Send an email with button click without locking the Access window?

[securitywyrm]

I have a button that opens an email to an employee, however when the email window is open the Access window can't be clicked until the email is either sent or closed. This is a problem, because I also want to click a button in Access to open a certain folder and drop that into the email.

Here is my current code

Private Sub ButtonSentToFiscal_Click()
 Dim varName As Variant
Dim varCC As Variant
Dim varSubject As Variant
Dim varBody As Variant
varName = PacketEmail
varCC = "V21sfcconference@va.gov"
'separate each email by a ','
varSubject = Me.Event & " packet approved"
'Email subject
varBody = Me.Identification & ", your conference/travel packet for " & Me.Event & " on " & Me.DateStart & " has been approved by the Office of the Director." & vbCrLf _
& vbCrLf & "If your packet involves registration reimbursement, you will receive a reimbursement packet once a purchase order is generated. If your event is in a future fiscal quarter, the reimbursement packet will arrive in the first week of the quarter, otherwise it will arrive within two weeks of this email. Fiscal Quarters are October through December, January through March, April through June, and July through September." & vbCrLf & "If your packet involves travel reimbursement, the packet has been forwarded to the travel office which will contact you to arrange travel." & vbCrLf & vbCrLf & _
"Office of Education" & vbCrLf & "V21SFCConference@va.gov"

'Body of the email

DoCmd.SendObject , , , varName, varCC, , varSubject, varBody, True, False
'Send email command. The True after "varBody" allows user to edit email before sending.
'The False at the end will not send it as a Template File
Me.DateSentToFiscal = Date
Me.Refresh
End Sub

As far as I can tell, what's happening is that while the email is still open, Access is still in the middle of executing a script and thus isn't available for activity. So perhaps what I need is for the script to not 'stop and wait' for the email, but rather proceed to the next step. What do I need to change?

And yes, I know I need to get some error handling in there. Right now if I close the email, it gives a big warning message prompting to end or debug. That's next on my agenda.

[Gicu]

you should use Outlook automation to create your new email message instead of docmd.sendobject; after you display the message you can go back to Access or any other program to further edit it. There are lots of examples in this forum and on the web how to automate Outlook.

Cheers,
Vlad

[RuralGuy]

You need to take into account that Access is single threaded and so can only do one thing at a time in a very serial fashion.

[securitywyrm]

you should use Outlook automation to create your new email message instead of docmd.sendobject; after you display the message you can go back to Access or any other program to further edit it. There are lots of examples in this forum and on the web how to automate Outlook.

Cheers,
Vlad

Is there a variant of DoCMD.sendobject so that it stops tracking that thread once it opens the email message? I do plan to properly automate it later, but since this is a work project I have to do the 'minimum time necessary to fix it."

[Gicu]

it is not a variant of Docmd.sendobject, it is an alternative way of creating a new email message that gives you a lot more control over it. Something similar to:

Dim strBody As String
Dim objOutlook As Object
Dim objEmail As Object
Dim strTo as string,strCC as string,strBcc as string

Set objOutlook = CreateObject("Outlook.Application")
Set objEmail = objOutlook.CreateItem(0)

With objEmail
.TO = varName
.CC = varCC
.Subject = varSubject
.body=varbody
.display

End With