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Introduction

Welcome to the SENT!

This App is middleware for the FileMaker Platform to allow communication between your own FileMaker App and an SMTP Server. It allows you to create an HTML email directly from FileMaker and send this email to your recipients.

The App is built using Javascript and executes in a FileMaker Webviewer. No need to download unnecessary 3rd party plugins as we use native custom functions to build the code for the webviewer. If you can get around FileMaker, you'll find SENT incredibly easy to use.

You can view webviewer examples to the right of the screen.

Getting Started

Download

You can download our demo file here.

It contains everything you need to get started.

Compatibility

We believe that you should always strive to have the latest version of FileMaker, however we know that isn't always possible. To accommodate this and to include as many version as possible, we have tried tp make SENT compatible with a minimum of FileMaker Pro 14.

The following versions are compatible with SENT

FileMaker Platform macOS Windows
18 Pro Compatible Compatible
Runtime Compatible Compatible
17 Pro Compatible Compatible
Runtime Compatible Compatible
16 Pro Compatible Compatible
Runtime Compatible Compatible
15 Pro Compatible Compatible
Runtime Compatible Incompatible
14 Pro Compatible Untested
Runtime Compatible Untested
13 Pro Incompatible Incompatible
Runtime Incompatible Incompatible
FileMaker Platform Compatibility
18 Go Untested
17 Go Untested
16 Go Untested
15 Go Untested
14 Go Untested
13 Go Incompatible
FileMaker Platform Browser Compatibility
18 Webdirect Safari Compatible
18 Webdirect Chrome Compatible
18 Webdirect IE Incompatible
17 Webdirect Safari Untested
17 Webdirect Chrome Untested
17 Webdirect IE Incompatible
16 Webdirect Safari Untested
16 Webdirect Chrome Untested
16 Webdirect IE Incompatible
15 Webdirect Safari Untested
15 Webdirect Chrome Untested
15 Webdirect IE Incompatible
14 Webdirect Safari Untested
14 Webdirect Chrome Untested
14 Webdirect IE Incompatible
13 Webdirect Safari Incompatible
13 Webdirect Chrome Incompatible
13 Webdirect IE Incompatible

Custom Functions

SENT requires a minimum of 6 Custom Functions. These are:

You need to copy these over from your demo file to your own app.

Updating

Most version updates will take place automatically, however there may be on occassion we have to update the Custom Functions. We'll provide a detailed update proceedure in this event.

Simple Set Up

The quickest way to get set up is to copy the following into your webviewer after you've copied your custom functions over.

SENT ( 

  // Licence Key Provided by us

  "" ;

  // Editor Configuration
  // SENTEditor ( html ; placeholder ; readOnly )

  // html: If you want the Editor to be prefilled with HTML content.
  // placeholder: Placeholder text for when the Editor is empty.
  // readOnly: Flag to disable functionality in the editor.

  SENTEditor ( "" ; "Type email here..." ; False ) ; 

  // Email Accounts available to SENT
  // SENTAccount ( host ; port ; secure ; user ; pass ; name ; address ; isDefault )

  // host: Your SMTP host name.
  // port: Your SMTP port number.
  // secure: Flag if you want to enable SSL.
  // user: Your SMTP username.
  // pass: Your SMTP password for said username.
  // name: The name you'd like to display on the email.
  // address: The email address you'd like to display on the email.
  // isDefault: Flag to say which email account should be the default one selected.

  SENTAccount ( "smtp.fail.com" ; 465 ; True ; "test@test.com" ; "test" ; "Failed Test User" ; "test@test.com" ; True ) ; 

  // Email Configuration
  // SENTEmail ( to ; subject ; priority ; attachments ; cc ; bcc )

  // to: All the email address you want to send to.
  // subject: Subject of the email.
  // priority: Set a prioirty for the email (Options are: high, normal, low).
  // attachments: List of all attachments you want to send from container fields.
  // cc: All the email addresses you want to cc
  // bcc: All the email addresses you want to bcc

  SENTEmail ( ""; "This is a Subject" ; "" ; "" ; "" ; "" )
)

If you have purchased a licence key from us, you will want to place it into the string specified in the code. This will make sure that demo mode is deactivated.

Full Set Up

This example shows you a full set up

SENT ( 

  // Licence Key Provided by us

  "<Licence>" ;

  // Editor Configuration
  // SENTEditor ( html ; placeholder ; readOnly )

  // html: If you want the Editor to be prefilled with HTML content.
  // placeholder: Placeholder text for when the Editor is empty.
  // readOnly: Flag to disable functionality in the editor.

  SENTEditor ( "<p>Hello <strong>World</strong>!</p>" ; "Type email here..." ; False ) ; 

  // Email Accounts available to SENT
  // SENTAccount ( host ; port ; secure ; user ; pass ; name ; address ; isDefault )

  // host: Your SMTP host name.
  // port: Your SMTP port number.
  // secure: Flag if you want to enable SSL.
  // user: Your SMTP username.
  // pass: Your SMTP password for said username.
  // name: The name you'd like to display on the email.
  // address: The email address you'd like to display on the email.
  // isDefault: Flag to say which email account should be the default one selected.

  List (
    SENTAccount ( "smtp.fail.com" ; 465 ; True ; "test@test.com" ; "test" ; "Failed Test User" ; "test@test.com" ; False ) ;
    SENTAccount ( "smtp.fail.com" ; 465 ; True ; "test2@test.com" ; "test" ; "Failed Test User2" ; "test2@test.com" ; False ) ;
    SENTAccount ( "smtp.fail.com" ; 465 ; True ; "test3@test.com" ; "test" ; "Failed Test User3" ; "test3@test.com" ; True ) ;
  ) ; 

  // Email Configuration
  // SENTEmail ( to ; subject ; priority ; attachments ; cc ; bcc )

  // to: All the email address you want to send to.
  // subject: Subject of the email.
  // priority: Set a prioirty for the email (Options are: high, normal, low).
  // attachments: List of all attachments you want to send from container fields.
  // cc: All the email addresses you want to cc
  // bcc: All the email addresses you want to bcc

  SENTEmail ( 

    // To Field

    List (
      "test@test.com" ;
      "test2@test.com" ;
    ) ; 

    // Subject Field

    "This is a Subject" ; 

    // Priority field
    // Either high, normal or low

    "normal" ; 

    // Attachments
    // SENTAttachment ( container )

    List (
      SENTAttachment ( sent::container ) ;
      SENTAttachment ( sent::container2 ) ;
    ) ; 

    // CC Field

    List (
      "test@test.com" ;
      "test2@test.com" ;
    ) ; 

    // BCC Field

    List (
      "test@test.com" ;
      "test2@test.com" ;
    )
  ) 
)

This shows a full example of all the features the custom functions can perform.

Issues

If any issues are found, please contact info@whitespacesystems.co.uk with as much detail as possible.

FAQs

Using GMAIL?

GMAIL and SMTP require a little more work to get going.

Even though Gmail is the fastest way to get started with sending emails, it is by no means a preferable solution unless you are using OAuth2 authentication. Gmail expects the user to be an actual user not a robot so it runs a lot of heuristics for every login attempt and blocks anything that looks suspicious to defend the user from account hijacking attempts. For example you might run into trouble if your server is in another geographical location – everything works in your dev machine but messages are blocked in production.

Additionally Gmail has came up with the concept of "Less Secure" apps which is basically anyone who uses plain password to login to Gmail, so you might end up in a situation where one username can send mail (support for "less secure" apps is enabled) but other is blocked (support for "less secure" apps is disabled). You can configure your Gmail account to allow less secure apps here. When using this method make sure to also enable the required functionality by completing the "Captcha Enable" challenge. Without this, less secure connections probably would not work.

Gmail also always sets authenticated username as the From: email address. So if you authenticate as foo@example.com and set bar@example.com as the from: address, then Gmail reverts this and replaces the sender with the authenticated user.

To prevent having login issues you should either use another delivery provider and preferably a dedicated one. Usually these providers have free plans available that are comparable to the daily sending limits of Gmail. Gmail has a limit of 500 recipients a day (a message with one To and one Cc address counts as two messages since it has two recipients) for @gmail.com addresses and 2000 for Google Apps customers, larger SMTP providers usually offer about 200-300 recipients a day for free.

Why is it in Demo Mode?

Demo mode is activated when our servers can't verify the licence key submitted or when our servers consider you are exceeding your seat allowance with the current FileMaker Pro Webviewer.

Demo mode is rather restricted in the sense that the following occurrs:

If you have a valid licence but are exceeding your seats, you can use the seat management button located in the top toolbar. You'll be presented with a list of all the seats recorded on your account. You can then remove out dated ones as you see fit. You will have to reload the Webviewer for your seat changes to take effect.

Why can't I send Attachments?

The app isn't set up to send large attachments so we have a hard limit of ~5MB. If you have a need to send large attachments, we suggest using another service such as WeTransfer that is geared to sending large attachments over email.

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