About Direct Mailer

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Direct Mailer is a Windows 2000 service that is installed with Commerce Server as part of a complete installation, or optionally installed in a custom installation. There can be only one instance of Direct Mailer per server. However, you can have more than one Direct Mailer resource at the global resource level.

The centralized design of Direct Mailer makes it easy to administer. Direct Mailer operates at the Commerce Server global resource level. Each site points to the specific group instance of Direct Mailer to be used for that site. This allows you to partition and load balance the sites that use Direct Mailer.

Direct Mailer supplies a command line interface that you use to create, run, monitor, and delete Direct Mailer jobs, as well as perform job startup and recovery tasks. To configure properties on Direct Mailer, you use Commerce Server Manager.

Direct Mailer performs the following:

  • Manages recurring e-mails as Direct Mailer jobs.
  • Prepares non-personalized message bodies.
  • Generates personalized messages from an Active Server Page (ASP).
  • Formats e-mail message headers.
  • Sets the code-page value (language) and converts message bodies to the correct message type (MIME Encapsulation of Aggregate HTML Documents (MHTML), Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions (MIME), or text).
  • Quickly process large lists of recipients to whom you want to send e-mail messages.
  • Makes file attachments possible.

You can supply a list of recipients to Direct Mailer by using the List Manager module in Commerce Server Business Desk or, when running Direct Mailer in stand-alone mode from the command line, you can specify a list to use (by file name or SQL Server query). For any given list of recipients, Direct Mailer performs the same processing steps through the List Manager objects.

Direct Mailer can construct message bodies from either Web pages or static files. It can also be extended to construct messages using other sources, such as SQL Server templates, by adding custom components to the Direct Mailer pipeline. The Direct Mailer pipeline runs components to screen potential recipients, personalizes e-mail, and sends personalized e-mail. You can add new components to the pipeline, integrate the components with line-of-business systems, or replace them with components supplied by third parties. For information about Direct Mailer pipeline components, see About the Direct Mailer Pipeline.

Direct Mailer can send personalized e-mail messages from a Web page, or non-personalized mailings from a flat text file, to large groups of recipients.

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