(multiple) mailing from spss-basic procedures?

[Gottfried Helms]

For a workshop on automatisation in spss I've the problem to provide a solution for      
a) evaluating some survey for each participant                  
b) sending an email to each participant with the specific results for him/her as an - for instance - word-file attached to the mail.                                

I've managed to learn how to produce the individual (word) files with the tables using the spss-basic language and the OLE-connection to word-basic, but have never worked with any (OLE-) "object" "Mail" . From what I've read I've understood (but my be in err) that the automatizing of mailing requires also the microsoft outlook-environment, but which I think I cannot assume to be present at the participiants of the workshop - also some of them might have a non-windows (apple pc/notebook) system.                

Before resorting to some freeware tools in the internet I'd like to make sure, whether and if, which, on-board methods are possible for this.  In case I really need such tools - do you have suggestions?                    
One can assume, that the email adresses of the adressants is present as a text-file in csv format.

[Andy W]

I wrote a blog post on using Python to send the emails. See https://andrewpwheeler.wordpress.com/2015/03/02/emailing-with-python-and-spss/.

This works with whatever your local email client is. Post shows gmail but I've used it for outlook as well.

[Gottfried Helms]

Hi Andrew -
that was a quick response! Thank you very much.        
I tried it immediately, but unfortunately the python-module seems to be not correctly installed in my system (don't know why and how to repair this) . THis is the error-message of SPSS:

===================================================
>Fehler Nr.  6890.  Befehlsname: BEGIN PROGRAM
>Die Konfigurationsdatei spssdxcfg.ini ist ungültig.
>Die Ausführung dieses Befehls wurde unterbrochen.
Configration file spssdxcfg.ini is invalid because the LIB_NAME is NULL.

========================================================
========================================================

and this is the contents of the configuration-file:

========================================================
; spssdxcfg.ini - Statistics Drive X startup configuration file
;
[version]
; The version of Statistics
; You should not change the version number, otherwise SPSS-Python package may not function properly.
SpssdxVersion=21.0.0.0
SpssdxVersionMajor=21
SpssdxVersionMinor=0
SpssdxVersionPatch=0
SpssdxFixPack=0

[SUPPORTED_LANG]
X=PYTHON;R
========================================================
========================================================

Do you have any idea?

Gottfried

[Jon Peck]

The ini file should have a section like this where the HOME value refers to wherever the Statistics Python installation is.

With V22 or later, that is normally under the Statistics installation directory, but with V21 it is likely to be (on Windows)

c:\python27.

The incomplete ini file may be a symptom of a bigger problem,  however.  I suggest that you install the Python Essentials for V21, which is a separate install in V21, if just adding that section to the ini file.

[Python]

LIB_NAME=InvokePython

HOME=C:\spss23\Python

On Wed, Jun 22, 2016 at 9:18 AM, Gottfried Helms <[hidden email]> wrote:

Hi Andrew -
that was a quick response! Thank you very much.
I tried it immediately, but unfortunately the python-module seems to be not
correctly installed in my system (don't know why and how to repair this) .
THis is the error-message of SPSS:

===================================================
>Fehler Nr.  6890.  Befehlsname: BEGIN PROGRAM
>Die Konfigurationsdatei spssdxcfg.ini ist ungültig.
>Die Ausführung dieses Befehls wurde unterbrochen.
Configration file spssdxcfg.ini is invalid because the LIB_NAME is NULL.

========================================================
========================================================

and this is the contents of the configuration-file:

========================================================
; spssdxcfg.ini - Statistics Drive X startup configuration file
;
[version]
; The version of Statistics
; You should not change the version number, otherwise SPSS-Python package
may not function properly.
SpssdxVersion=21.0.0.0
SpssdxVersionMajor=21
SpssdxVersionMinor=0
SpssdxVersionPatch=0
SpssdxFixPack=0

[SUPPORTED_LANG]
X=PYTHON;R
========================================================
========================================================

Do you have any idea?

Gottfried



-----
Gottfried Helms - Kassel/Germany
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[Gottfried Helms]

Dear Jon Peck -

 thanks for the info. I found out that indeed the wole packet for python is missing. I have been getting my SPSS 21 version by a site-license (university-department - I think downloading a big *spss_version21*.exe-file last or the second last year) apparently without the python-plugins. Now in the IBM/SPSS-download-directories I find the python-essentials only up to version 20, and for the SPSS 21/Win32 there is only a "fixpack" available. I tried to use the version 20, but of course that installation failed.        
Do you have any idea how to proceed? (the workshop is at weekend... )

Gottfried Helms