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• Enables non Windows applications to send email via a PC based service
• Immediate communication whilst saving on postal costs
• Basis for transferring data between different computer systems

Automail is part of the X-Tranz suite from BAC.

It is a PC based facility, which runs in background, enabling emails created by application programs running on Unix, Linux or DOS, to be sent via your normal email service.

Automail operates by scanning a designated directory for email transaction files. These are text files created by UNIX, Linux or DOS programs, which contain the body of the email to be sent and the relevant addressing information.

Each email file is sent, via your normal POP3 email service e.g. MS Exchange, to its destination email address (and 'copy to' addresses) together with any attachments specified. If there is a 'from email address' specified then the email is shown to have come from the specified email address.

Following processing the details of the email are logged (if logging is specified) and the email text file is deleted.
Automail can be set-up to run automatically at a fixed time interval, which is tailorable via the 'configure' screen.

There are many types of document that may be sent in this way including Purchase Orders, Sales Invoices, Debt Chasing reminders etc. Of course, your server applications need to have functions that will create the email text to be sent.

Email transactions of this type are likely to replace the more traditional Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) method of transferring transactions between computers.

Extensible Mark-up Language (XML) is a means of defining documents with embedded data and for which standard definitions have been made for most common transaction types e.g. Purchase Orders, Purchase and Sales Invoices etc.

Because of this standard approach, most software package authors are changing their applications so that they can import and export XML documents.
The obvious advantage of this approach is that it cuts out the expensive middlemen of EDI, to achieve the same result.

Typical example of Automail in use. You want to send purchase orders to certain suppliers via email (perhaps as XML attachments) and these are created by your Unix server based Purchase Order Processing system.

Automail finds the new email texts, in the designated directory and sends these via your normal email service.