Thread: windows service send emails every 10 days

Hey everyone its peebman2000, still learning new things about .net everyday. Hey i'm in the process of researching the possibility of adding a functionality to a .net web app i'm currently building for work, that will send an email to users every 10 days.

I've done some research online and I see alot of talk about creating a window services, that will be on the server that will do this function.

I've don't know anything about creating a windows service, i'm mostly a vb.net developer, seems like this is mostly coded in C#. I practice C# from time to time, but mostly a vb.net.

I found this link and it seem pretty good:
CodeProject: Simulate a Windows Service using ASP.NET to run scheduled jobs. Free source code and programming help

It talks of buidling this functionality without window service.

My question is, which would be the better rout to go? Create a window service to send my emails and if this is the better way please give me some newbie window service links to start with.

Or would it be better to just follow this link above and build the email functionality without the window service?

Any ideas or suggestions would be greatly appreciated, thanks.

Okay nevermind my post, I was just told that this functionality can be done using reporting services.

Sorry for the post, its Friday i'm a little out of wack this morning, especially with my boss.

Thanks.

Hey Jmurrayhead, sorry to bring this issue back up, but apparently reporting services won't be able to send out scheduled emails or reminder emails.

So I gave the idea to our network team to have a executable on the server and to use scheduling tasks to run. Well they didn't like that and wont' do it.

So I have to come up with links and ideas to support the idea of doing this. I can't find anything online that suggested and executable on the server is not dangerous. I look at windows server 2003 is just like xp or just more powerful and they both have executables on them, so there shouldn't be an issue; but i'm not a network guy.

Do you have any links or ideas I could use to rebuttal the network team? I also have been researching alternatives to send reminder emails, because the client does want this function. I've researched using database email in sql 2005:
Database Mail in SQL Server 2005

let me know thanks.

Originally Posted by jmurrayhead

Indeed, reporting services would work very well.

Okay i'm playing with it now and the email works, but I have to find a way for it to trigger emails on certain dates. I've found some links about triggers.

I'll keep messing with this and I'll let you know how this comes out.

If you know of anything else in regards to using sql database mail for reminder emails, let me know.

Thanks again for the help.

Originally Posted by jmurrayhead

I think SQL Server 2005 Database Mail is an excellent option. If you can, I'd go with that.

Just a side note here, you can customize the way your Sql Reporting Services delivery options work.

Please see the attached.

I just think it's way easier to automate the report this way rather than executing a trigger, which you can schedule but can get a bit tricky

Hey thanks Lewy, i'm still working with sql database mail. I've found a way to schedule jobs to run sql stored procedures. I was never aware sql 2005 had a scheduling task. I've written a stored procedure that reads or selects from the table and then sends an email. But I keep getting job errors of it not being able to find my procedure.

I'm still working on it.

Thanks again.

Originally Posted by lewy

Just a side note here, you can customize the way your Sql Reporting Services delivery options work.

Please see the attached.

I just think it's way easier to automate the report this way rather than executing a trigger, which you can schedule but can get a bit tricky