We are on v6 and looking at v7. Of our 32,000 members we email nearly 8,000 (and growing fast) an e-newletter every 2 weeks.

The email is html, conforms to a design template, contains a variety of event booking links and the subject line is personalised with ConsID and name. We have also added stats for message opens and clickthroughs.

Currently we export the names, consID and emails and import them to a 3rd party emailing software, that way we are always accessing the most current data from one source ie RE.

I want to explore if v7 will give us any other options, my understanding is:
1 Straight from RE (but plain text and no merge of details)
2 MailMerge using email facility in MS-WORD (limited html, slow and still export)
3 NetMail (some integration)
4 API (build from scratch a bolt-on)
5 Export and dispatch via mail server or an ASP

Does anyone have any other ideas or experiences to share? Am I missing an option, does anyone have a brilliant solution they want to share? Has anyone developed any new application they would like to 'sell'?

Thanks in advance

Tim Roberts
Online Manager
Art Gallery Society NSW
www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/membership

--- Edited at 11/29/2003 8:58:08 PM by society

--- Edited at 11/29/2003 9:00:12 PM by society

If your third party mailler works well and you have your templates set up, I would not change it. (I always say, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it, just make it better." A new twist on an old expression. What I would recommend to you is that you look into the possibilities of your mass mailler. It seems to me that the problem you are having is constantly exporting a list and "Merging" it with your mailler. Maybe your mailler can access data through an ODBC. If so, you would be able to access your live data any time without an export. To access RE through ODBC, you need RE:Open (RE7.5 and lower) or with RE7.6 on SQL server 2000, you have direct access to your data. William da Silva President, eSimpleIT Technology and organisation simplified [Email Removed]