Would you know any good descriptions on how to import into a notes app a form returned to the inbox (itself another notes app) via email?
I would send this form from an application, and it is not clear how, once the form is returned in my inbox, I could import the user input back to the app.
Most books on the subject avoid this topic saying “design your applications to use doclinks”, but they forget to mention that this results in needing the app reside on a server so that it can be accessed by process participants, which raises some security issues. I want to avoid this.
I simply want to send forms from the app via email, receive the form in my inbox, import form results into the app, and on and on.
Any suggestions on good tutorials, books or step by step explanations on this subject would be appreciated.
Maybe I could identify the form through the DocumentID and query one of the views in the inbox, if it is present there?
Please also comment, if the question is not valid, or if I am trying to do sg in vain.
Give the document a unique subject and write an agent to find docs with this subject and process the document for the information you want to extract.
E.g. AGENT RUN INFO - DD/MM/YY.
Search for Agent RUN IFO and process those documents.
Alternatively a better approach is to use a MAIL IN Database and process all documents this dB receives for your information, there is a lot of info in HELP to get you started.
Thanks for the response. I will definitely do a trial run to see how it goes.
Concerning the mail-in database I think I would need a server mail file, which costs money here, and that might be a later option. At the moment I would like to rely on my own inbox.
Most books on the subject avoid this topic saying “design your applications to use doclinks”, but they forget to mention that this results in needing the app reside on a server so that it can be accessed by process participants, which raises some security issues. I want to avoid this.
So your objection to doing this the way that everybody says is the right way to do it is due to “security issues”? Domino security is, when used as designed, pretty much foolproof, so unless you can describe these security issues, my reaction is to tell you that the books are right. I’m willing to bet that there are simple, straightforward security measures built into Domino that you simply aren’t aware of yet which will handle this just fine.
And it sounds to me like you want to use server-based databases for this app, anyway: namely, the users’ mailfiles. How is Domino security on a server database acceptable on mailfiles but not on a central db?
It certainly is possible, perhaps even trivial, depending on how involved you want to get, to do what you want with a stored form. However, you’ve seen already that this is not the recommended method, so I will ask a second time: Please explain these security issues, and we can see if they really do prevent you from doing things the “right” way.
The security issue is that putting any kind of app on one of the company’s server would require several approvals, security checks, and money as well. Budget is tight, so I doubt I would get approval. At the momemnt it is best to go towards least resistance and just have the application as local. Once I have tangible proof that it saves the company money, or makes customers happier then I can maybe propose for a server app.
I did breeze through the setup of security for server apps and some time will be required for mastery. Once I get there I will probably return to the forum with more specific question. So, the problem is not as much lotus security, but organizational constraints.
Today I think I came up with a nice solution to my problem, namely storing a submit button in the form visible only to me, and once the participant returns a form in my inbox, I would click the submit button and that would transfer the field values to my local app. I will be exploring this now. What do you think?
Your idea is a good, simple way to handle “manual mail delivery” to a local database which has no server replica.
The biggest issue with your “local prototyping” idea is that you’ll need to use stored forms in order to implement it, but once the app matures to a server-based app, you’ll want to get rid of the stored forms, which will fundamentally change the UI. Instead of receiving and email which is hte actual form to fill out, the users will receive an email containing a doclink or button they click to get to the form to fill out.
I will be exploring this now. What do you think?