Outlook Forms through a firewall

[T. Dawe]

Hello people. I have a problem and I'm praying that one
of you fine folk can help me with it.

I made a form that takes important information and
distributes it to a mailing list. The form makes it to
everyone within the firewall. But everyone who gets the
message outside of our firewall only get the footer
information (my signature block, phone number, etc.). The
form and the data are lost... smashing into oblivion as it
tries to pass through our firewall. I wish it were so
effective against trojans and virus threats.

So, my IT doesn't seem to know how to get around this
dilemma. They say the problem stems from the fact that
the remote computers need to get the form through my
workstation, and since that poses a security threat, it's
not allowed. Therein lies my struggle. Is there a way to
get this form distribution to work through the firewall?
Please tell me I don't have to resort to faxing in the
21st Century if I have email.

Respectfully,

Thomas

 

[T. Dawe]

Oh yeah... it's Outlook 2000 - if that matters. Probably
does.

 

[Sue Mosher [MVP]]

All recipients need access to the form definition, either by your embedding
it in the message or by having access to the published form. You embed it in
the message by checking the "send form definition with item" box on the
(Properties) page of the form. The mail servers on both end also must
preserve the rich-text formatting content, which rides with the message as a
Winmail.dat file. If the mail servers (not the firewall, by the way) are
stripping that, you cannot send the data as a form. Consider saving it as a
file and zipping it or use some other mechanism, such as a Word document to
transmit the information.

See http://www.slipstick.com/dev/sendform.htm for more information on this
issue.

 

[Guest]

Sue,

Thank you for your input. The "send form definition with
item" was definitely checked - not the problem. So I
guess I can blame the mail servers. This should make the
IT guys cringe.

Thanks again,

Thomas

 

[T Dawe]

Sue,

Once again, I'd like to thank you for your help. After
making the address RTF, and providing a copy of the form
for them to publish, the form is working just fine through
the firewall. My IT washed their hands of the whole
problem, claiming they had neither the time nor the
experience (well, they were half right) to do the steps on
your web page... but I made it work without their help.

Sincerely,

Thomas