emailing - auto update of address book from .csv

[henryzhang]

Hi, not sure where this thread should go, but hear me out.

I posted yesterday requesting help for an automated emailing system.

Further investigation has lead to me discovering that the problem isnt really with the emailing program, but the way our database works.

Our database contains our customers info (over 20,000 customers, constantly updated everyday), and we can offload their info as a .csv file. What I need is for this .csv file to be imported into an emailing program so that the address book is updated everyday, automatically. After this, I need the email program to recognise a parameter within the .csv file ('email type') and thereby send the correct email to the customer. The scheduling of the emailing is possible in many programs, but the actual importing of the .csv file is still manual.

I was wondering if anyone knows how to make the importing of the file automatic, perhaps program it so that it does it everyday, maybe one hour before the email schedule.

Is this possible with php/java/c++ etc? Can it be used in collaboration with an existing emailing program, such as Outlook or Mach5? I don't really know about coding myself, so any help is greatly appreciated!

Regards,

Henry
www.mobal.com

[hk_mp5kpdw]

You can write a program that reads the csv file and updates your address book. If you are on a Windows computer (XP for example) you could use the task scheduler to have this run at set times (once a day, multiple times a day). Alternately you could create a program that runs in the background and repeatedly checks the "last modified" time of the csv file and then does the address book update whenever the csv file gets changed. Is the database->csv file export something that is automatic or is that manual as well?

[LinuxCoder]

If you are on a Windows computer (XP for example) you could use the task scheduler to have this run at set times (once a day, multiple times a day).

If by any chance you're on Linux platform you can use cron jobs to achieve the exact same functionality (but you probably knew that already).

Cheers