Emailing Invoices using API send endpoint

Will answer this post myself - I have kicked this endpoint into touch as 'useless' in the end, despite my gushing support for it - and MYOB's apparent earnestness to maybe do a quick patch to fix some bugs - well - a big fat ZILCH came of that - MYOB never rang despite telling me to make an appointment - the endpoint is 'in my opinion' - best left unused and a workaround is by far the better option

As of today I have stopped using this endpoint completely - even to email clients a link to their invoice - which is does do but this was little comfort with clients who 'always want an attached pdf invoice' and just do not want to download via a link - or email the attached invoice directly to their MYOB in tray - and that endpoint JUST DEOS NOT DO THAT - so I have canned it.

The work around is that now I build the final invoice in my integrator app and via my own CDO emailer send out the pdf invoice as an attachment. It works perfectly and does not rely on MYOB' emailing system which for a big business cannot be connected to, and takes ages to refresh, even if you can connect.

The beauty of building your own invoices is that you have to anyway if you use the MYOB endpoint to delete a Sales Order to be replaced with a completed Sale - you cannot just convert a Sales Order to an Invoice via the API and queue it to mail out an attachment - ......... a real real negative - you can delete the SO - but you then need to build the invoice and post it completely via a new endpoint into MYOB as a Sale. ........ that is fine - but emailing out the invoice then becomes the missing link .... and for that you have to build your own work around.

Sorry MYOB cannot wait for you to fix this ..........

The Doc

Hi ROC_MYOB​ 

Well, MYOB, a reprieve - just had a brainflash overnight and realised that thee reason these clients aren't getting invoices to their in-try emails is not because they aren't going out - they are, BUT ......... the original 2 problems with this endpoint were - 

1. that it was the queuing the delioverystatus from 'to be emailed' to émailed', and
2. it wasn't attaching an invoice according to the emailing instructions in MYOB - 'add link to invoice and attach invoice' - and the endpoint doesn't, or is unable to attach an invoice.

So - emailing to an in-tray email address will appear to 'not occur' - but look at the email status in MYOB and it says 'sent' and 'received' - but there is no attached invoice ( for reason 2 above) so nothing appears in the in-tray - and this is seen as 'not sent'.

So the fault is the endpoint MYOB - however, notwithstanding - emailing within MYOB facility is slow, times out and is NOT 100% - that still stands as a complaint - whereas if you send from say outlook - you get an error message back.

So my fall back is to create an external pdf of the invoice and email it using an external emailer - this is the solution now being worked on.

Oh -  there is another endpoint - 'render invoice to pdf' - yep but just cannot get this to work ......

The Doc

Hi ROC_MYOB​ 

This endpoint would appear to be merely the result, not the cause of a problem in emailing from MYOB - something I long ago suspected as faulty but could get no traction with MYOB.

The endpoint may just be leveraging a faulty emailing code within MYOB - however, I do not have cast-iron proof just suspicions that go back years and the suspicions heightened recently.

After writing code to auto-invoice for a client - something that manual staff were dropping the ball on regularly, delaying completed orders conversion to invoices and emailing out the invoice for account customers for up to 3 weeks sometimes to the tune of 500k in revenue - then auto-invoicing came as a breeze of fresh air - hmm - but doubled edged it seems.

Everything worked - it was tested - emailing using the emailing endpoint and a normal email address eg

mailto:bob@thehappyhomre.com.au  - it worked well - however, I didn't test emailing to MYOB's in-trays in MYOB files email addresses look like this

mailto:17685907-0a92-48e6-9aae-9b980690c663@document.myob.com which nicely puts invoices into MYOB file in-trays.

80% of my client's customers were franchisees running MYOB files they managed and the email addresses were of this type.  On the 3rd day of running the new code we had a catchup to do 344  invoices to go out - code worked beautifully - 

1. Check Web status - Order Completed - tick
2. Download Sales Order from MYOB - as Sales Order from Web may not be upto date - orders change
3. Create invoice and POST to MYOB via API- tick
4. Delete Sales order - through API - tick
5. Download Sales Invoices - as UID is needed to email invoice - tick worked
6. Download Customers from MYOB to check email address - tick
7. Email Invoices using email endpoint - 100% error free - not 1 error 

344 invoices sent - ALL clients with in-tray emails - 80% never received invoices; YET - check the emailing app in MYOB - sent emails - it shows email sent AND RECEIVED!

And worse - yesterday when we found this error - the emailing app in MYOB just timed out saying cannot connect - and nothing to do with internet access, slow internet - I am on very fast NBN - open 2 other MYOB files at the same time - select the email app in the file - pops up instantly.

So my client had to go into each of these invoices - now up to 500 because that is how many in the past week not sent out by the emailing app that had to be manually opened - select - 'send email' - top left and sent. That appears to work - though I need that confirmed.

2 years ago on my son's business myob file - payslips were sent to staff - every single pay period - emails for some staff were not received - dropped, missed or mysteriously vanished. This problem not pops up as a warning I suspect.

Houston - we have a problem - I cannot rely on the emailing up in MYOB to send invoices to clients. 

I am now coding my auto-invoicing app to send out invoices via CDO code from my application which does not use Outlook as the emailer - in the past this process works 100% or tells you with an error.

Folks I am not saying categorically there is a problem but you know the saying about smelling like duck poo, looking like duck poo etc. 

The end point may not actually be the culprit but then I don't think it is Lilly white.

If you want to discuss MYOB please call me 0415262694

The Doc

Sorry The_Doc​, 
I have sent you a message. 

Hi ROC_MYOB​ 

This endpoint gets worse - I found another bug which is nasty.

It does not seem to be able to handle the unusual format of the email address that MYOB uses for sending invoices to in-trays on MYOB - '17685900-0a92-48e6-9aae-9b990690c663@document.myob.com' - works fine if done manually from within MYOB emailing but via the email endpoint it doesn't go out - or vanishes into the ether.

I have tested this numerous times to authenticate this bug - if you open an email sent via the endpoint to confirm received it indicates it was received - but it isn't there.

My client has 15 plus franchises each with their own MYOB via - even though I have now sent out over 500 invoices using the endpoint - none have been received by these franchises - yet send them from within MYOB and they are received - is my endpoint working correctly - yes - the 1st thing I checked to ensure I wasn't truncating email addresses as they are quite long - grr - I have now to resend manually over 200 invoices. 

This is not good MYOB - haven't heard back on the original bug - you didn't call me when I set a time for a call at your request and now this new bug.

The Doc

ROC_MYOB​ 

Booked a time for MYOB to ring - nothing - the time came and went...... hence we are in limbo on this problem.

The Doc

Hi ROC_MYOB​ 

Always happy to talk if it helps with moving forward. Have booked a time next week.

Hey The_Doc​, 
I have been chasing a few teams re this. 
I have seen a few of your other posts, would you be interested in sitting down with us and chatting? 

If you want to find a time that suits you:
Book a time

Hi ROC_MYOB​ 

Any update on this endpoint - I have worked out a work around - I post the invoices with ' already sent or emailed'  then email the invoices using the endpoint.

However, another bug has popped up - the endpoint doesn't attach the pdf invoice - which sending it via manual email from within MYOB does do - that is a big pain as we now have a very big client complaining - put it back the old way - we need the pdf - hmm - they are big - so we have to do theirs manually - the only work around seems to be that there is an endpoint for rendering an invoice to a pdf - and I can use an external emailing service that I have running in my software to email the invoice attachment - but it seems reasonable that MYOB would have long ago added this functionality - can you check on whether there is a better work around than what I have suggested please.

Regards The Doc

Thanks The_Doc​ ,

Thanks for the above information, I just needed to ensure we were both looking at the same fields. 

 
I will do some testing today and also follow up with the owner of the endpoint. 

Give me a day or two and I will come back to you. 

Thanks Roc