How to Send an HTML Email Using MCF Class

I’ve earlier written about sending HTML emails from PeopleCode using SendMail. However, with that method, I’d faced some issues when the mail body got bigger – for instances, a special character was appearing out of nowhere in longer emails. But at the time, as I was not aware of any other option, I kept using SendMail.

All that changed when I learned about the Multi Channel Framework.

In this post, I will show you how to send an HTML email using the MCFOutboundEmail Class. It’s as easy as using SendMail().

MCFOutboundEmail Class

This Class has several methods that can come in handy for sending emails.
Although I will only be using the send method here, you can have a look at other methods like AddAttachment and AddHeader in PeopleBooks here.

The class also has numerous properties which makes it easy for developers.
Again, I will only be using few of them in this example. The complete list can be found here.

Sample Program

This PeopleCode sends out an HTML email similar to the one we saw in the SendMail example.

Firstly you need to import the MCFOutboundEmail class and instantiate it. Then use the delivered properties to assign the sender, recipients etc.
You can then build an HTML text and assign it to the Text property. Finally use the Send() method to send the email.

import PT_MCF_MAIL:MCFOutboundEmail;
 
Local PT_MCF_MAIL:MCFOutboundEmail &oEmail = create PT_MCF_MAIL:MCFOutboundEmail();
 
&oEmail.From = %EmailAddress;
&oEmail.Recipients = "rakeshsgk@gmail.com";
 
/* Building the HTML text */
&sNL = "<br>";
&sGreetLine = "<font face ='Arial'>Dear " | %OperatorId | "," | &sNL | &sNL;
 
&sMailLine1 = "This is a test email that contains an HTML table." | &sNL | &sNL;
&sMailLine2 = "<table border='1'><tr bgcolor = '#AAAA00' ><th>Name</th><th>State</th><th>Country</th></tr><tr><td>Rojer Alex</td><td>VA</td><td>USA</td></tr></table>" | &sNL;
 
&sFooterText1 = "Your footer line(s) goes here." | &sNL | &sNL;
&sFooterText2 = "Regards," | &sNL | "The PSoftSearch team";
&sFooter = &sFooterText1 | &sFooterText2 | "</font>";
 
&sEmailBody = &sGreetLine | &sMailLine1 | &sMailLine2 | &sFooter;
&oEmail.Subject = "Test Email";
&oEmail.Text = &sEmailBody;
 
/* Setting the Content type */
&oEmail.ContentType = "text/html; charset=US-ASCII";
 
/* Sending the email */
&nStatus = &oEmail.Send();

Output

The above code would send an email like this. You can add other html tags to make the email look nicer.

Error Checking

The return value from the Send() method can provide some insight into what has happened during the send operation. The below shows all the return values.

You can evaluate the return value to show the user a message – a basic one is shown below.

Evaluate &nStatus
When 1
   WinMessage("Email successfully sent.", 0);
   Break;
When-Other
   WinMessage("Error(s) Encountered.", 0);
   Break;
End-Evaluate;

Conclusion

There are several ways of sending HTML emails from PeopleSoft. Using the MCFOutboundEmail class is one of the options which is easy to use while giving you a high degree of flexibility.