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[samuelbrr]

Hello,

I am looking for a little help, basically I have created a system and I can create and send letters from it but what I would like is to be able to save the letters so that when we send one there is a log in the customer documents section (even if we add the link, log manually but it must have a click option to open the document) is there anyway to do this?

 

[The_Doc_Man]

Depends. Are we talking paper printed documents that get land-mailed? Or are we talking Outlook and e-mail?

Basically, the way to do either is to save the document as a separate file in a folder you set aside to hold your repository. Save the name of the document using some sort of random or sequential "name" generator. (Which admittedly can lead to some rather ugly names...) Hold that name in your DB when you make the entry for that letter.

When you are ready to do a "click to open" on that letter, you have to find it on the form you are using. Under the "show me" button, you need to launch the application that wrote the letter. Word? Outlook? Something else? Using the known file name and location, you can create the application, open the file, and display it. When you are done with it, your user will have to click the Close button or do a File>>Close or something like that. When your form regains focus, you can close the app and go about your merry way.

The reason I don't give more direct response is 'cause I don't know which app you are using. I believe some application objects exist in the sample DBs posted as part of this forum's general topics, in one of the "sticky" lists.

My best advice is for you to read up on Application Objects in Access Help, then go to the app you use and see what the Help files there will tell you about "automation" of that app. I know Word has some help for you. If you aren't using Word, you'll have to search the app Help files for Automation or Common Object Model (COM) or ActiveX - one of those three topics should be what you need.

 

[Pat Hartman]

Do you actually need to store the letter or could you just store a record of the fact that you sent a letter? Many databases use a table to hold the ClientID, SentDate, and LetterType. That allows them to record which letters were sent to which people and when. This structure also allows easy analysis if you need to do that also. Perhaps, you also need to store information regarding the customer's response. You would just need to add a couple more columns to the table to handle that requirement.