HTML email from reporte

Question

I feel sure there will be an easy way to do this...
My applications uses email a lot to communicate with customers. Until now we have used plain text, and we'd like to jazz it up a bit by sending HTML format instead.
But rather than re-code all the messages that are currently generated by PL/SQL functions, I think we could generate the content we need via SQL reports, and get all that neat formatting done for nothing. We might have to splice in a salutations and a signature. But the main stumbling block is that I don't want to make customers have to open an attachment when the content could be embedded in the email itself.
But how can I intercept the html report output and utilize it as an input parameter to the apex_mail procedure, which is already receiving to/from/subject and every other parameter it needs from the existing processes and just needs this one extra chunk of nicely formatted dynamic content?
Any suggestions would be most welcome, because I'd much rather be getting on with version 4 conversion than handcoding HTML!
Thanks and regards
CS

Answer 1

I presume; unless I can refer to the receiving region using substitution string syntax when invoking the send_mail procedure - can that be done?On click of 'Send Mail' button or similar button, call JS function. In the JS function, make AJAX call to fetch report region content. It will make background call to the page and fetches the page HTML dynamically. If you have any page item in where clause of report query, you can also set the value of items using AJAX object.
Does the get.get actually trigger the report execution and THEN return the output, or does it assume the report has been run previously? Yes, it actually triggers report execution.
Pseudo code
<script>
function fnPullReport(pPageNo,pStartTag,pEndTag)
// Ajax object to pull content from page vPageNo
var vAjaxObj = new htmldb_Get(null,$v('APP_ID'),null,vPageNo);
// Insert filter item values, if any
vAjaxObj.add('P10_FILTER1',<Filter Value>); //Assuming  your report is using P10_FILTER1 in WHERE clause
vReturn = vAjaxObj.get(null,pStartTag,pEndTag); // fetch the report content dynamically
$x('P1_REPORT_HTML').value = vReturn; // Save report HTML to page hidden item
doSubmit('SEND_MAIL'); // submit page with SEND_MAIL request
</script>Write a page process to send mail and use P1_REPORT_HTML to get report HTML value.
Hope it helps :)
Cheers,
Hari
Edited by: Hari_639 on Jun 27, 2010 1:32 PM