Background:

We are trying to automate timesheet submittal and ultimately automatic
export to Quickbooks via a third party utility. I have developed an Excel
timesheet program that enables submittal to an interim text file database.
This works fine. However, we have many field staff that don’t have computers
allocated to them. There will be a huge bottleneck on Monday morning when
they all try to access the few computers available. So we want to enable many
of these staff to enter their timesheets via email. (Remote access such as by
FTP server is too expensive. Something to do with limited bandwidth.)

Grand Plan:

I have successfully implemented an email option from Excel via CDO. This
works great. What I want is to have Outlook kept running on the server and
utilize the Application_NewMail event to fire a macro that immediately
transfers the contents of the new mail item to the same text file database.
Then move the mail item to a subfolder to archive submitted timesheets. So
Outlook only serves as a conduit to get the timesheet data into the database.

Another benefit is that this situation enables subsequent development of a
simplistic form of remote access. What I’m thinking is that you could email a
message in a specific format that includes a password and file path. The same
macro can recognize this format and send the file back as an attachment. And
if the file path is incorrect, then instead send back a list of all the files
and folders in the last part of the path that does not resolve to an error.
You could use this info to (albeit slowly) drill down to the file. Not an
elegant solution, but it is not needed very often (and it’s free).

Problem:

I don’t have Outlook at home to experiment with and I am no longer allowed
to work on it at work. (A political issue. I’ll spare you the details.) I
want to prove that this or something similar will work so that I have
ammunition in favor of the Excel/Outlook approach. I don’t want to waste time
barking up the wrong tree either if that’s the case.

Request:

Hoping a guru will critique the above plan. I am very experienced
programming Excel but have only a few hours worth of experience programming
Outlook. Not an IT guy. Most important issue is whether the NewMail event
will fire and allow macro execution in this situation.

Very appreciative of responses.

Greg