C# console app to send email at scheduled times

Question

I've got a C# console app running on Windows Server 2003 whose purpose is to read a table called Notifications and a field called "NotifyDateTime" and send an email when that time is reached. I have it scheduled via Task Scheduler to run hourly, check to see if the NotifyDateTime falls within that hour, and then send the notifications.

It seems like because I have the notification date/times in the database that there should be a better way than re-running this thing every hour.

Is there a lightweight process/console app I could leave running on the server that reads in the day's notifications from the table and issues them exactly when they're due?

I thought service, but that seems overkill.

Answer 1

My suggestion is to write simple application, which uses Quartz.NET.

Create 2 jobs:

• First, fires once a day, reads all awaiting notification times from database planned for that day, creates some triggers based on them.
• Second, registered for such triggers (prepared by the first job), sends your notifications.

What's more,

I strongly advice you to create windows service for such purpose, just not to have lonely console application constantly running. It can be accidentally terminated by someone who have access to the server under the same account. What's more, if the server will be restarted, you have to remember to turn such application on again, manually, while the service can be configured to start automatically.

If you're using web application you can always have this logic hosted e.g. within IIS Application Pool process, although it is bad idea whatsoever. It's because such process is by default periodically restarted, so you should change its default configuration to be sure it is still working in the middle of the night, when application is not used. Unless your scheduled tasks will be terminated.

UPDATE (code samples):

Manager class, internal logic for scheduling and unscheduling jobs. For safety reasons implemented as a singleton:

internal class ScheduleManager
{
    private static readonly ScheduleManager _instance = new ScheduleManager();
    private readonly IScheduler _scheduler;

    private ScheduleManager()
    {
        var properties = new NameValueCollection();
        properties["quartz.scheduler.instanceName"] = "notifier";
        properties["quartz.threadPool.type"] = "Quartz.Simpl.SimpleThreadPool, Quartz";
        properties["quartz.threadPool.threadCount"] = "5";
        properties["quartz.threadPool.threadPriority"] = "Normal";

        var sf = new StdSchedulerFactory(properties);
        _scheduler = sf.GetScheduler();
        _scheduler.Start();
    }

    public static ScheduleManager Instance
    {
        get { return _instance; }
    }

    public void Schedule(IJobDetail job, ITrigger trigger)
    {
        _scheduler.ScheduleJob(job, trigger);
    }

    public void Unschedule(TriggerKey key)
    {
        _scheduler.UnscheduleJob(key);
    }
}

First job, for gathering required information from the database and scheduling notifications (second job):

internal class Setup : IJob
{
    public void Execute(IJobExecutionContext context)
    {
        try
        {                
            foreach (var kvp in DbMock.ScheduleMap)
            {
                var email = kvp.Value;
                var notify = new JobDetailImpl(email, "emailgroup", typeof(Notify))
                    {
                        JobDataMap = new JobDataMap {{"email", email}}
                    };
                var time = new DateTimeOffset(DateTime.Parse(kvp.Key).ToUniversalTime());
                var trigger = new SimpleTriggerImpl(email, "emailtriggergroup", time);
                ScheduleManager.Instance.Schedule(notify, trigger);
            }
            Console.WriteLine("{0}: all jobs scheduled for today", DateTime.Now);
        }
        catch (Exception e) { /* log error */ }           
    }
}

Second job, for sending emails:

internal class Notify: IJob
{
    public void Execute(IJobExecutionContext context)
    {
        try
        {
            var email = context.MergedJobDataMap.GetString("email");
            SendEmail(email);
            ScheduleManager.Instance.Unschedule(new TriggerKey(email));
        }
        catch (Exception e) { /* log error */ }
    }

    private void SendEmail(string email)
    {
        Console.WriteLine("{0}: sending email to {1}...", DateTime.Now, email);
    }
}

Database mock, just for purposes of this particular example:

internal class DbMock
{
    public static IDictionary<string, string> ScheduleMap = 
        new Dictionary<string, string>
        {
            {"00:01", "[email protected]"},
            {"00:02", "[email protected]"}
        };
}

Main entry of the application:

public class Program
{
    public static void Main()
    {
        FireStarter.Execute();
    }
}

public class FireStarter
{
    public static void Execute()
    {
        var setup = new JobDetailImpl("setup", "setupgroup", typeof(Setup));
        var midnight = new CronTriggerImpl("setuptrigger", "setuptriggergroup", 
                                           "setup", "setupgroup",
                                           DateTime.UtcNow, null, "0 0 0 * * ?");
        ScheduleManager.Instance.Schedule(setup, midnight);
    }
}

Output:

If you're going to use service, just put this main logic to the OnStart method (I advice to start the actual logic in a separate thread not to wait for the service to start, and the same avoid possible timeouts - not in this particular example obviously, but in general):

protected override void OnStart(string[] args)
{
    try
    {
        var thread = new Thread(x => WatchThread(new ThreadStart(FireStarter.Execute)));
        thread.Start();
    }
    catch (Exception e) { /* log error */ }            
}

If so, encapsulate the logic in some wrapper e.g. WatchThread which will catch any errors from the thread:

private void WatchThread(object pointer)
{
    try
    {
        ((Delegate) pointer).DynamicInvoke();
    }
    catch (Exception e) { /* log error and stop service */ }
}