How can I automate opening email attachments and entering data into a form?

[GiTS]

I receive excel spreadsheets as email attachments all the time.
I usually open the email, then the attachment, then I copy and paste the data into an html form. A php program automatically enters the data into mysql properly formatted.
I would like to automate the process so that anyone sending emails to the address with the correct header is able to input data. How can I do this?

Thank you for your ideas

 

[chiro]

I receive excel spreadsheets as email attachments all the time.
I usually open the email, then the attachment, then I copy and paste the data into an html form. A php program automatically enters the data into mysql properly formatted.
I would like to automate the process so that anyone sending emails to the address with the correct header is able to input data. How can I do this?

Thank you for your ideas

Hey GiTS.

What browser do you use? Have you got access to an email daemon?

If you can add third party extensions to your browser and get notifications for incoming emails, use the SDK available to do that.

However if this is not possible, look for an open email client that allows you to hook the notification messages and then parse the message and do your stuff.

As a speculative response, something like Thunderbird might be configurable to do what you need in terms of creating a plugin or add-on given that it is open source for 1 and 2 there are quite a few add-ons (and I'm guessing the developers put in a lot of thought to the design and the SDK itself).

 

[rorix_bw]

If the data is in exactly the same format every time you can use a keyboard/mouse macro recording program like "AutoIt". However, this will fail if it cannot work by playing back pre-recorded mouse movements and clicks. (i.e. window in wrong place = miss = fail). EDIT: However if you know the correct keyboard shortcuts to trigger the menus, it should be OK...

On a PC system, "Windows Powershell" from Microsoft (an official component) is a scripting language designed for task automation. It can certainly hook into applications and trigger their menus. I am not sure on its full capabilities as not being a windows tech I only looked briefly at it.