and it is important that you use UDD_Name and not any other attribute otherwise all you will get is a document with <<BO.Attribute>> visible and nothing will be merged. This will iterate through the selected contact/members and merge the letter with the data for each contact/member

CREATE BulkText_Renewal WITH BulkText_Renewal.Attachment1=Members.RenewalLetter

SEND BulkText_Renewal TO Members

You have to use CREATE before the send so that you can attach the merged letter to the email. SEND won't do this on its own

Once process 2 completes it will fall back to process one, so I usually put a DISPLAY MESSAGE at the end of process 1 to tell the user everything has finished

BulkText_renewal has the following html code in the Message attribute (set as Standard text)

Dear <<Members.FirstName>>

<<BulkMail.Message>>

<<LoggedInMembers.Firstname>> <<LoggedInMembers.Surname>>
DLGC Office Administrator

General email to all or selected members of the <<SystemSettings.BusinessName>>

Hope this helps. PM me if you need any further advice