Category Archives: Total Access Emailer

Jan 28

Total Access Emailer and Office 365 SMTP with TLS

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Total Access Emailer is the most popular email automation system for Microsoft Access. Total Access Emailer uses your SMTP server to send emails. A popular choice is the SMTP server provided by Microsoft Office 365’s Exchange Server.

Total Access Emailer and the Office 365 SMTP Server

Total Access EmailerAssuming the account is properly configured to relay email messages (Mailbox Delegation), Total Access Emailer has supported Office 365 since it was introduced.

Over the years, Microsoft has increased security on their site and adjusted configurations for their SMTP server. You can connect via SMTP protocol using an approved IP address or Transport Layer Security (TLS) protocol for a specific email address.

Instructions for configuring Office 365’s SMTP server are provided here:
Office 365 SMTP Relay Configuration to Send Emails via the Office365 Exchange Server

Problem with TLS Connections

In the last week, we confirmed that Office 365 and Windows made changes that cause Total Access Emailer to be unable to send emails with its TLS connection protocol with an error like this:

SMTP protocol error: TLS 1.0 and 1.1 are not supported

The message implies the need for TLS 1.2, but recent versions of Total Access Emailer already support TLS 1.2.

What is not supported is TLS 1.3 that recent changes with the Office 365’s SMTP server and Windows seem to require. Here’s a Microsoft article about TLS 1.3: Taking Transport Layer Security (TLS) to the next level with TLS 1.3.

NOTE: TLS still works with many other SMTP servers including Gmail’s smtp.gmail.com (details for Using Total Access Emailer and Gmail).

Workaround: Use SMTP Protocol

If you are having trouble using TLS protocol, the SMTP protocol still works for Office 365. You need to authenticate your IP Address where you’re sending the emails. Remember to use the Temail.txt to store the FROM email address to use for validation as instructed in the referenced page above.

We realize that is not possible for all the environments of Total Access Emailer users.

New Versions of Total Access Emailer

This has accelerated our ongoing development for a new version of Total Access Emailer to address the new protocols. Our development team has already created a solution that is working with the new protocols and hope to release it, as soon as it completes thorough testing. We expect to release these Access 32 and 64-bit versions:

  • New Product:
    • Total Access Emailer 2021 for Access 2021, 2019 and the current Office 365 version
  • Updates:
    • Total Access Emailer 2016
    • Total Access Emailer 2013
    • Total Access Emailer 2010

New versions are now available! Visit the Total Access Emailer page for more information on the new features or ordering information.

Receiving the New Version

Customers on Premium Support Contracts will receive a free update for their version when it is available. Existing customers will be able to purchase an upgrade at a discounted price.

Aug 27

Total Access Emailer Update for Microsoft Access 2016

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Total Access Emailer is the most popular email automation system for Microsoft Access. A new update was released for the Microsoft Access 2016 version.

Enhancements

  • Partially Restored Original SMTP ValidationTechnique.
  • Validation of FROM Address during Email Blasts.
  • Adjusted the saving of datasheet column settings on databases before Access 2007.
  • Improved Offline activation and uninstall.
  • Cosmetic changes to the program and sample databases.

For more information, visit:

Existing Total Access Emailer 2016 owners were notified to download the update.

Jun 27

Total Access Emailer Update for Microsoft Access 2016

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Total Access Emailer is the most popular email automation system for Microsoft Access. Update 16.01.0014 was released for the Microsoft Access 2016 version.

Enhancements

  • SMTP validation uses your email address and eliminates the need to use a TEmail.txt file.
  • Changes you make in the datasheets settings such as column settings, sort order, and/or filters are saved where appropriate for the next time the form is opened.
  • Preview Text allows you to test your email blasts by sending the emails to your own email address.
  • When creating an email blast, the FROM email address is validated for an acceptable email format.
  • When the name of an attachment file includes invalid characters (e.g. :*?”<>|), a message indicates that problem rather than saying the file can’t be found.
  • Procedure TotalAccessEmailer_SendOne has two parameters (strMessageHTML and strHTMLFile) that are optional but were previously required.
  • Sample database updated with TLS option and larger fonts.
  • Cosmetic changes to increase font size, widen combo boxes, font consistency, and support for higher resolution monitors.
  • Manual and help file updated.

The latest update for Total Access Emailer 2016, Version 16.0 is:

Existing Total Access Emailer 2016 owners were notified to download the update.

Apr 28

Microsoft Access Video on VBA Programming with Luke Chung at Access DevCon 2017

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FMS President Luke Chung was a presenter at the Microsoft Access DevCon 2017 in Vienna, Austria in early April.

Before giving two conference presentations, he was sat down and spoke with Philipp Stiefel of codekabinett.com of Germany. Philipp is creating a series of videos discussing VBA development.

Luke shares the history of how FMS Inc. began working with MS Access and how we now offer 12 products for the Access community, including Total Access Analyzer, Total Access Emailer, Total Visual CodeTools, and Total Visual SourceBook.

They talked about:

  • VBA Best Practices
  • How end-users migrate from Excel to Access, then learn how to code
  • Why people are hesitant to purchase third party products and how FMS overcomes that by showcasing the value we offer
  • Using tools like Total Access Analyzer to catch errors before shipping and learning best practices
  • Using the module code in Total Visual SourceBook to address problems we’ve already solved so you can focus on the unique issues in your applications
  • The value of creating consistent, quality code
  • How to improve code for developers of all backgrounds
  • Being in constant “growth” mode to look for ways to become a better developer

FMS Inc. is proud of the quality of products we have produced for the past 30 years. We are honored to continuously be regarded as a leading expert in the Access community. Thank you for supporting us and we hope you enjoy the 20 minute interview!

 

Aug 17

Total Access Emailer Version X.7 for Microsoft Access 2013, 2010, and 2007

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Microsoft Access Email BlasterTotal Access EmailerMicrosoft Access Email

With the recent release of Total Access EmailerTotal Access Emailer for Microsoft Access 2016, we are pleased to release updates of earlier versions to include the many new features:

  • Total Access Emailer 2013, Version 15.7
  • Total Access Emailer 2010, Version 14.7
  • Total Access Emailer 2007, Version 12.7

Total Access Emailer is the most popular email blaster for Microsoft Access. Easily send personalized emails directly from your Access database. Quickly communicate with every email address in your table or query. Use fields from your data source to customize each subject and message. Attach files from disk and also attach reports as PDF files filtered for each recipient.

The new X.7 version includes many new features since their previous version:

  • email-validationEmail Validation to check the syntax of the values in your email field so you can flag invalid emails in your table before you send your blast
  • Save Attached Files to Disk. This lets you document the attached files sent to all your contacts without using blind cc (Bcc).
    • This can also be used independent of sending emails as a way to distribute files and PDF reports to disk. You can even create folder names based on field values.
  • Preview Saving Files to Disk
  • New VBA Function to Preview Email Blasts with Save Files
  • Code Generator Supports Preview Email with Save Folder
  • Support for Office365 and other SMTP Services using TLS
  • Enhanced setup for Windows 10 and 64-bit installations
  • Updated user manual and help file
  • Complete list and additional details of new features in Total Access Emailer X.7.

download-trial-blueDownload the free trial version and send your own personalized emails from Microsoft Access.

Create multiple email blasts in your database and run them at any time through the Total Access Emailer add-in Wizard:

Main Screen of Total Access Emailer 2016

Jul 01

Microsoft Office365 Exchange Online Service Performance Degradation and SMTP Problems

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office365A few years ago, we migrated our email service to Microsoft’s Office365 cloud service. Overall, it’s been very reliable and eliminated the challenges we had hosting Exchange ourselves. It let us get to our emails using Outlook installed on Windows, any internet browser, and smartphones. Office365 also offered other Office product online (Access Web Apps, Excel, Word, etc.), SharePoint and OneDrive Business.

Unfortunately, on the morning of June 30th, we discovered:

  • Delays sending and receiving emails
  • Some emails were bouncing back from recipients who couldn’t validate our Office365 Exchange Server’s SMTP (protection.outlook.com) with our domain name. That meant the Exchange SMTP server was no longer considered a trusted sender of emails from the @fmsinc.com domain.
  • Our use of the Office365 SMTP server to send emails with our Total Access Emailer product was also failing to authenticate against the server

The problems began the evening before. Needless to say, we aren’t happy about this experience which impacted us and our clients using Office365. Reports are that it affects Office365 customers across North America.

exchangeContacting Microsoft, they confirmed problems with the health of their Office365 Exchange Server. Throughout the day, problems lessened but persisted. We hope the problems are resolved soon and that we’ll understand what went wrong once we overcome the immediate crises.

These are the reports we’ve received from Microsoft. We’ll keep you updated as we learn more:

Exchange Online Service Degraded

This is what the Office365 Admin portal shows for Service Health:

Office365Issues

Office365Health

EX71628 – E-Mail and calendar access – Restoring Service

Jun 29, 2016 12:11 PM

CURRENT STATUS

Our investigation determined that an existing transport feature which is designed to expedite the delivery of email messages became degraded, which caused impact to email delivery for a subset of users. We’re bypassing the affected feature to restore service

User Impact

Users may be unable to send email messages through the Exchange Online service. Email messages may appear to be stuck in the Drafts or Outbox folders.

Scope of Impact

A few customers have reported this issue, and our analysis indicates that for most customers, it’s unlikely that many users would report impact related to this event.

  • Start Time: Thursday, June 23, 2016, at 3:00 PM UTC

Preliminary Root Cause

An existing transport feature that is designed to expedite the delivery of email messages became degraded, which caused impact to email delivery for a subset of users

EX71628 – E-Mail and calendar access – Extended recovery

Jun 30, 2016 2:18 PM

Current Status

We’ve developed an additional fix to address the underlying cause of the issue. We’re preparing to deploy the fix to the affected environment to ensure that the issue does not reoccur.

User Impact

Users may be unable to send email messages through the Exchange Online service. Email messages may appear to be stuck in the Drafts or Outbox folders.

Scope of Impact

A few customers have reported this issue, and our analysis indicates that for most customers, it’s unlikely that many users would report impact related to this event.

  • Start Time: Thursday, June 23, 2016, at 3:00 PM UTC

Preliminary Root Cause

An existing transport feature that is designed to expedite the delivery of email messages became degraded, which caused impact to email delivery for a subset of users.

Next Update by: Saturday, July 2, 2016, at 7:00 PM UTC

EX71674 – E-Mail timely delivery – Service restored

Jun 30, 2016 7:35 PM

Final Status

We’ve confirmed that the remaining message queues have now drained after implementing a configuration change to optimize message filtering.

User Impact

Users were experiencing delays when sending and receiving email messages. Affected users may have received Non-Delivery Reports (NDR) when sending email messages.

Scope of Impact

Customer reports indicated that many users likely experienced impact related to this event. Our analysis indicates that this issue may potentially have affected any of your users attempting to send or receive mail.

  • Start Time: Thursday, June 30, 2016, at 2:30 PM UTC
  • End Time: Thursday, June 30, 2016, at 11:30 PM UTC

Preliminary Root Cause

The infrastructure responsible for processing Exchange Online Protection (EOP) message filtering became degraded.

Next Steps

  • We’re analyzing performance data and trends on the affected systems to help prevent this problem from happening again.
  • We’re reviewing our code for optimizations and automated recovery options.
  • We’ll publish a post-incident report within five business days.

EX71674 – E-Mail timely delivery – Service restored

Jul 1, 2016 12:08 AM

Final Status

We’ve rolled out the fix and confirmed that service is restored. Any meeting requests created during the outage will need to have the conference room calendar removed and readded to book the room.

User Impact

Users that attempted to create a meeting request with a conference room calendar were unable to successfully book a conference room. This lead to conference rooms being booked by multiple resources.

Scope of Impact

A few customers reported this issue, and our analysis indicated that this may have affected any users attempting to use this feature.
  • Start Time: Monday, June 27, 2016, at 6:00 PM UTC
  • End Time: Friday, July 1, 2016, at 2:54 AM UTC

Preliminary Root Cause

A recent update affected the ability for calendar invite requests to successfully book conference rooms.

Next Steps

  • We’re reviewing our deployment and provisioning procedures to help prevent this kind of problem in the future.
  • We’ll publish a post-incident report within five business days.
Jun 13

Total Access Emailer Ships for Microsoft Access 2016

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Microsoft Access Email BlasterTotal Access EmailerMicrosoft Access Email

Total Access EmailerTotal Access Emailer is the most popular email blaster for Microsoft Access. Easily send personalized emails directly from your Access database. Quickly communicate with every email address in your table or query. Use fields from your data source to customize each subject and message. Attach files from disk and also attach reports as PDF files filtered for each recipient.

Total Access Emailer is now available for Microsoft Access 2016. Total Access Emailer 2016 includes many enhancements since the prior release for Access 2013:

  • Supports Access 2016
    • 32 and 64-bit versions
    • Add-in and VBA Runtime libraries in the Professional Version
  • email-validationEmail Validation to check the syntax of the values in your email field so you can flag invalid emails in your table before you send your blast
  • Save Attached Files to Disk. This lets you document the attached files sent to all your contacts without using blind cc (Bcc).
    • This can also be used independent of sending emails as a way to distribute files and PDF reports to disk. You can even create folder names based on field values.
  • Preview Saving Files to Disk
  • New VBA Function to Preview Email Blasts with Save Files
  • Code Generator Supports Preview Email with Save Folder
  • Enhanced setup for Windows 10 and 64-bit installations
  • Updated user manual and help file
  • Complete list and additional details of new features.

download-trial-blueDownload the free trial version and send your own personalized emails from Microsoft Access.

Easily Run and Manage the Email Blasts You’ve Created in Your Database

Main Screen of Total Access Emailer 2016

Mar 09

Microsoft Office 2010 Update KB3085515 Causes Access ACCDE and MDE Databases to Crash

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Access2010-boxMajor Alert: Office Update KB3085515 Breaks Microsoft Access 2010 Databases in ACCDE and MDE Formats

On March 8, 2016, Microsoft released an update KB3085515 for Office 2010. It addressed some VBA issues for Excel.

Unfortunately, the update of the VBE7.DLL file causes many Microsoft Access databases to fail. A heated thread on the Microsoft Community forum describes the problem: KB3085515 breaks MS Access 2010 reference

The updated file is:

C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\microsoft shared\VBA\VBA7\VBE7.DLL

Fix

Microsoft released an update that fixed this problem: Office 2010 Update KB3114989

The information below is from the original diagnoses of the problem

Impact

We are still determining the full impact of this bug. We know this impacts wizards in Access and customers of our Microsoft Access add-ins. It also impacts the people you support with our runtime distribution libraries referenced from your MS Access databases. At the very least we know it prevents running:

  • Microsoft Access databases in ACCDE and MDE formats (defined below).
  • Databases (ACCDB or MDB) with library references to ACCDE and MDE files.
  • Built-in MS Access 2010 Wizards that are ACCDE files.

ACCDE and MDE Database Formats

ACCDE and MDE databases are “compiled” versions of ACCDB and MDB database formats where form and report design changes can’t be made and VBA modules can’t be viewed or edited. They are “locked” to referenced DLLs, libraries, and other dependencies that can change over time…provided those dependencies follow Windows protocol for binary compatibility to identify new versions.

Unfortunately, the Microsoft Excel update of the VBE7.DLL file broke the VBA dependency by not creating the new version correctly. That causes previously developed ACCDE and MDE databases to stop working. This was not an issue for the Excel community since they don’t have an equivalent “compiled” version of Excel spreadsheets (the VBA code is always exposed behind spreadsheets), but it kills Access Wizards and the ACCDE and MDE databases people create.

Microsoft Access 2010 Add-ins Won’t Run

In addition to causing some Microsoft wizards in Access to fail, our Microsoft Access 2010 add-ins won’t run since they are Access databases in ACCDE format. You may see messages like this when you try to launch them:

  • Microsoft Access can’t start the wizard, builder, or add-in.
  • This feature isn’t installed, or has been disabled.

There may be suggestions to reinstall the add-in but that won’t help. This impacts these of our products:

Microsoft Access ACCDE Libraries

Some of our products include ACCDE runtime distribution libraries that let you incorporate our product’s features in your application for distribution to your users. You and your users are impacted by this problem and may experience messages like these:

  • The code contains a syntax error, or a Microsoft Access function you need is not available.
  • File format no longer supported.

Customers using our redistributable runtime libraries in databases distributed to their users are impacted:

Microsoft’s Response

The Microsoft Access development team is aware of this problem and is working on a solution as we speak. Microsoft has already stopped people from downloading the update and thankfully didn’t release a similar update for Office 2013 and 2016. They’ve also published this blog post:

You may encounter errors with your ACCDE/MDE files and/or wizards after installing the March update for Office 2010 (KB3085515)

The hope is for a new update that fixes this problem. Timing of when that will be available is unknown, but we’ll keep you informed as we learn it.

Current Solution: Uninstall the Update

The only solution is to uninstall the update. You can uninstall it from:

  • Command line, or
  • Control Panel.

Run a Command Line

You can run this line from the command prompt or put it in a BAT file if you want to share it with others: Note that we have reports that this may not work for everyone since it requires certain permissions:

wusa /uninstall /kb:3085515 /quiet /norestart

Uninstall from the Control Panel

The patch can be uninstalled from the Control Panel, Windows Update program: WindowsUpdate In Windows 10, from the Windows Update screen, click on the Advanced options hyperlink: windows10-update then click on View your update history: windows10-update-historyChoose Uninstall updates to see the list of installed updates: windows10-update-uninstall For Windows 7, click on the View update history link on the left border: windows-update-history From the top section, click on the Installed Updates link: windows-update-installed

List of Installed Updates

View the list of Windows updates installed on your PC, grouped by product which are collapsible. Go to the section Microsoft Office Professional Plus 2010 (or equivalent): windows-update-uninstall Find the KB3085515 update, click on it to uninstall and confirm it.

Jun 06

Total Access Emailer Ships for Microsoft Access 2013

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Total Access EmailerTotal Access Emailer is the most popular email automation program for Microsoft Access. It simplifies the sending of personalized emails with Access data and reports to everyone on your list.

Total Access Emailer is now available for Microsoft Access 2013. Total Access Emailer 2013 includes many enhancements since the prior release of Total Access Emailer 2010 and the Version x.6 for pre-Access 2010 versions:

  • Enhanced setup for Windows 8 and 64-bit installations
  • Supports differences in VBA code between Microsoft Access 2013 and 2010
  • Improved support for linked tables in SQL Server and Access databases including situations when connections are lost
  • User interface improvements to better manage editing and duplicating email blast specifications
  • Professional Version VBA library detects if the user’s machine has not run the runtime distribution EXE
  • Improved display of record counts for repeating multiple email blast broadcasts
  • Improved error handing and reporting
  • Updated user manual and help file

Here’s a complete list of new features.

download-trial-blueDownload the free trial version and send your own personalized emails from Microsoft Access.

Jul 20

Microsoft Access 2010 Service Pack 1 VBA Project Compatibility Issues

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Microsoft released service pack 1 (SP1) of Office 2010 late June 2011. Information on the update and download instructions are in their Knowledgebase article 2460049. The KB article was last updated yesterday.

Unfortunately, we and some of our customers have encountered problems after installing the update. While we haven’t had exhaustive testing with SP1 and tentatively believe everything is okay with the 32 bit version, there are definitely compatibility problems with the 64 bit version of Access 2010. In particular, ACCDE files created in the original release of Access 2010 64 bit no longer run under SP1. This error message appears:

The database cannot be opened because the VBA project contained in it cannot be read. The database can be opened only if the VBA project is first deleted. Deleting the VBA project removes all code from modules, forms and reports. You should back up your database before attempting to open the database and delete the VBA project.

Obviously, with an ACCDE file, unlike an ACCDB file, you can’t modify the VBA project. It requires rebuilding the ACCDE from SP1.

So far, we have not experienced problems with our 32-bit ACCDE files between the original and SP1 Access 2010 versions. Some of these issues have been noted in these articles:

This is a Microsoft KB article discussing the problem which impacts ACCDE, MDE, and ADE files created with Access 2010, 64-bit. For us, when we create MDE and ADE files for use across multiple versions of Access, we’ve used Access 2003 so that still works fine. The only time we use Access 2010 64-bit version is when we’re creating an ACCDE specifically for Access 2010 64-bit users.

This issue impacts two of our products’ Access 2010 64 bit versions:

We have created new builds of these products and are undergoing internal testing and QA to verify they work with SP1. When ready, we’ll release free updates of these products to existing customers. If you need it earlier, please contact our support team. Note that this does not impact the Access 2010 32 bit version.

Regardless of whether you are using our products or not, please be aware of the compatibility issues if you’re using the 64-bit version of Access and deploying ACCDE files. You will need to make sure your Access version is in sync with your users’ version. Unfortunately, this bug occurs before any of your code can run to provide instructions to your users or offer a graceful exit.

Not sure what version you have installed? Run Access, select the File menu, and click on Help. The version informing is shown on the right side and will show (SP1).