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How to send an email from SAS to members of a distribution list

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In your organization, are you prevented from using the email alias of a distribution list (e.g. groupname@comp.domain.com), and would therefore like to extract the list recipients into a flat file to loop through/use the SAS Enterprise Miner functions, etc. to send the mail?

This question was recently asked by a student in our SAS Programming 3: Advanced Techniques and Efficiencies course. Instructor Christine Riddiough shares some sample code she’s used to solve this challenge. This will work for a distribution list in an Exchange Server running on UNIX. The OPTIONS statement would need to be adjusted for a different platform or email server.

    /* macro to email a file to a list */
%macro EmailFile;
 
   /* This creates a series of macro variables to send email to 
      individuals. */
   proc sort data=freqstart out=list(keep=email) nodupkey;
      by inst;
   run;
 
   data _null_;
      set list end=last;
      call symput(compress('email'||_n_),email);
      if last then call symput('tot',trim(left(_n_)));
   run;
 
   /* cycle through the individual emails to send the messages */
   %do i=1 %to &tot;
 
       /* if you want to attach a file use the filename statement
          and the pathname function to capture the location 
          of the file */
       filename freq "&fn.crr.csv";
      %let path=%sysfunc(pathname(freq));
      ods csv file=freq;
      proc print data=freqstart noobs;
      run;
      ods csv close;
 
       /* set options for email and use the filename statement
          with the email option to send email */
      options emailsys=smtp emailhost=mailhost.abc.xyz.com;
 
      filename mymail email "&&email&i"
         subject="Frequency Template for &start to &end"
         attach="&path";
 
           /* Add some text to the email */
   data _null_;
      file mymail;
      put 'Attached is a report.' /;
      put "Return the modified report to Jane.Smith@xyz.com by &date..";
   run;
%end;
%mend;
 
%EmailFile
Tags sas code sas programming
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About Author

Michele Reister

Marketing Specialist

Michele Reister has worked in the Education Division at SAS since 2004. During that time she has played many roles including marketing training courses, developing product bundles, managing conferences and overseeing the division’s discount programs. Currently, she is responsible for the division’s social media strategy. Michele holds a BS in Management and Information Technology from Daniel Webster College and an MBA from University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Michele is a perpetual student herself and is constantly looking for better ways to serve SAS’ user population. When she’s not expanding her knowledge of marketing, Michele enjoys group fitness classes, cooking, volunteering, reading and chasing after her two children.

3 Comments

  1. Roger Kassab on

    This is for SAS. Is it also for JMP? if not, do you have the version that is usable from JMP that will Email a file to list of Emails in 1 swoop?
    Can I use Google mail as the mean for the Email?

    Please let me know.
    Thanks,

  2. Peter Wall on

    1) Maybe I'm missing something here, but it seems to me there should by a %end statement somewhere to close the %do loop, but I can't find one.

    2) Instead of sending out n e-mails, each addressed to a single party, would it not be more efficient to send one e-mail addresses to n parties. This is relatively easy to do by constructing a list of recipients in the TO, CC, or BCC arguments of the e-mail, and is supported by the SAS e-mail processor.

    Cheers

    • Michele Reister
      Michele Reister on

      Hi Peter,

      Thanks for your comment! I spoke with Christine and here is her response:

      1) Yes there should be a %end; right before the %mend; -- I deleted it by mistake when I edited the file for the blog -- good catch.

      2) Yes you can do that. I haven't tested the efficiency, but it would avoid some of the data steps. Which way you use might depend on the specifics of the situation.

      Thanks,
      Michele

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