Tell me more ×
Personal Productivity Stack Exchange is a question and answer site for people wanting to improve their personal productivity. It's 100% free, no registration required.
up vote 1 down vote favorite

There is an email I need to send out everyday via Microsoft Outlook, which includes the updated information grabbed from some web servers. It takes about ten minutes manually (not that bad).

My question is whether there is a software solution (or my last resort is looking up the OUTLOOK programming API), which would allow me to send template-formatted emails more efficiently.

Thanks.

share|improve this question
you could write a macro in outlook to do it for you. – Raystafarian Mar 14 '12 at 10:16
Per our FAQ, "problems related to software and automation scripts themselves" are off-topic for the site and better suited to Superuser or Stack Overflow. – Adam Wuerl♦ Mar 18 '12 at 15:48

closed as off topic by Adam Wuerl♦ Mar 18 '12 at 15:46

Questions on Personal Productivity Stack Exchange are expected to relate to personal productivity within the scope defined in the FAQ. Consider editing the question or leaving comments for improvement if you believe the question can be reworded to fit within the scope. Read more about closed questions here.

3 Answers

up vote 1 down vote accepted

I actually ended up with a solution very similar to: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/7041938/vbscript-to-send-email-without-running-outlook

Use Windows Task Scheduler to run the following VBScript code (while keep Outlook running):

Set MyApp = CreateObject("Outlook.Application")
Set MyItem = MyApp.CreateItem(0)

Dim MyDate
MyDate = Date

With MyItem
  .To = "abc@example.com"
  .CC = "abc@example.com"
  .Subject = "An email on" & MyDate & "."
  .ReadReceiptRequested = False
  .HTMLBody = _
        "<HTML><BODY></BODY></HTML>"
  .Display
End With
MyItem.Send

Adrian Kingsley-Hughes's VBScript-Programmer's Reference is very helpful!

share|improve this answer
up vote 0 down vote

Have you tried this outlook add-in?

Email Scheduler lets you send emails and files in the future — once or periodically using very flexible schedules.

share|improve this answer
1  
" ... but you cannot control the content of individual emails or delivery using events or variables. ..." Looks like it is not programmable. – Zeiga Mar 15 '12 at 23:12
up vote 0 down vote

It's about $270 but VisualCron would easily let you automate downloading some info off the web and automatically sending it in an email. You can download a 45 day trial version to see if it suits you.

share|improve this answer
for free trial, they don't allow you to add programmable content when sending emails. – Zeiga Mar 16 '12 at 2:31
Assuming you mean specify the body and attachments of a message when you say "programmable content"... sure they do, I am doing it right now as a test..... from the site: "The trial version of VisualCron allows you to use full functionality for 45 days" – Matthew Lock Mar 16 '12 at 2:32
My mistake, looks like they do support variables in the message body. But their trial registration window is pretty annoying. I wish I had enough reputations to vote this one up. Thanks for your answer. – Zeiga Mar 16 '12 at 3:35
You have to register with the forum to get rid of that nag screen. I agree, it's annoying until you do that. – Matthew Lock Mar 16 '12 at 4:26

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged or ask your own question.