I would want to deploy an InfoPath (2007) form to users who at the time of filling the form, may not have internet access, then after filling it out, they can go to an internet cafe, connect their laptops to the internet and submit the form to a public web service. I don't want to deploy to SharePoint, I would just want to send the form directly to the user, something close to what you can do with an Adobe PDF form. Is this possible?
Thanks in advance.
I have done something similar before with Infopath 2003 a couple of years ago. I used submission via email though. The advantages of using the email is that it will sit in the outbox of outlook.
all our forms were emailed to a specific email address with a windows service that polled the inbox of the recieving mailbox to extract the form and continue with the workflow. found this was easier path to take than trying to submit to a public webservice. one was almost submit and forget (apart from opening email). Your scenario requires that the user fill out a form during the day and then remembering to submit when they are next connected to the internet is just asking for trouble, IMO.
People will tend to forget that they have to reopen the form and submit it next time they are online whereas if you submit it via email then the only thing they need to do is open and read their email at the end of the day.
I all comes down to user behaviour. if your users are willing to go through the processes that you are thinking about, then yes it is possible to do what you are suggesting.
Related
I have a software package where a user gains access to the download link through email after they've submitted their email address.
So currently, it goes like this:
User goes to website and clicks "download"
Taken to page to enter in name/email and submit
User gets an email with the download link
The email link takes them to a non-indexed page where a script automatically starts the download after 5 seconds of being on that page.
We have Google Analytics installed on website and can currently track sources/campaigns to submitting for download but nothing beyond this.
We would like to be able to associate the download and install with the email address that the user submitted in step 2 above from the website.
Open to restructuring the process flow to accomplish tracking as long as they have to submit their email address before gaining access to download.
Website is using wordpress. Software is .exe app written with MS Visual Studio in C#.
Thanks in Advance,
Dustin
you need to add token to url parameters that is unique and assigned to that email-address, so you can track it this way.
Original post:
This web application sends out emails which contain a link to a URL.
Correction-Clarification 9/17/2014:
An .EXE running as a scheduled task on a server (in "support" of the web app and connecting to same database) sends out emails which contain a link to a URL.
The nature of the email content is essentially a "reminder"; the link when clicked is essentially an acknowledgement signaling "done".
Resumption of original post follows:
Clicking the link in the email does 2 things at the target .ASPX page:
the page logic updates a database and sends another email to the same user
the page finishes by displaying a "success" message in the browser
Would it be bad design to eliminate the success message sent by the browser?
I'm thinking the opening of the web page just to announce "success" is not needed. If the target URL were replaced with something with no user interface (e.g. HTTPHandler, webservice) then I'm thinking the email sent back to the same user confirming "success" would be adequate.
Yet, part of that approach "feels awkward", I guess because normally clicking on links in emails causes web pages to open. Given these requirements, would this be bad design to eliminate the browser?
UPDATE - 10-17-2014:
see: Submit to HttpHandler results in RequestType GET instead of POST
update below
Actually, it's bad design to have a state change occur based on a GET request. A number of email systems (and virus scanning software) will follow the link in order to determine whether it should be quarantined or not.
Never mind that a GET request causing a change in state is pretty much against how the web is supposed to work anyway.
What should happen is they click the link, then the mail program opens the browser. You then show a page asking them to confirm the action by clicking a button. That buttons makes a POST request which you then act on.
Finally, I'm not entirely sure how you would eliminate the browser anyway. The mail program detects that it's a link and opens the browser once the user clicks on it. This is no different than how things like opening word documents or zip files. The email program just asks the OS what program is supposed to handle the action and passes it off to that program.
With your update, I think there's a much cleaner way. However this is dependent on the capabilities of the email client that'll be receiving the messages. Should be good for the vast majority of them.
In the body of the email, instead of sending a link, include an HTML form that contains a button which performs a postback to your server. See this ( link ) for samples of how some other companies have done it.
This way the action is a single step instead of two AND you aren't doing things the Wrong Way(tm).
I'm building a Membership site using wordpress and Membership Plugin .
The site is still on my localhost. I did some trial sign ups and it worked perfectly well. But I noticed that, I can use even a fake email address such as xyz#gmail.com or something to sign up and create an account. So that's the problem. I don't know how this will work when I moved the site to my server.
But do you guys think this is a security hole ?
And what can I do for this as a solution ?
Here's what I suggest:
On the registration page, add a field where users need to enter a special code to complete registration and make the code as an image (or at least as something robots cannot process easy). This will prevent robots from constantly signing up to new accounts with bogus information.
Next, perform basic email validation to make sure the format is correct.
Next, strip the email address the user entered and verify the domain part is correct and if it is, have your server automatically send an email to the new account holder asking him/her to return to a special section of the site where he/she enters a special registration code assigned to him/her to complete registration.
Also, to save database space (I'm assuming registration info will be stored in one), ask users to complete registration within a limited time period or they will have to start over. If the time is up then relevant data from the database can be removed. I suggest setting the time period to at least one day.
If you are unable to do this, then you may need to find a better plugin that has the functionality I described.
And whatever you do, play with the website on localhost and make as few modifications on the live server as possible. This means make all changes at once on localhost if you can then upload everything at once to the live server.
Users need to fill out an access request and once they are done and hit the submit, it emails the request to their supervisor.
Is it possible to email the entire form(with the user data and also to be filled fields by supervisor) in an email so that the supervisor can select accept and the change would be reflected in a SQL database from Outlook itself?
Emailing the form can be done. Writing an Outlook add-in can also be done. But you'll save yourself a lot of time if you just write an "approval" page in your web app and send a link to this page in the email to the supervisor. You can put any information you want in the email, of course.
ETA: But to actually suggest a solution: you could send an email that included a hyperlink, that included identifying information in the query string, and use that as a way of signalling to a web page or web service that the request should be approved. You'd have to work out something with security and authentication, of course, so that not just anybody could call that page and approve the request.
I have created some webforms that will allow users to fill in their data. Afterwards, the information is processed and inserted into a database with a follow up email to me afterwards letting me know who signed up.
The problem is that I use different email addresses on all of these webforms.
What I would like is some sort of dashboard email application where I can view all the emails being sent to me from one central point.
I think that Thunderbird allows you to receive multiple emails from different accounts. Is something like this even possible?
You can configure just about any email application to receive mail from multiple accounts. Thunderbird does this as does outlook (not outlook express). Just go through the normal process you do to add an account, then go ahead and add another account under a different email address.
Here's a link to a walk through on how to do this on Thunderbird.