Importing form information from Entourage

[WDWTravel]

Hi, I'm hoping someone can point me in the right direction.

I use entourage to receive client data via a web form that is sent to me from someone else. I receive it in the body of a message, through Entourage. The data looks along the lines of this:

It was submitted by Email on: Friday, January, 7, 2005 at 16:23:16

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

Agree: GuestCheckedFirstBox

Name: Mr Tom Jones

Name2: Ms Sally Sue

Name5: Jolly John

Age5: 7

It all dumps to a specific folder within Entourage. I'm trying to extract that information, and take the data from all the fields, and import it into my database (I'm using FM7) How can I do that? It's driving me nuts. Is there an easy way to go about this?

Any advice appreciated. I thought there was an app out there that would make the transfer happen, but I can't find it.

[Fenton]

I'm not sure what you mean by "specific folder within Entourage"? I thought Entourage put everything in its database, not loose in folders. I don't really know; I have Entourage X, but I don't really use it.

What I do know is that both Entourage and FileMaker are very AppleScriptable. That may be one way to go.

Paul Berkowitz has a great many AppleScript for Entourage. Some of them are inexpensive shareware.

http://homepage.mac.com/WebObjects/FileS...=US&lang=en

or search at http://www.macscripter.net

[WDWTravel]

Hi Fenton, thank you for responding.

What I mean by a specific folder is that I've got rules set up so that Entourage strips out certain incoming emails (leads forwarded to me from my boss, results from a web form) dump to a specific folder. I try exporting them, however, all it can do are mbox files, and I'm having a tough time removing the data. I've been looking at scripts for days and my eyes are going buggy.

[Fenton]

I'm not much fond of these so-called "standards," which may be agreed upon, but which, compared to a real standard like XML, are sadly lacking logic, IMHO :-]

There are programs which can deal with the data, but in most cases they are just trying to convert it from one email client to another, which is not much use to we FileMaker folks. Some will export it as tabbed text, and that may get you somewhere.

I prefer AppleScript, which would allow you to get the data you want directly, in recognizable pieces, and place it directly into FileMaker fields. That address I send earlier is for a shareware collection of AppleScript to do all kinds of export/import with Entourage ($20). I've not tried them, but I imagine they work.

Of course, his are not written to interact directly between Entourage and FileMaker, which AppleScript can fairly easily do. It is not getting the data from Entourage to FileMaker that is the difficulty. It is always the "synchronization" which is difficult: which messages of which mailbox to get; whether they've been already done; you could delete them as you go; but what if something goes wrong :-?, have to error-check, etc....

Here is one that is written to interract with FileMaker. It is a little old, not updated to 7 by any means. I've used it in the past, with some modifications of my own:

http://homepage.mac.com/ThinkAgain/Mac/eMA/

Another alternative would be to get the POP3it plug-in, which would allow you to receive emails directly into FileMaker (at a dedicated email address). This eliminates most of the hassle, and would be by far the fastest. That would be my personal preference.

In either case you'd still have to parse out the data from the body of the email. But, that looks to be fairly simple, compared with the task of getting said body into a text field, from your boss.

[WDWTravel]

Hi Fenton,

I've tried the POP3it plug-in, however, I'm not very good at getting it to cull out just those particular emails. I get dozens of emails a day in the main account, but only a handful are the ones I'm trying to transfer, and I have other emails sorting into other folders automatically. I did find something in the first link you gave me, however, it told me it import all the record (I was working with just three at that time) I'm fairly new to AppleScript and need to find out where that restriction is located.

I'm off to try the eMA link you just gave me. Thank you!

I know once this works, it will streamline everything soooo much. It's like that carrot on the end of the stick.

[Fenton]

It seems to me that the incoming process could use a little optimization. These emails really should be coming to a dedicated email account. Then there would be no problem with POP3it. Your boss should be forwarding these to that account, not to your general email address account. I'm not real saavy about these things, but most email accounts allow you to create a few different email addresses.

One of the other solutions would work also. Entourage has a fairly complete and straightforward AppleScript dictionary. Because both FileMaker (Perform AppleScript) and Entourage (Scripts Menu) have the ability to start an AppleScript, you should be able to run more or less the same script from either end.

eMA may not work in 7. I see now that I am no longer using it with that solution after I converted it to 7, and have turned off that functionality (which was no longer being used anyway). Sorry for not remembering this earlier. I believe his scripts could be tweaked to work; they are all open. But they are fairly serious AppleScripts.

There is one immediate stumbling block. It doesn't recognize FileMaker 7. In his overall control script, eMA Librarian near the top, there is the following:

else if ct contains "FMP5" then

set dbAppRef to application processes whose creator type is "FMP5"

You'd need to add the lines:

else if ct contains "FMP7" then

set dbAppRef to application processes whose creator type is "FMP7"

The rest may work. It would take some testing to see.

Let us know when you get to the parsing.

[Fenton]

I was just trying to convert the eMA scripts to work with FileMaker 7. It could be done. But he has included quite a bit of error-checking routines, beyond that already mentioned; so it would be pretty difficult. It's too bad, because otherwise the scripts would run, with only a few tweaks. So, basically, it doesn't work with 7. Sorry I mentioned it.

[HowardCrut]

WDWTravel:

In Entourage, create a 'Rule'. If the email you get that contains the form contents always has the same subject like 'form results', the create a 'Rule' that if an incoming email's subject equals 'form results' then forward or redirect the email to a filemaker database using POP3it. That way only emails that contain the form results get sent to that database. From within the database you can define the fields as a calculation function which parses the body of the email.