Which action(s) to use?

The action that establishes a DDE connection, and that requests a value from the server application is:

DdeRequest( server, topic, item, format, resource )

NOTE: If you use DdeRequest(), you do not need DdeConnect() to establish the connection.

In the example, the name of the server is "server". The name of the topic is "test". The name of the item is "count". The data format is CF_TEXT. The resource or property to set is "value" (i.e. the data obtained is to update the contents of the field). So, the DDE part of the "problem" is:

DdeRequest('server','test','count','CF_TEXT',<value>)