Auto FE Updater

User Setup Email Details

The concept is that the Auto FE Updater can create, but not send, an email to a user containing the hyperlink necessary to do the initial setup of an Access application.   The hyperlink is to a shortcut on the server.   You will then enter or choose the user name from your organizations address book and send the email.    See the Settings page for more details on the specific settings.

Note:  You only need to send this email once to a user new to your application.   Once a shortcut has been created on the users system they only need to click on that shortcut to launch the Auto FE Updater and see if there is a new FE on the server for downloading.

Initial Setup of the User Setup Email

The first time you click on the User Setup Email command button, which is present, in a few screens in this utility, the Auto FE updater checks if one of the email clients which supports Windows automation is installed.  Currently this list is only Microsoft Outlook.  .   If so the email client is set accordingly.  

Note: If your email client isn't one of the above see FAQ -My corporate email client isn't supported by the Auto FE Updater.   I'm quite interested in getting your email program working so please let me know.  These are the kinds of technical programming challenges I enjoy!

If none of the above email clients is found then the Generic MAPI option is chosen.  If that doesn't work for you then try the Generic mailto option.

If either of the generic options don't work for you then you will need to use the Copy Subject to Clipboard and Copy Body to Clipboard command buttons.   You will then have to manually paste in the HTML or the text into your email program.

The initial setup also creates, if not already present, a server shortcut.   The server shortcut name is defaulted to the same name as the configuration file.     The initial setup will also create default email subject and text and HTML bodies.  You may change these to suit your requirements.   Note that changes made in either the email text or HTML fields are not automatically made to in the other field.

The variable %ServerShortcutName% must be retained in the HTML and text email bodies so the proper server shortcut path and file name including .lnk can be placed in the emails.

Note:   If you are testing the Clipboard - HTML format option it won't paste into Notepad.  You must use Microsoft Word or other software that understands HTML formatted data in the clipboard.

Chances are that the Clipboard - Text format option won't be formatted properly for the recipient.  For example you will likely need to use whatever means are necessary in your email program to flag the hyperlink text as a hyperlink.  Otherwise the user won't be able to click on it when they receive the email.

Sending emails via Outlook

In my testing with Outlook if Outlook wasn't already running the emails weren't sent until I manually opened Outlook a while later.  Then they were automatically sent.  I suspect most users of Outlook in a corporate environment keep it running all the time so this shouldn't be an issue.   Besides you have to enter the users email address anyhow.