Allows the user, to programmatically create a task for Windows Task Scheduler, to take data from a database type that is supported by sqlalchemy, based on a query, and perform a mail merge on a specified .docx or .dotx document. The .docx document must have mail merge fields that correspond to the names of the fields of the table that is being queried.
Database types supported:
Should work with all database types supported by sqlalchemy:
Confirmed:
- Microsoft SQL Server
- SQLLite
Unconfirmed, but will most likely work:
- MySQL
- Oracle
- PostgreSQL
Unconfirmed, but may or may not work:
- Firebird
- Sybase
If you are using one of the unconfirmed database types, it would be very helpful if you would let me know if it does or does not work for you.
The main goal of this project is to automate documentation with data that is already entered into a database. Despite the advances in data acquisition, management, and storage today, many businesses and government organizations are still required to keep documentation of certain things for record keeping or legal liability purposes, especially documents that must be signed by an employee.
This project aims to significantly reduce costs to these organizations by reducing the time and paid work hours an employee spends creating required documentation. In some cases, particularly with employees who work in the field, this can enable an employee to do as much as twice the work, while still maintaining all of their required documentation. This can correspond to thousands or even tens of thousands of dollars saved in work hours for a single employee in a year!
An example would be an employee who gathers data in the field using a tablet. When this employee returns from the field, they will often spend a notable amount of time transferring data, that has already been gathered, into documents and sign them.
However, with this library, one can set up a scheduled mail merge, with a query that selects all records from a table that has a creation_date or date_modified field that occurred a specified amount of time ago, for this example, let's say that time is, 7 hours or less ago. Then the queried data will be taken from the specified database and table at the scheduled time and a mail merge will be performed a few minutes before the employee returns to the office at the end of the day. All the employee has to do then, is review and sign their documents. With some employees, like a building inspector working for a city, this can eliminate 1-3 hours of documentation, as well as reducing possible errors while creating documents.
This is just one example. This project can be used in any way your imagination can come up with! So feel free to be creative!
Requires Windows Vista or later.
Supports Python 3.x only.
Place the folder in the location of your choosing and do not delete or move any files in the folder.
pip install: Not yet, in-progress, and will release soon.
- Third-party Python modules:
- sqlalchemy
- Home page: https://www.sqlalchemy.org/
- Github: https://github.com/zzzeek/sqlalchemy/
- Has pip install: YES, https://pypi.python.org/pypi/lxml
- docx-mailmerge
- GitHub: https://github.com/Bouke/docx-mailmerge
- Has pip install: YES, https://pypi.python.org/pypi/docx-mailmerge/0.3.0
- dateutil
- Home page: https://dateutil.readthedocs.io/en/stable/
- GitHub: https://dateutil.readthedocs.io/en/stable/
- Has pip install: YES, https://pypi.python.org/pypi/python-dateutil
- lxml
- Home page: http://lxml.de/
- GitHub: https://github.com/lxml/lxml
- Has pip install: YES, https://pypi.python.org/pypi/lxml
You will need 3 things.
1.) Your connection string to your database.
2.) The query you want to use.
3.) The path to your .docx document mail merge fields.
from mail_merge_scheduler import ScheduledMerge
database_connection_string = r"sqlite:///F:\\sql_lite\\MyDataBases\\testsqldb.db"
table = "inspections"
query_tail = "dtdatetime >= DATEADD(HOUR, -6, GETDATE()) AND dtdatetime < DATEADD(HOUR, 0, GETDATE())"
query = "SELECT * FROM {} WHERE {}".format(table, query_tail)
# Provide the full path to the template docx file.
template_docx_path = r"F:\Scheduled Mail Merges\Daily Documentation\JohnDoe Mon-Fri 415pm\Inspections.docx"
new_merge = ScheduledMerge(database_connection_string, query, template_docx_path, output_docx_name=None)
- Optionally:
- You can pass in a name for the docx file created from the mail merge. If you leave it blank, the default naming convention will be "Merged" + the name of the template .docx document + a number In the above example, the docx file created from the mail merge would be named, Merged_Building Inspections_1.docx.
- NOTE:
- The mail merged .docx document is saved in the same folder as the template .docx document.
- NOTE:
- If there is already a Merged_Building Inspections_1.docx in that folder, then +1 will be added to the trailing number until it finds a file without that name.
Scheduling is done as a weekly scheduled task for the sake of simplicity.
- For DAILY schedules, simply set the week interval to 1, and pass in a list of all 7 days of the week.
- For Monthly schedules, simply set the week interval to a multiple of 4 and pass in your list of days.
week_interval = 1 days = ["Monday", "Tuesday", "Wednesday", "Thursday", "Friday"] hour = 16 minute = 15 new_merge.set_schedule(week_interval, days, hour, minute, start_day=None)
- Optionally:
- You can pass in a start_day for when you want Windows Task Scheduler to start running the scheduled task. The default start day is the current day.
Finally, generate the scheduled mail merge and you're done!
new_merge.generate_scheduled_merge()
Scheduled mail merges can be reviewed or edited in the schedules.ini file. Although you can manually enter in data, it is recommended to use the mail_merge_scheduler.py module to add new scheduled mail merges. Otherwise the task will not actually be scheduled in Windows Task Scheduler. Also, mail_merge_scheduler.py has error checking for input to ensure everything will run smoothly. It is advised not to manually edit the sched_days, week_int, or task_name variables, because it could conflict with the shared task names, feature, which could cause issues with creating and deleting scheduled mail merges. The config file is mostly for convience for those who know how to use it, and understand how the mail_merge_scheduler library works.
The config file will look like this.
[Scheduled_Mail_Merge_for_Building Inspections.docx_at_16_15_every_1_week(s)_1] db_connection_string = r"sqlite:///F:\\sql_lite\\MyDataBases\\testsqldb.db" db_query = r"SELECT * FROM inspections WHERE dtdatetime >= DATEADD(HOUR, -6, GETDATE()) AND dtdatetime < DATEADD(HOUR, 0, GETDATE())" template_docx_file_path = r"F:\Scheduled Mail Merges\Daily Documentation\JohnDoe Mon-Fri 415pm\Inspections.docx" output_docx_name = None week_int = 1 sched_days = ['2017-04-24 16:15:00', '2017-04-25 16:15:00', '2017-04-26, 16:15:00', '2017-04-27 16:15:00', '2017-04-28 16:15:00'] task_name = r"Scheduled_Mail_Merge_[Mon,Tue,Wed,Thu,Fri]_at_16-13_every_1_week(s)_1"
- NOTE:
- The script that will be called from Windows Task Scheduler is schedules.py, which is not the same script that the user will use to set up a new scheduled mail merge.
Since sometimes files get deleted, the end-user may manually enter in incorrect data to the schedules.ini file, or sometimes "things" may just change in general, I have added a logging file called schedules.log. The above mention script schedules.py will log any errors that may have occurred while running, and write them to the log file for your review. This is especially nifty since it provides the Traceback, enabling much faster debugging of potential errors!
This project is licensed under the MIT License.
- See the LICENSE file for details.
- link: https://github.com/D-Chase-H/mail_merge_scheduler/blob/master/LICENSE
- Pip installation.
- Open Office and Libre Office compatibility.
This library was created by GitHub User, D-Chase-H.
- My LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/dustinchaseharmon
- My HackerRanks.com Profile: https://www.hackerrank.com/CHarmon
Under normal circumstances I should get to pull requests within a few hours or by the next day. This is my first repository, so bear with me if I can't get to your requests right away.
Please, send a pull request with your changes, and comments are appreciated.
- I'd like to thank my brother for encouraging me to teach myself programming.
- The programming community in general for providing a plethora of tutorials and information so anyone can teach themselves programming.
- The Google Foo.Bar challenge team and HackerRanks.com for showing me how fun and powerful programming can be!
- A tip of the hat to all the open source third-party libraries used in this project!
- Thank you to all those who contribute with pull requests!
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