How to get rid of the human piece in a process

[alwayslrN]

We have an Oracle process, that when completed, FTP's a flag to our Crystal Enterprise environment. That triggers a report that when completed shoots off an email to a distribution list. From that email we have someone here that 30 minutes after the email opens up an Excel spreadsheet that when it opens executes some queries and returns a status of TRUE or FALSE based on the results. Based on the status he sends out one of two emails. If TRUE he sends all is good email, however, if FALSE he sends out the something is wrong we will get back to you email.

The step we are trying to avoid is the human part with waiting at least 30 minutes, opening the spreadsheet, and then sending of the appropriate emails.

Is it possible, do you think, to somehow get that flag to speak to the Excel spreadsheet or even some other Excel spreadsheet that starts a timer, of sorts, and once it hits the specified time triggers the TRUE/FALSE spreadsheet which then shoots off the correct email message?

oops...just confirmed the process has changed a little bit from what was in place a couple of months ago. The first set of emails that get sent off from the flag has at 6:45am so there no longer is the need for the 30 minute wait. The guy that runs the spreadsheet does it each morning around 8:15 when he gets in, but we still do not want someone to work about running it.

 

[firefytr]

Hi there,

So it is automated up until it is received in Outlook then? What I'm getting is the user will interact with it at this point, then open the email attachment, run code (or via a time limit, whatever), etc. Is this correct? If so, you could start writing your code in Outlook to check for the message, then run it from there. Can you confirm this?

Regards,
Zack Barresse

Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication. What is a MS MVP? PODA
- Leonardo da Vinci