Outlook to CSV - via OCR

[GSP@DCS]

Can this be done with the standard Office tool set?

Age old problem... I receive multiple emails daily which have to be manually
keyed into our tracking system. I'd like to print (???) the email to OCR and
scrub the resulting document to capture our tracking data.

Anyone know which tools would be best suited for this? Or maybe a different
method altogether?

tia
Steve

ps - if this is not the right group point me in the right direction

 

[Kooster]

Steve,

Most CRMs or Contact Management software provision a scripting language to
import this information. I assume that is what you are tracking, either
inquiries or 'trouble tickets'. With a dedicated email address, or a Web
form, you can easily populate another database. Many have 'hooks' for Outlook.

If this is not the application, please tell us more about how the data is
used, and possibly someone can offer a better solution.

P.

 

[GSP@DCS]

Thanks for your reply. The emails we receive are notifications from an
online insurance claims management site. It lets us know we have a new claim
assigned to us. We currently take that 'loss notice' and key it into our
tracking/dispatch system. Of course manual entry opens us up not only to
impeding the workflow but typos also.

The types of items I need to extract from teh emails are the insurance
company name, claim number, where the loss is located etc... to determine
which of our field adjusters we will assign it to. After this decision has
been made the data is used for customer service and accounting purposes.

I've worked with VB in Excel so I'm a bit familiar with it but have no
experience in the Outlook VB arena. I'm guessing there are a whole new set
of 'objects' and 'methods' that I should learn. Some guidance to tutorials
or samples would be very helpful.

I was at one time very experienced with Foxpro and am currently writing code
in Visual Fox. But I still use the old text based coding method instead of
the GUI/OOD method. (old dog / new trick thing).

Anyway all help and feedback is appreciated.

 

[Kooster]

If they can pack it into an email, then they should be able to give it to you
in a formatted file (delimited, fixed length, etcc). I would go back to them
and ask them if they can change the source file from email to a data file.
They probably are already doing that to generate the email to you as part of
a batch process.

P.