TAM notification ability

Hans Manhave · May 18, 2012, 12:28:29 PM

I think it would be nice if TAM had notification ability. I'm thinking that if a report has been run, it sends an e-mail or text to a designated address. That would be very helpful for me. Night Utilities completed -> send notice, Rename done -> send notice, report finished running and waiting for input -> send notice. etc.

I just ran a standard TAM report. Took two hours. I don't mind, I now have the info (120MB file!), but it would have been nice (besides there being an estimation of time remaining) to just leave it and get a message when completed. No, I didn't hang around and wait.

Bob · May 18, 2012, 12:42:06 PM

I agree Hans. I often thought how nice it would be if reports would automatically run on set date and set time (office hours not night utils) to set printer. Then some notification it was done. I get busy and often I'm asked for a report and I forget. Maybe an activity that generates an event (run aged receivables for example), then generate a notification as you say (not a follow-up). While at it I think it would be nice and LONG overdue to be able to take a form letter and merge it into an EMAIL all nicely formatted as it would have on the printer. Would be so incredibly useful in this digital age!

Jeff Zylstra · May 18, 2012, 01:13:04 PM

Quote from: Bob Connor on May 18, 2012, 12:42:06 PM
I agree Hans. I often thought how nice it would be if reports would automatically run on set date and set time (office hours not night utils) to set printer. Then some notification it was done. I get busy and often I'm asked for a report and I forget. Maybe an activity that generates an event (run aged receivables for example), then generate a notification as you say (not a follow-up). While at it I think it would be nice and LONG overdue to be able to take a form letter and merge it into an EMAIL all nicely formatted as it would have on the printer. Would be so incredibly useful in this digital age!

Yes, I like it. Especially for utilities and reports that take more then 10 minutes to run. Some can take several hours, and even much longer than that if you have a large agency and/or large databases. The old DOS based programs used to be able to return a "code" then the program ended. A code of "0" was a successful and normal termination, and other codes indicated what went wrong.

I could be wrong about this, but I'm thinking that users could have Windows generate an e-mail through Task Scheduler if codes were available. It would also be nice if it would send an e-mail after several hours if a report SHOULD have finished but did not terminate correctly for some reason. Any way, there may be some hope for Windows Task Scheduler to do some of this. Someone smarter than me will have to chime in here and flesh out the bones.

And Bob, +100 for the mention of having TAM integrate and generate form based e-mails! And maybe even automatically! There really hasn't been any earth shattering improvements to TAM since e-filing was introduced. If Applied wants to offer users a "value added service", this is your chance! Automating e-mail in this fashion would be a quantum leap forward for TAM, EPIC and Vision, especially as postage gets more and more expensive. It would definitely put another nail in AMS' coffin.

Lance Bateman · May 18, 2012, 01:23:48 PM

Some of what you're talking about (scheduling, routing) is in Vision and I assume in Epic - just not in TAM.

brinkerdana · May 18, 2012, 03:03:57 PM

While at it I think it would be nice and LONG overdue to be able to take a form letter and merge it into an EMAIL all nicely formatted as it would have on the printer

AMEN!!!

Lance Bateman · May 18, 2012, 04:27:41 PM

You can do that with Word - I just sent out about 1000 emails just for that.

Jeff Zylstra · May 18, 2012, 04:56:24 PM

Quote from: Lance Bateman on May 18, 2012, 04:27:41 PM
You can do that with Word - I just sent out about 1000 emails just for that.

Form letter e-mails, where TAM data was automatically inserted into the e-mails and they were automatically attached to the customer screens? If that's the case, how did you do it?

Lance Bateman · May 18, 2012, 05:11:00 PM

When sending out form letters en masse, I don't attach the letters to each, only an activity that references the form letter sent and date, etc.

Quote from: Jeff Zylstra on May 18, 2012, 04:56:24 PM
Quote from: Lance Bateman on May 18, 2012, 04:27:41 PM
You can do that with Word - I just sent out about 1000 emails just for that.

Form letter e-mails, where TAM data was automatically inserted into the e-mails and they were automatically attached to the customer screens? If that's the case, how did you do it?

Jeff Zylstra · May 21, 2012, 10:02:13 AM

Quote from: Lance Bateman on May 18, 2012, 05:11:00 PM
When sending out form letters en masse, I don't attach the letters to each, only an activity that references the form letter sent and date, etc.

Quote from: Jeff Zylstra on May 18, 2012, 04:56:24 PM
Quote from: Lance Bateman on May 18, 2012, 04:27:41 PM
You can do that with Word - I just sent out about 1000 emails just for that.

Form letter e-mails, where TAM data was automatically inserted into the e-mails and they were automatically attached to the customer screens? If that's the case, how did you do it?

Ah. OK. I guess that makes more sense. So what do you do for entering the various e-mail addresses? Just run a report and then copy and past the e-mail addresses? Of course, that wouldn't give you any customer specific data to merge into the e-mail. Just curious.

Lance Bateman · May 21, 2012, 01:30:26 PM

Run report(s) to email, and I can get any customer specific info I need to excel. Then mail-merge in Word from there, with the letters using the specific customer info showing to each email it goes to.

Have you tried the mail-merge to email?

Bob · May 21, 2012, 01:45:31 PM

I'm not sure how others feel but this is not a solution but work around and more work, not less. Exporting should be for advanced needs not simple ones. Like reports, they should have better and more powerful canned reports as Principals want to focus on insurance, not being computer geeks.

I used a system in 2006 that could take anything you print form letters anything, could be done in email. Not as a PDF attachment but actual customized email with all the HTML markup and formatting to make it look professional. No work, hit a button done. As Jeff eluded to earlier, also attached to clients and documented.

Having to export use M$ as a work around is not the same. Not even close. We need to be able to send anything we print to alternately print to an email in same professional look and format. It can be done, was done by someone else in 2003 and I used it until 2006. I want the email body to contain my form letter. Not export to excel, then merge to word in HTML then somehow document all the clients and attach a copy. If I print say a proposal, I want option to print to paper or Print to HTML in email. Again not as an attachment but the actual email.

This is EASY to add and Applied needs to do this. People should write Mr. French. I bet he doesn't even know and would be blown away too being a geek himself. We are in digital age so we should be able to choose our sources in which to send data too and format on fly.

Lance Bateman · May 21, 2012, 02:38:58 PM

Doing mail-merge to email in Word does not attach a pdf - it creates an email with the fields you load in.

Bob · May 21, 2012, 03:06:12 PM

PDF was an example only. No doubt someone will confuse idea with printing form letter to pdf and attaching to email. I used that to stop that thought process. I want to strongly emphasis HTML markup and email body, not any kind of attachment.

Mark · May 21, 2012, 03:17:52 PM

But HTML email is often frowned upon and some emails converted to plain text can be quite difficult to read/follow. Not that i am against your idea, just that I know this is a hole in the solution.

Bob · May 21, 2012, 03:27:59 PM

I agree if you go crazy spam traps hike the score and retain. For most needs would work fine. More professionals in the work place do plain text and not because they know how or why, IT Dept defines that in company policy. Home users are about content all the fluff of the internet. 80% and more of our companies we work with use HTML markup. Often when I convert to plain text, link to view in web page.

Just think today we should have choices not be restricted. Give more imagination to the agencies.