Looking for a workflow

[zeroluck]

Hello Everyone,

 

I am new to Alfred but have been loving all the functionality I have found so far.

 

What I am trying to do is automate a repeating process I do every month.  I create a series of PDF reports that get distributed to various staff members.  Some of the reports are specific to an individual and others are common to the group.  

 

I have been trying to find a workflow that will look into a specific folder, grab files based on filenames, email those files to a specific person, create an Evernote note in a specific workbook with the same group of files that were emailed.

 

I have been tinkering with Alfred, but maybe someone with more advanced skills can help me out, or knows of some workflows that I can borrow parts from to put this together.  I just have not found the whole or the parts in my search so far.

 

Thanks for your help/feedback.

 

[Admin: Moved to Workflow Help & Questions as it's specifically workflows related]

[deanishe]

That doesn't really have an awful lot to do with Alfred. That is to say, Alfred can start the thing for you, but can't help you much otherwise. Hazel is more the app for kicking off actions based on files, but I don't think it could help much either. You're probably going to do 95% of the work in code.
 
You need to look into scripting Evernote with AppleScript. You may be able to do it with JavaScript, too, a somewhat less insane language, but it's much harder to figure out how to automate apps with JS than AS at this point.
 
Similarly, it also sounds like you want to automate Mail.app, and perhaps Finder, too.
 
Fortunately, you can probably copy most of the code you need from other places. In particular, Carlos-Sz's Evernote workflow is written in AppleScript and can create notes.
 
If you have more concrete questions, I can give you more concrete answers.

[zeroluck]

First, thank you for the links they were helpful.

 

I have been trying to use Hazel as well, and as you have indicated it doesn't quite fit what I am looking for.

 

I will try to be more specific in the process I want to automate.

 

Every month I do the following:

1. run 22 reports that are generated as PDF's out of an access database. 
2. the file names of these reports are controlled by the access output ie"BldgOpenFiles-FirstName LastName"
3. I select the files with a person's name and two general files with the word "Sticker" in the filename and email them to that person via the Mail.app on my MacBook.  The emails are always the same, just the reports attached with a subject line "Reports"
4. After these are sent I go into Evernote, create a note in a notebook that is named the same as the person who I am emailing for records on when and what was sent and paste the files I emailed into the new note in Evernote.
5. when that is done, I delete the reports from the folder and wait for next month [Hazel would work well doing this part, but I am trying to get the front part down first].

This process happens for 19 people so it takes about an hour and a half uninterrupted to do this.

 

I am only a novice at the coding aspect of this, but if that is the best way to go about this.  I will find someone.  Thank you for the time any feedback you have.

[deanishe]

Any script would need to know which files to send to which person and what their email address is. How would it know which files go to which email address?

 

Could you post a list of the actual filenames? Or a fake set of filenames that follow the same rules (e.g. with fake names)?

 

I'm 100% sure the emailing and adding notes to Evernote stuff is doable. Even if it can't be done by scripting Mail.app and Evernote.app, sending an email via a mailserver is easy to do, and you can add notes via the Evernote API.