I am not a power user, but I have been using my Mac in business for 20+ years. We use a Chrome website for a supplier who sells us Database services. It's a custom built database at their end, and businesses of our type all around the globe use it, like a giant Rolodex for headhunting purposes. It stores CV's and resumes and has people records, company records, and "job order" records for headhunters.
My reason for interest in Keyboard Maestro is that the function this database has for sending emails is very poor. If I built a list of 80 people I wanted to write, people who hear from us regularly about job openings, I could send them out one at a time (extremely tedious) or send them out as mail merged bulk email. But when sent as bulk, it adds an "Unsubscribe" option at bottom and has other elements of it's appearance that Google, Hotmail and other services look for to identify spam. So, they get waylaid in spam folders instead of reaching their intended.
I am looking to have a Macro that simply records keystrokes and clicks the way that my old program Quickeys did years ago. When I trigger that Macro, it would send out ten emails at a time or something, but do it as a "one at a time" process on the database by automated clicks and keyboard strokes. That way it's not tedious, but they don't go out as bulk mail and won't get tagged as spam.
Is this a function that could be managed with Keyboard Maestro? Is it something a novice could do or would I need a programmer/expert consultant? Thank you!
This is 100% achievable. One question would be are the emails sent out via web browser or a actual email client. It can be achieved multiple ways is the reason
I hope you don't mind that I have revised your topic title to better reflect the question you have asked.
FROM: Would Keyboard Maestro Work for Me?
TO: How Can I Automate Sending EMails Using an Online Database as the Source?
This will greatly help you attract more experienced users to help solve your problem, and will help future readers find your question, and the solution.
davejensen70, welcome to Keyboard Maestro (KM) and its Forum.
KM is one of the best Mac automation tools available, its Forum is one of the best and friendliest forums on the Internet.
Whenever you reach a tough stumbling block trying to use KM, please feel free to post your question/problem here for help.
Automating the use of online web forms is one approach to automating your workflow. While it is certainly better than nothing, it may or may not be the best solution for you.
There might also be multiple solutions you want to use. One for the near term, that can be quickly developed and deployed to automate a piece of your workflow, like filling in the online web form, and then a more extensive solution that gives you more control over sending the emails and managing the replies to them.
It is hard to give you any credible advice without knowing a lot more about your workflow.
That is normally something a business would engage a business consultant to help analyze and develop a good solution.
Having said all that, If you, or someone on your staff, are prepared to learn Keyboard Maestro (KM), then we can probably help you develop a simple solution for now. If you want to just automate the filling in of an online form, then KM offers a number of tools (Actions ) that can be of help.
Ideally this is the URL to the page, but if that is not possible, then screenshots and sections of HTML code can be used.
Note that without access to the URL, we can't actually test the solutions we might provide to you.
A real-world example of you manually using the web form
This would include knowing where you want to get the data for all form fields that you want to auto-fill (as opposed to manually typing)
What the results of form submission look like.
A video of you using the web form with a narration of what/why you are doing would be ideal.
And again, welcome to the KM Forum. We are a pretty friendly bunch here, so don't worry about asking "stupid" questions (there are none) and feel free to ask any questions related to KM.
at the top right of the Action, and select "Help"