Create email, based on specific criteria out of batch PDF

[HowlingFrog]

Howdy all,

i need to somehow create a flow/ways to automate rather silly process 

What it is: I have approx. 600 pages in one pdf output. This file constants statements for various customers (could be 500 could be more). 

What`s required:

From the batch output find all relevant pages for customer under the same customer number, match that customer number to a specific email address (which i have saved in excel) and automatically create an email body ready to be sent.

Not sure how achievable this task is? Need someone super bright to help please 🙂 never tried building flows however am open to educate myself. 

Thank you very muchly

[Andrew_J]

@HowlingFrog 

Okay so brass tacks 600 pages with 500 customers = 1.2 pages per customer.  So if you have a software package that can extract the pages you need for each I would go that route and do this manually.  At say 1.2 pages per customer and 2 minutes per 1.2 pages to, select the pages, extract, save them with the customer number it is only going to take you a day or two to process at 2 minutes per customer.

Yes process the emails via FLOW at the end of seperating out the files form the main 600 page one.  See below:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2_o_tDsH7DA

I am sorry that above may not be the answer you were expecting but if you said I had muliple batches of customer data coming in on regular basis then perhaps seperating them using flow wil lhave been the way to go.

Regards,

Andrew

[HowlingFrog]

Hi Andrew,

thank you for your message, much appreciated 🙂 

the current process in use is to break the PDF into individual pages (PDF can do that within a minute) issue is to review all individual file, decide how many pdfs belongs to the same customer, create an email and then manually look out for email addresses and off it goes. The ERP system currently in place is very aged, it cannot produce and send directly from the software. Believe it or not, it's very time consuming, takes my colleague to send it in 2working days, mad 😄 

I was looking into options of importing the PDF files into Microsoft word, try to set up email rules and attach an email based on the rule. It's just very complex and I'm not too bad with IT however this is little too advanced for me. 

There is an option to export all of the statements into excel however the formatting is all over the shop and it's one long text within a sheet. The output doesn't break it into individual statement. 

Saying that i was also researching macros, have found quite nice video how to create a flow but again, since this is very fluid spreadsheet, each month, the length of the statement for each customer varies all depending on how many transactions there are. 

Next on my agenda is to perhaps create some BI report, again must educate myself on BI never used it but before i wanted to start investigating further.

I thought i might find someone super dupper smart on this platform who could come up with some nice solution 🙂 (wishful thinking :))

[HowlingFrog]

Hello again, sorry spoken too soon.

I just watched that video in your attachment, i think this might actually work! It will require further work by rewriting the PDF name into the customer number. (wondering if i can find a solution to automate the name of the files)

I`ll give it a try, thank youuu 🙂 

[Andrew_J]

@HowlingFrog 

I was suggesting you use Adobe PDF sofware to extract the pages from the 600 page document.  And for this to be done manually.  But my two minutes per customer was only an estimate for the time taken to perfrom this task and add necessary data to the excel or SharePoint List to then use for the email side of things. 

However you could use AI to process them, but that would involve using 20 pages to do so.  And using AI asumes that all the data on the invoices is in the same place.  But in my opinion this could be to much for such a small amount of data.  And if the 600 PDF document has poor quailty text then this may require you to go back and review the data you do get.  That is why I suggested the way I did.

Maybe your collegue and you could work together on this, one splits the PDF, calls out the data whilst you enter the data in the Excel or Sharepoint list.  It could only take a day or less.  Book a meeting room out then you wont disturb the rest of the office.

Regards,

Andrew