Joe van Niekirk - Messaging Technology and its Uses

by George Cobaugh

Published 1997-09-01    Printer-friendly version

Here I am, enjoying another enlightening and informative session at TopSpeed Corporation's DevCon 97. Just like the theme from Mardi Gras Night (the welcome reception) Laissez les bon temps roulez (Let the good times roll!), the sessions seem to be Let the good information roll. Messaging technology is something that, if we have not yet tackled it, then we certainly will in the not too distant future. It was also in line with the overall theme of this year's DevCon: Staying Connected, Networking People With Technology.

Mr. van Niekerk effectively explained what messaging is and how to harness this technology in our applications to enhance data acquisition and storage in a distributed environment. Here are some excerpts from his presentation.

Messaging is:

Messaging is generally defined as "The transfer of data through a store and forward mechanism"; the most basic, but still powerful, option being email. Forrester Research, when analyzing the explosion in email reported that "e-mail will be the first communication technology to rival the telephone as an inexpensive way to communicate". And "e-Mail will reach a majority of U.S. consumers by 2001".

This is mainly due to the ease of use and clarity of text messages, and the rise of the Internet and other on-line services. This brings up the potential for our applications to use this existing infrastructure. How does this affect us as application designers, and what types of applications would we want to implement messaging in? Mr. van Niekerk gave us the answer to these questions also.

Using this technology in our applications

Window's MAPI (Mail API) gives us a way to connect with the mail client and our applications. Using MAPI, the key to Windows Integrated Messaging, we can use one methodology in our application to communicate with the various clients available today. Like POP3 and SMTP for internet mail, WinCim for compuserve, Lotus Notes Mail, and Groupwise, to name a few.

The most exciting and useful aspect of using this technology presented by Mr. van Niekerk, at least to me, is in Data acquisition and collection to/from remote sites to/from the main network. He characterized these functions as 'Prioritization mechanism for database access' and a 'Data Pump Application'. Also very useful is the automating of e-Mail and fax generation.

Your application could use the access mechanism by e-Mailing SQL statements to select data, along with a priority code. This could then be processed by the database server (Oracle for instance) and returned as an attachment file in a reply e-Mail to the requesting remote client. The data could then be used in a local application by the end user.

A few typical Data Pump Applications would be sales personnel, on the road, collecting sales orders or customer information, and then sending as attachments via e-Mail to be processed by the applications at the home office. An employee working at home could also use this to send data to be collected and stored on the server at the office. My favorite example of an application using this technology is when there are numerous remote sites collecting or changing data independently of each other and then sending to a central site to update main database. A POS system in multiple outlets would fit this category nicely.

Reports are faxed on a regular basis with today's business applications. A CW application generating the report as .WMF files to be previewed could be captured and sent as attachments. Then a CW application on the receiving end could process the .WMF files to allow them to be previewed or stored for later printing.

These are a few of the uses of messaging technology that were pointed out by Mr. van Niekerk during his presentation. We could code this functionality into our applications ourselves, or use the MAPI templates he markets through Stealth Software cc. They are also available through the TopSpeed Corporation third party catalog. His templates would perform these kinds of tasks without our having to write a single line of code in our applications.

This is another example of a solution to problems most of us face as application designers in today's business world. I am looking forward to even more solutions being presented here in sunny Ft. Lauderdale FL. at TopSpeed Corporation's DevCon 97.

Printer-friendly version

Copyright © 1999-2008 by CoveComm Inc. All Rights Reserved. Reproduction in any form without the express written consent of CoveComm Inc., except as described in the subscription agreement, is prohibited.

Clarion Magazine ISSN 1718-9942