Save incoming E-mails as text files on server

I've been doing user admin on our Lotus 6 server for a while now, but am new
to scripting/agents. I've been searching the web and newsgroups for about
two hours looking for direction, but haven't turned up anything. I have a
pretty simple problem that I hope has a simple solution. I apologize if
this question has been answered elsewhere... if it has I'd be very happy if
you could point it out to me.

I work for a newspaper. We have an e-mail address reporter-at-domain.com to
which reporters can send stories when they're off-site. I'd like to set up
the Lotus server to monitor that account and when mail comes in to save the
e-mail (probably just the body of the e-mail) as a .txt file in a specified
folder on the server. That folder would then be monitored by our database
server which will import the text files into our news database.

Right now we're doing this with a copy of OE on a seperate computer that
checks the account every 5 minutes and if it finds a new message it exports
it as a text file. But OE freezes almost daily, and we're looking for
something more reliable. I can't imagine why Lotus wouldn't have this
capability.

Thank you for your help!

--
Bill Cable - Steelers fan and Star Wars collector
http://CreatureCantina.com <-- funny!!

On Thu, 12 Feb 2004 15:43:47 -0500, Bill Cable
wrote:



> I work for a newspaper. We have an e-mail address reporter-at-domain.com to
> which reporters can send stories when they're off-site. I'd like to set
> up
> the Lotus server to monitor that account and when mail comes in to save
> the
> e-mail (probably just the body of the e-mail) as a .txt file in a
> specified
> folder on the server. That folder would then be monitored by our
> database
> server which will import the text files into our news database.




Notes has this possibility.

You have to create an agent in the mail-database on the server.
This agent either has to run every time a new document/mail arrives,
or scheduled (every 10 minutes?)

I advice using a scheduled agent and setting a field for every mail
that has been processed. (reduces errors of old documents being
processed if something is changed by an accident in an old document
on the server)

Use lotuscript and write the Body field of the mail together with the
subject maybe.

Check out the notesrichtextitem class for functions to generate the text
and File operations to create the text file.

It is a little programming task, but any half-decent notes programmer
should be able to do this in a few minutes.

Good luck

Jon

PS. English is not my native language, so please excuse any typos
and grammatical errors.

Its possibly a matter of taste but I would trigger the export agent using
the option "before new mail arrives".
John Aylmer


"Jon Leirdal" wrote in message
newspr3atvaed8rbf3l-at-news.interpost.no...
> On Thu, 12 Feb 2004 15:43:47 -0500, Bill Cable
> wrote:
>
>
>
> > I work for a newspaper. We have an e-mail address reporter-at-domain.com
to
> > which reporters can send stories when they're off-site. I'd like to set
> > up
> > the Lotus server to monitor that account and when mail comes in to save
> > the
> > e-mail (probably just the body of the e-mail) as a .txt file in a
> > specified
> > folder on the server. That folder would then be monitored by our
> > database
> > server which will import the text files into our news database.
>
>
>
>
> Notes has this possibility.
>
> You have to create an agent in the mail-database on the server.
> This agent either has to run every time a new document/mail arrives,
> or scheduled (every 10 minutes?)
>
> I advice using a scheduled agent and setting a field for every mail
> that has been processed. (reduces errors of old documents being
> processed if something is changed by an accident in an old document
> on the server)
>
> Use lotuscript and write the Body field of the mail together with the
> subject maybe.
>
> Check out the notesrichtextitem class for functions to generate the text
> and File operations to create the text file.
>
> It is a little programming task, but any half-decent notes programmer
> should be able to do this in a few minutes.
>
> Good luck
>
> Jon
>
> PS. English is not my native language, so please excuse any typos
> and grammatical errors.