Re: How can I do this? error message notification

[pbl...@odstrategies.org]

You'll first need an error handler that can make a log file just in
case the email can't be sent. You'll want a copy in any case of
situations where it might otherwise be lost. A detailed log file will
also show patterns of problems and those are the nasty expensive kind
that clients really need solved. Solving patterns of problems is where
the big payoff comes from.

Making an email application is not very hard if you want to just send
a plain text email message. You can use the log data to format into
some plan text message as you like. If you used a package like NetTalk
you could use the example app and have a working email application in
about an hour for basic stuff. If you did a little more work you
could set up a devoted email account and have a program collect the
mail at some interval at your office and / or home and then parse it
out of the message and save it to a data base. Sort of like
replication of the error log via email.

With a little more effort you could send XML records as attachments
and eliminate some of the parsing. Personally, sending text to a phone
might be fine for a very serious problems but you need to watch out
for cases that result in large numbers of similar error messages being
sent. Since this is an error report it's hard glean enough detail in a
text message to give you a head start on a solution. Having the log
file on site provides a backup method to makes sure you do capture the
data, the notification system might help short cut the solution too.
Texting just to one person could fail and texting to multiple persons
could be inefficient or at least expensive. Texting just a note
"Customer ABC has a serious problem." might be enough for a text
message since you can't send a detailed report that would allow you to
fix the situation with your phone but you could call a real person if
you knew to do so.

The hardest part is capturing enough data at the time of the error to
have any chance of knowing what might be the solution. To get a head
start you need a complete report otherwise you chase down a rat hole
for a while before you contact the customer and get the rest of the
story only to find all the work you had a head start on was wasted.

On 16 Dec 2009 14:29:22 -0500, "MikeL" <mike...@malabs.com> wrote:

>I have an application that run many Process procedures every one minute.
>And I would like to receive an alert message via either send Text to my cell
>or email box once
>Error happened with any Process procedure.
>
>This will make our IT support know the process stopped by Error before
>end-user calls.
>
>How can I do this? thanks
>
>Mike
>
---------------------------------------
Paul Blais - Hayes, Virginia