So I've done some research on the topic, but I cannot seem to figure out how to get the emails to send. This is the sheet I've been using: https://docs.google.com/a/taktical.co/spreadsheets/d/18GsFLLUCCAba82Teyd4nI8XSuNwEBvunjpQeNdYY-6U/edit#gid=0
I want to be able to pull the information from the first sheet, and have the recipient email set to Contact Email 1. I also need an if statement that says if any cell in row D says "not found", to just simply not send the email.
Any help here would be greatly appreciated :)
I splitted your problem into 3 distinct areas, with suggestions on how to solve it.
Consider using the gspread API to read the data from your Google Doc into a Python script.
Then to send email with Python, see Python Documentation: Email examples.
Finally, to automatically run this Python script it kind of depends on which OS you are using. In Linux you could set it up as a cronjob or just autostart it to run all the time.
I hope this will get you somewhere.
I do not know if I am asking this correctly (but none of my searches anywhere yielded an answer).
I'll try my best to explain;
I've created an Applescript that is used in a mail client (Mac Mail and MS Outlook).
Basically when an email is recieved, it checks the subject, if the subject contains "whatever" then the script executes.
This script asks if you'd like to send an auto-response. If you click no, nothing happens. If you click yes, one is sent. Simple enough right?
Well, the problem I ran into is 20 people all said yes at the same time, sending 20 auto-generated emails.
I am attempting to find SOMEWAY to have "it" check to see if someone has already clicked yes. Does anyone have any insight? Am I going too far outside the scope of Applescript? If so, any alternatives would be greatly appreciated.
You need some centralized way to keep track when a yes is clicked. So a simple text file on the server may do the job. What I'm thinking is that when someone clicks yes to send the auto-responce then the first thing the script does is check the central file to see if anyone else has already clicked yes. If the file does have a yes then a new dialog pops up and lets the user know the email was already responded to and of course that yes does not respond. If the file does not have a yes then the script writes a yes for that email to the file, then sends the response.
You would need some way to distinguish between the emails that come in at different times so you would check the central file for this unique email property... something that is unique to each email but the same for everyone that receives it. If there is not a unique property then maybe a time based check would work. For example you could write the time-of-day to the file, and you don't send a response if the file contains a time within 30 minutes or some other suitable time period.
I hope that gives you some ideas. Good luck.
I am looking for a way to identify quoted text in emails. The goal is to add something along the lines of Gmails "show quoted text" feature to my web app which involves a mail handler bot.
There are similar questions on stackoverflow, but they are asking for an algorithm. I could implement this if I have to, but I would greatly prefer a tried and true solution.
Requirements:
1) Support both HTML and plain text emails
2) Operates on the full thread (that is, it has the original text to compare the quoted text against; no need to guess)
3) Handles common quote-related additions such as "On May 10th, 2008 at 6:35 PM Brandon wrote:"
A python library would be super magically awesome ideal, but I don't expect to get that lucky. A simple command line tool which can do this would pretty close to ideal, but I don't expect to that that lucky either. I'd gladly settle on a well known good implementation from an open source mail client which would be reasonably possible to extract into a tool.
Does anyone have a suggestion what my best bet would be?
I'm kind of surprised that there is no such thing as an "email handler bot construction kit".
Just following up on an email I received regarding this question.
Sup has a pretty easy to understand/extract/translate bit of logic for accomplishing this. I ported the relevant functions to Python and tweaked it for my purposes.
Sup is terminal-based mail client written in Ruby: http://sup.rubyforge.org/
Google has a patent for their method:
http://www.google.co.uk/patents/US7222299
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Every software development professional (and especially project managers) has to deal with a never ending stream of e-mails. What is the best way of organising them in MS Outlook?
Obviously some fancy issue tracking tools give more flexibility but I am interested in plain vanilla approach that can be deployed within most organisations.
P.S. Finding e-mails is generally the least of the problems that needs to be addressed. Search nowdays is pretty good.
Within my main inbox I have 3 sub folers: Do, Done, Defer and 3 macros to move the selected folder into the relevent folder. (alt-1 moves the selected mail to done and then selects the next mail). Each day I quickly filter my inbox into the three folders. I can process several hundred mails in 20 mins or so.
Do, something I expect to process today.
Done, something I don't care about/have read and understood, I dont expect to refer back to these today.
Defer, something I will do something about but not today.
At the end of processing I expect my inbox to be empty.
At the end of the day all mail items in Do move to Defer (I dont want to keep things in
Done overnight).
At the start of the day all items in Defer are filtered using the rules above, I dont want to leave things in Defer for more then a day or 2. If stuff hangs around for too long I will add it to my diary to process later.
At the end of the day all mail in Done is copied into an archive folder based on the month/year. Done is just a parking place for things to be archived.
I use a tool to index my archive, I actually use X1 but google desktop is an excellent alternative.
I filter out any important facts i would like to refer back to in outlook notes.
I filter out any tasks I would like to recal into omni focus (http://www.omnigroup.com/applications/omnifocus/) the best GTD I have found.
I DO NOT EVER use my inbox as a todo list or a mechanism for recording subtle facts I want to recall later. I know a lot of people do but IMHO its just a bad way to be.
(cross posted to LJ).
EDIT.
Oh per a post above I also filter any mail not posted to me directly, by the mailing list the mail was sent to. I give different amounts of attention to each mailing list. I do follow the mechanism above for each mailing list but some I glance at and some I process in detail.
ReEDIT
In comments I was asked to provide the source for the macros I mentioned above. I DONT suggest this is seen as an example of good VBA, I am pretty sure it was sourced from the interweb and adapted for my purposes. It has worked reliably for many years.
Sub MoveToDone()
On Error Resume Next
Dim objFolder As Outlook.MAPIFolder, objInbox As Outlook.MAPIFolder
Dim objNS As Outlook.NameSpace, objItem As Outlook.MailItem
Set objNS = Application.GetNamespace("MAPI")
Set objInbox = objNS.GetDefaultFolder(olFolderInbox)
Set objFolder = objInbox.Folders("Done")
'Assume this is a mail folder
If objFolder Is Nothing Then
MsgBox "This folder doesn't exist!", vbOKOnly + vbExclamation, "INVALID FOLDER"
End If
If Application.ActiveExplorer.Selection.Count = 0 Then
'Require that this procedure be called only when a message is selected
MsgBox "No msgs selected", vbOKOnly + vbExclamation, "NO_MSG_SELECTED"
Exit Sub
End If
For Each objItem In Application.ActiveExplorer.Selection
If objFolder.DefaultItemType = olMailItem Then
If objItem.Class = olMail Then
objItem.Move objFolder
End If
End If
Next
Set objItem = Nothing
Set objFolder = Nothing
Set objInbox = Nothing
Set objNS = Nothing
End Sub
Depending on the amt of mail you receive I have 2 strategies that can be used together:
1) As most people suggest above, use your inbox as your todo list, and keep it clean. have 1 folder for Archived mails, and use all the search tools for searching!
2) If you get HUGE amts of mail, then use a filter to move mails that you are only CC'ed on to another folder. Then only check that folder N times a day ( I used N=3, morning, lunch & home time )
You will be amazed how much time it saves you, esp if you find that you feel drawn to reading mails that are in your Inbox trying to keep you Inbox clean.
This stop non-urgent mails from disrupting your flow, and is just quicker because you can now read the entire thread of the conversion by the people who were in the TO list.
HTH
any email that is auto-generated gets auto-filtered to its own folder. Separate folders for each project, and more for HR and general company junk. Basically the inbox should only contain things that need responses, once responded to messages move into a folder.
I keep anything that needs my attention in my Inbox and move everything completed to my Saved Folder.
I have just started using Categories as of Monday and I think they are something that more people need to be aware of.
I have a few rules which detect Project Names from the Subject and auto assign to the correct Category with my Inbox set to Group by Category.
Finally I use Google Desktop for Searching - much quicker and easier although does not like me moving my messages to my Saved Folder.
Install LookOut, leave everything in the Inbox and just search for stuff.
Ok, maybe do some organisation, but LookOut is pretty good, and the better the search, the less manual organisation you have to do, and that is a Good Thing, IMO.
i use folders!!! we usually get tasks which have unique number!! so folders are named after task numbers!!
Finished task's folders move to archive!! simple and yet powerful! I found it useful and following it for the past 3+years
I simply have two folders: my inbox, and a subfolder called "archive". My inbox is my todo-list. If any message needs further attention, or has some action that needs to be completed, or I'm waiting for an answer for something, it stays in the inbox. If it's handled, I move it to the archive.
Therefore, if it's in the inbox, it reminds me of the stuff that I still need to do everytime I check my e-mail.
Search indexing in Outlook with Vista makes searching through e-mails just as much fun as it is with Google Mail, so you can apply the same strategy as they did. Why delete an e-mail?
Also, I turn off auto-archiving and keep all e-mails local with me.
I use the same principles as this GTD article - link text
Essentially, I keep my Inbox clear, and move everything to the folders as mentioned in the article. Search is good enough these days that you don't need endless sub-folders.
Everybody seems to suggest folders; I suggest Categories.
I have 1 active pst and 1 pst per archived year, every mail is assigned one or more categories. Adjust folder view to group by category.
The main advantage is that you can assign several categories to a single mail.
Everything that still needs attention is in the inbox without categories.
Oh yes, and Rules! As already mentioned, rules for automated emails, as well as a rule for known senders, which files incoming mail into a special inbox folder.
Folders! Nice and simple.
I have found these to be invaluable over the years to help organise a separate emails on a customer or project basis. Even when there's multiple parties involved i only have to look in 2 folders at most to find what i'm after.
Edit: Similar to what tloach said, i use the inbox essentailly as a todo list of things i still need to look at.
1 folder per project.
1 folder for personal mails.
1 folder for support.
Inbox for most other things.
I usually set up rules to auto-direct mail into the right folders.
Files and folders, auto-filtering and a small inbox (i.e. Inbox Zero) are all good practices, but ultimately it's all about being able to find emails when you need them and for that there's only one answer for Outlook at the moment.
Install Xobni.
I use Windows Desktop Search.
I have a huge offline PST where I move everything, and I can easily find anything by searching.
Use folders - one for each subject ex. project X, Marketing, Personal, TODO etc.
I use Xobni as well to quickly find emails from specific sender.
Two "Special" folders: "Inbox" for emails sent to me and "Inbox-CC" for emails I'm CC'd. New emails arrive to one of those folders and then I decide where to store them.
Merlin Mann has spent a load of time exploring this as Inbox Zero. There's a great video presentation at Google which is well worthwhile watching.
I'm an extreme sorter and have had an interesting time reorganizing my boss's email patterns - she gets 500 emails per day. After spam. And requires that all of her email remain in Outlook (meaning transferring, say, emails form 2001 into an archive file is out). It's still an organic process, but the most effective, and most easily adopted by her, have been to:
1) Use folders to separate functional areas. For example: A Company or Work folder containing Contracts (with a subfolder for each active contract), Business Development (proposals/leads), and Personal Development (education and conference materials, receipts, etc). Outside of the Company folder is a Personal folder for non-work related emails.
My only rule of thumb is embrace the use of folders, but don't go crazy with the subfolders. It's one thing to separate your M&Ms from your Snickers and Dairy Milks, another to separate the colors of your M&Ms.
2) Categories suck. They are not labels or tags. They are deficient. That said, there's little else that can help you highlight/color emails except maybe flags in Outlook 2003. I have a rule set up to categories any email that is sent from other employees within the company, so they don't get overlooked.
Once that's done: Rules, Rules, Rules. I haven't found a limit. I've got all manner of highly refined Spam filters first, followed by News filters that move all the lists and newsletters and RFP announcements to a news folder and mark them as read (unread messages denote priority and require attention; news is optional - it's procrastination, not work). Then there is a rule for each contract filtering any email from the customer domain to the appropriate contract folder.
And of course I would say read Inbox Zero (specifically this one) and Email Zen and take what nuggets of goodness mean the most to you before proceeding.
I just keep it all in my Inbox and let it auto-archive. That way I can sort and search the Inbox to find anything. Google Desktop Search helps too.
I know some people who fastidiously reassign their emails into a huge hierarchy of folders. They can never find anything more than 2 days old! "Maybe I put it under Project X; no, maybe under Oracle Issues; no, ..."