E-mail Web Form

E-mail Interface
  • General Structure of the e-mail query
  • E-mail interface - Library Service
  • E-mail interface - Newsgroups Service
  • E-Mail Service

    E-mail Web Form

    You may send E-mail via CIRCA's mail Service to: any Internet E-mail address, to all Members of your Interest Group, and to any local Newsgroup of your IG. In addition, you can attach a document to the message. To use the mail service, follow the steps presented below:

    1. Select the "EMAIL" button to access the E-mail Form page.


    2. Select where to send the e-mail to: User, Group or News. Furthermore you can select to use To, Cc or Bcc for the specific recipient(s).


    3. At the recipient field you are presented with three options:
      • Insert manually the intended recipient(s). In case you select to send e-mail to a User, insert any valid SMTP e-mail address or any User ID of this particular IG. If you select to send e-mail to a Group insert any Interest Group name of the CIRCA. Finally, if you select to send an e-mail to News insert any local newsgroup of the IG. [valid values: sequences of: (sequence of characters @ sequence of characters) separated by ,].


      • Press the "Add" button. A new window will open that helps you select the valid items (IG Members, Profiles or Newsgroups, with respect to the User/Group/News selection) for the Recipient field. In case you have selected User, the User ID will appear instead of the User email address.

    4. Alternatively, you can skip steps 2 and 3 and press All Members to automatically select all the members of your Interest group.


    5. Provide a Subject [valid values: all characters] .


    6. Set the Delivery Options as follows:
      • Select the"Cc User Email" checkbox whether you want to add your email address on the carbon copy (Cc) recipients of the message.
        The checkbox is selected by default.


      • Select the "Return Receipt" checkbox whether you want to be notified on the delivery of the message to the recipients: a delivery receipt from the receiving email server(s) as well as a read receipt for each one of the recipients will be reported back to you via email.
        The checkbox is selected by default.


      • Provide the Message body [valid values: all characters] .


      • Select the "Encryption" checkbox (applicable only if the mail encryption is enabled for the site) if you want to send your message encrypted to the recipients. In this case all the recipients should have a valid public key of their certificates stored in the LDAP directory server. Provide usernames (instead of email addresses) since only LDAP users may have certificates. Groups, newsgroups or plain email addresses cannot be associated with certificates, so message delivery to such categories of recipients will fail.
        If the encryption is on, then an email encrypted with the public key of each valid recipient will be sent to each one of the recipients.
        The checkbox is unselected by default.

    7. Provide an Attach file (if appropriate) as follows:
      • Press the "Browse" button to locate and select the file to attach


      • Press the "Attach" button to incorporate in your E-mail the selected file. Note that a new field, Attach, appears in the E-mail form, displaying the directory path of the attachment. [valid values: all characters except &, (, ), [, ], `, ``].


      • Press "Send Message" button to send the message. Finally, press the "Exit" button to exit the Mail Service without sending the e-mail.
    The recipient's field can contain many recipient E-mail addresses as long as these are separated by comma (,). The same applies for selected Members (User Ids).

    E-mail Interface

    This service enables users that do not have an Internet browser to access the information stored in the Library and Newsgroup CIRCA services. Instead, they use their E-mail application to access the CIRCA server. It must be noted that with the fast growth of Internet technology, it is becoming less likely to find users with no Internet access via their browsers. As a consequence, this FTP mail functionality (E-mail access to the CIRCA) is of limited use and most readers can skip the rest of this chapter.

    To access the E-Mail interface follow the steps:

    1. Launch your E-Mail client application (e.g. Netscape mailer, X.400 UA, Eudora Mail etc.).


    2. Provide the following information:
      • The address of the target server that handles your query. If you do not know the address, ask your Interest Group Leader.


      • The subject of your request.


      • The actual query within the message body. Your query should have a formatted structure (e.g. query command followed by an argument) so that the receiving CIRCA server extracts, processes and returns the information requested by the query. Refer to the General structure of an E-Mail query section for the various commands (fields) used to compose a query.

    General structure of the E-Mail query

    Prior to creating the actual query you need to provide the query envelope information (Interest Group host server address and the subject). In order to do that follow the steps presented below:

    1. Insert at the mailing address field, the Internet address of your Interest Group host server.


    2. At the subject field provide the textual data xxxxx-circa.request (where xxxxx is the dgiii or any other name given to the circa in the multi-circa environment, e.g. dgiii-circa.request in case of a dgiii CIRCA). This instructs the server that you request assistance through E-Mail.

    Make sure that you have provided both fields with correct data.

    Now you are ready to create your query within the message body of your E-Mail form. Its structure should comply with the following general rules:

    1. Insert the standard commands within the message body of the E-Mail form. Every command you use must be inserted in a separate line.


    2. The general format is command_parameter.

    The next table contains a summary of the available commands:

    COMMAND PARAMETER FUNCTIONALITY
    Help   CIRCA will return the Help Pages on "How to structure the query";
    User username Provide your user name. It is needed for authorisation to the Interest Group
    Group interest-group-name Provide the Interest Group you want to access. You should have access to that Interest Group
    Search keywords Search the Library or newsgroups for documents or postings containing specific keywords
    Get URL-path Provide the URL-path of the document or posting that you want to download via E-Mail. If the URL-path is a section instead of a document, information on the contents of this section is given

    Command Description:

    "help". The "help" command returns the Help Pages on "How to structure your query" and should not be followed by any parameter.

    "user". Provide your username as parameter to this command. This will authorise you to the Interest Group. The syntax of this command is the keyword "user" followed by a space followed by the parameter username (different for each user).

    "group". Provide the interest-group-name as a parameter to this command to define the Interest Group that your query is addressed to. You should have access to the Interest Group. The syntax of this command is the keyword group followed by a space followed by the parameter interest-group-name.

    "search". You can search the Library section and all newsgroups for documents or contributions that include specific keywords in their summary information. You will receive an E-Mail containing a list of the URL-paths of the documents or contributions that match the selected search keywords. Below each returned URL, the line(s) with the keyword occurrence are provided. You can insert any of the returned URL-paths to obtain the document's summary information through the info command described above. The structure of this command is the keyword search followed by a space followed by the keyword(s), which will be utilised for the search. You may compose complex queries combining keywords through the AND /OR Boolean operators.
    Such queries are processed from left to right. You may even search for multiple word strings by enclosing the string in double quotes.

    "get". You can download any document(s) or contribution(s) from the library or newsgroups repositories. The structure of this command is the keyword "get" followed by a space followed by the URL-path of the document or contribution intended for downloading. If the user requests a URL-path that ends with a section path instead of a document, then the listing and information of the documents and the subsections are mailed to the user.

    * The user and group service commands are mandatory and must be provided in the E-Mail interface form.

    All the other commands are optional and define the information requested from the selected service. These commands can be repeated within the same request form.

    For example, if you include the command service library in the message body of your query, you can do the following:

    1. Search for documents in the library by supplying keywords at the search command (e.g. search keyword).


    2. You can obtain the summary information of any section in the library by supplying its URL-path at the get command (e.g. get URL-path of section).


    3. Download any document from the library by supplying the URL-path of that document at the get command (e.g. get URL-path).

    The search and get commands can be applied to both the Library and the Newsgroups service. In the latter case these commands deal with contributions instead of documents. The exact structure and the associated functionality with each command are described below in more detail.

    E-Mail Interface - Library Service

    With this service you can search (search command), obtain the summary information of a section (get command) and download (get command) any document from the library.

    You can insert a multiplicity of commands within a single mailing form, i.e. you can obtain information on many sections, download many documents or even obtain the summary information on many sections through a single mail form. Below you can find several examples on the functionality of the E-Mail interface related to the library service (search, get).

    The examples presented below are addressed to the DSIS CIRCA, but they could also be addressed to any other CIRCA within the multi-circa context. This would only change the URL paths of the returned information from /dsis-irc/interest-group-name/........... to /xxxxx-irc/interest-group-name/............ where xxxxx is a new CIRCA.

    Example 1: Search the library for a document that incorporates the word "EDIFACT" in its attribute fields.

    The query to be introduced into the message body should be as follows:

    user username
    group interest-group-name
    search EDIFACT
    

    The server will extract and use the information (parameters) inserted in the above commands for authorisation and searching to return the requested information. The user and group commands are followed by the username and the interest-group-name respectively. The search command contains the keyword (EDIFACT) to be searched within the attribute fields of all the documents within the library.

    By supplying this query, the E-mail Gateway of the CIRCA will respond with an acknowledgement of the received request. The response will be in the following format:

    <DSIS-IRC E-Mail Gateway> response
    DSIS-IRC mail has received the following jobs from you:
    reply-to E-Mail address of the user
    search EDIFACT
    

    Following this acknowledgement, the CIRCA will return an E-Mail message that contains all the URL-paths of the documents within the library that contain the world "EDIFACT" in their attributes. You will receive the following response:

    Search Results for: EDIFACT
    
    1. URL path: /dsis-irc/interest-group-name/cgi-bin/lib_info.pl/library/data/EDI_document
    Description: EDIFACTS
    
    2. URL path: /dsis-irc/interest-group-name/cgi-bin/lib_info.pl/library/data/ANSI_standards
    Description: X12 and EDIFACTS
    
    2 Returned Object(s)
    

    You can download an object using the get command (get the URL path) or get information on this object by clicking on the link below the information of the search results provided that you have web access.

    This example illustrates a basic functionality of the E-Mail interface. You can use the AND/OR boolean operators to form more complex queries.

    Example 2: Search the library for documents that contain the words EDIFACT and X12 as attributes. The query in this example should be as follows:

    user username
    group interest-group-name
    search EDIFACT AND X12
    

    The E-Mail Gateway of the CIRCA will respond with an acknowledgement of the received request. The response will be in the following format:

    <DSIS-IRC E-Mail Gateway> response
    DSIS-IRC mail has received the following jobs from you:
    search EDIFACT AND X12
    

    Following this acknowledgement, the CIRCA will return an E-Mail message that contains all the URL-paths of the documents within the library that incorporate both the words "EDIFACT" and "X12" in their attributes. The response will be in the following format:

    Search Results for: EDIFACT AND X12
    
    1. URL path: /dsis-irc/interest-group-name/cgi-bin/lib_info.pl/library/data/ANSI_standards
    Description: X12 and EDIFACTS
    
    1 Returned Object(s)
    

    You can download an object using the get command (get URL path) or get information on this object by clicking on the link below the information of the search results, provided that you have web access.

    You can also create queries based on phrases as long as the selected phrase is enclosed within double quotes.

    Example 3: Search the library for documents that incorporate the text "ANSI standards" at any of its attribute fields. The query in this example should be as follows:

    user username
    group interest-group-name
    search "ANSI standards"
    

    The E-Mail Gateway of the CIRCA will respond with an acknowledgement of the received request. The response will be in the following format:

    <DSIS-IRC E-Mail Gateway> response
    DSIS-IRC mail has received the following jobs for you:
    search "ANSI standards"
    

    Following this acknowledgement, the CIRCA will return an E-Mail message that contains all the URL-paths of the documents within the library that incorporate the text "ANSI standards". The response will be in the following format:

    Search Results for: "ANSI standards"
    
    1. URL path: /dsis-irc/interest-group-name/cgi-bin/lib_info.pl/library/data/ANSI-standards
    Description: ANSI standards for EDI
    
    1 Returned Object(s)
    

    You can download an object using the get command (get URL path) or get information on this object by clicking on the link below the information of the search results provided that you have web access.

    Through the search command, you will receive the URL-paths of the returned documents. You may now use these URL's through the get command in order to obtain the summary information or even download the corresponding documents. This is illustrated with the following example.

    Example 4: Display the summary information of the document entitled "EDIFACTS" located at the URL"/dsis-irc/interest-group-name/cgi-bin/lib_info.pl/library/data/EDI_document". This query should be structured as follows:

    user username
    group interest-group-name
    info dsis-irc/interest-group-name/cgi-bin/lib_info.pl/library/data/EDI_document
    

    The E-Mail Gateway will initially respond to your request with the following acknowledgement:

    <DSIS-IRC E-Mail Gateway> response
    DSIS-IRC mail has received the following jobs from you:
    info dsis-irc/interest-group-name/cgi-bin/lib_info.pl/library/data/EDI_document
    

    Then the CIRCA will forward to you an E-Mail message containing the summary information of the document in the following format:

    "information about dsis-irc/interest-group-name/cgi-bin/lib_info.pl/library/data/EDI_document"
    
    Owner: administrator
    Filename: EDI_document.doc
    Title: EDIFACTS
    Status: DRAFT
    Version: V1
    Author: Interest Group Administrator
    Issue Date:16/5/97
    Keyword: N/A
    Abstract: This document incorporates
    information about EDI and EDIFACTS
    

    Use the URL-path to download a document from the library with the get command. This is illustrated in the following example:

    Example 5: Download a document located at the URL dsis-irc/interest-group-name/cgi-bin/lib_info.pl/library/data/EDI_document.

    The query should be structured as follows:

    user username
    group interest-group-name
    get dsis-irc/interest-group-name/cgi-bin/lib_info.pl/library/data/EDI_document
    

    The E-Mail Gateway will initially respond to your request with the following acknowledgement:

    <DSIS-IRC E-Mail Gateway> response
    DSIS-IRC mail has received the following jobs from you:
    get dsis-irc/interest-group-name/cgi-bin/lib_info.pl/library/data/EDI_document
    

    Then, the CIRCA will forward to you an E-Mail message containing the requested document (EDI_document.doc) as an attachment.

    You may obtain the summary information, or even download a multiple of documents through a single mailing form. This presumes that you have already obtained the URL addressed to those documents through a search query.

    Example 6: Obtain the summary information of the documents located at the URLs "/dsis-irc/interest-group-name/cgi-bin/lib_info.pl/library/data/EDI" and "/dsis-irc/interest-group-name/cgi-bin/lib_info.pl/library/data/ANSI_X12" respectively, and download the documents located at the URLs "/dsis-irc/interest-group-name/cgi-bin/lib_info.pl/library/data/EDI_document" and "/dsis-irc/interest-group-name/cgi-bin/lib_info.pl/library/data/ANSI_standards".

    The query should be structured as follows:

    user username
    group interest-group-name
    get /dsis-irc/interest-group-name/cgi-bin/lib_info.pl/library/data/EDI
    get /dsis-irc/interest-group-name/cgi-bin/lib_info.pl/library/data/ANSI_X12
    get /dsis-irc/interest-group-name/cgi-bin/lib_info.pl/library/data/EDI_document
    get /dsis-irc/interest-group-name/cgi-bin/lib_info.pl/library/data/ANSI_standards
    

    The E-Mail Gateway will initially respond to your request with the following acknowledgement:

    <DSIS-IRC E-Mail Gateway> response
    DSIS-IRC mail has received the following jobs for you:
    get /dsis-irc/interest-group-name/cgi-bin/lib_info.pl/library/data/EDI
    get /dsis-irc/interest-group-name/cgi-bin/lib_info.pl/library/data/ANSI_X12
    get /dsis-irc/interest-group-name/cgi-bin/lib_info.pl/library/data/EDI_document
    get /dsis-irc/interest-group-name/cgi-bin/lib_info.pl/library/data/ANSI_standards
    

    Then, the CIRCA will send to you four additional E-Mails. Two of these will contain the documents you have requested from the library as attachments and the other will contain the summary information of the selected documents.

    E-Mail Interface - Newsgroups Service

    You can search, download (get command) any contribution or posting within the newsgroups created in an Interest Group.

    You can insert multiple commands within a single mailing form, so you may obtain information for many postings or download many postings through a single mail form. Examples on the functionality of the E-Mail interface related to the Newsgroup service can be found below:

    Example 1: Search the Newsgroups for postings that contain the word "EDIFACT".

    The query that should be entered at the message body should be as follows:

    user username
    group interest-group-name
    search EDIFACT
    

    By supplying this query, the E-mail Gateway of the CIRCA will respond with an acknowledgement of the received request. The response will be in the following format:

    <DSIS-IRC E-Mail Gateway> response
    DSIS-IRC mail has received the following jobs for you:
    reply-to E-Mail address of the user
    search EDIFACT
    

    Then CIRCA will return an E-Mail message that contains all the URL-paths of the postings within the newsgroups with the world "EDIFACT". The response will be in the following format:

    Search Results for: EDIFACT
    1. URL path: /dsis-irc/interest-group-name/newsgroups/data/get/EDIFACT.html
    Description: EDIFACT recommendations
    
    2. URL path: /dsis-irc/interest-group-name/newsgroups/data/get/EDIFACT/9.html
    Description: EDIFACT and X12
    
    2 Returned Object(s)
    

    You can download an object using the get command (get URL path).

    This example illustrates the basic functionality of the E-Mail interface. You may use the AND/OR boolean operators to form complex queries.

    Example 2: Search the newsgroups for postings/contributions that contain the words EDIFACT AND X12 as attributes. The query in this example should be as follows:

    user username
    group interest-group-name
    search EDIFACT AND X12
    

    The E-Mail Gateway of the CIRCA will respond with an acknowledgement of the received request. The response will be in the following format:

    <DSIS-IRC E-Mail Gateway> response
    DSIS-IRC mail has received the following jobs for you:
    search EDIFACT AND X12
    

    Then, CIRCA will return an E-Mail message that contains all the URL-paths of the postings/contributions within the newsgroup service with the word "EDIFACT" and "X12". The response will be in the following format:

    Search Results for: EDIFACT AND X12
    1. URL path : /dsis-irc/interest-group-name/newsgroups/data/get/EDIFACT/9.html
    Description : Edifact and X12
    
    1 Returned Object(s)
    

    You can get information on the above objects using the info command (info URL path), and you can download an object using the get command (get URL path).

    You can also create queries based on phrases as long as the selected phrase is enclosed within double quotes.

    Example 3: Search the newsgroups for postings that contain the text "ANSI standards" at any of its attribute fields. The query in this example should be as follows:

    user username
    group interest-group-name
    search "ANSI standards"
    

    The E-Mail Gateway of the CIRCA will respond with an acknowledgement of the received request. The response will be in the following format:

    <DSIS-IRC E-Mail Gateway> response
    DSIS-IRC mail has received the following jobs from you:
    search "ANSI standards"
    

    Then, CIRCA will return an E-Mail message that contains all the URL-paths of the postings/contributions with the text "ANSI standards". The response will be in the following format:

    Search Results for: "ANSI standards"
    1. URL path: /dsis-irc/interest-group-name/newsgroups/data/get/EDIFACT/10.html
    Description: ANSI standards
    
    1 Returned Object(s)
    

    You can download an object using the get command (get URL path).

    Through the search command, you obtain the URL-paths of the postings/contributions that contain the supplied keywords. You may now use these URL's through the get command to download the corresponding postings/contributions. This is illustrated with the following example.

    Example 4: Download the document located at the URL /dsis-irc/interest-group-name/newsgroups/data/get/EDIFACT.html and titled as Edifact recommendations.

    This query that should be structured as follows:

    user username
    group interest-group-name
    get /dsis-irc/interest-group-name/newsgroups/data/get/EDIFACT.html
    

    The E-Mail Gateway of the CIRCA will respond with an acknowledgement of the received request. The response will be in the following format:

    <DSIS-IRC E-Mail Gateway> response
    DSIS-IRC mail has received the following jobs from you:
    reply-to E-Mail address of the user
    get /dsis-irc/interest-group-name/newsgroups/data/get/EDIFACT.html
    

    Then, CIRCA will forward to you an E-Mail containing the requested posting in the message body (EDIFACT.html).

    You may download many postings/contributions through a single mailing form. This implies that you have already obtained the URL address of those documents through a search query.

    Example 5: Download the postings located at the URLs /dsis-irc/interest-group-name/newsgroups/data/get/EDIFACT/10.html and /dsis-irc/interest-group-name/newsgroups/data/get/EDIFACT/9.html

    The query should be structured as follows.

    user username
    group interest-group-name
    get /dsis-irc/interest-group-name/newsgroups/data/get/EDIFACT/9.html
    get /dsis-irc/interest-group-name/newsgroups/data/get/EDIFACT/10.html
    

    The E-Mail Gateway of the CIRCA will respond with an acknowledgement of the received request. The response will be in the following format:

    <DSIS-IRC E-Mail Gateway> response
    DSIS-IRC mail has received the following jobs from you:
    reply-to E-Mail address of the user
    get /dsis-irc/interest-group-name/newsgroups/data/get/EDIFACT/9.html
    get /dsis-irc/interest-group-name/newsgroups/data/get/EDIFACT/10.html
    

    Then, CIRCA will forward to you two additional E-Mail messages as attachements containing the postings you requested from the newsgroups service.