ASP.NET 3.5 Enterprise Application Development with Visual Studio® 2008: Problem - Design - Solution

8.1. Problem

For the Paid Time Off application, users should be notified whenever they become the "owner" of an issue, whenever a request they submitted changes state, or when a request goes to a specific state such as cancelled or denied. The last thing you want to do is give users an excuse about why they didn't follow up on a request. You can help Mary stay on top of the game by having the system nudge each user by sending them an e-mail letting them know they are supposed to do something.

This chapter creates a pattern for sending e-mails, registering for notifications, and even allowing users to customize the message that is sent for a specific notification. This chapter also uses a Windows service to work in the background to poll for unsent e-mails and fire them off behind the scenes without coupling this functionality with the actual website. Windows services can be quite handy in conjunction with a web application because not all situations should be handled using the web interface. There are plenty of situations in which a background process can be utilized to automate certain tasks such as sending e-mails.

The main goals of this chapter are as follows:

• Understand how to create a Windows service and use a Timer object to automate tasks.

• Define a pattern for sending e-mails that is not coupled with the design of the website.

• Create functionality that enables users to register for predefined notifications in the system.

• Enable users to customize the text of the e-mails that ...