Newbie here who probably just saved an hour a day by adding KM into the mix.
I'm not sure the language I'd use to google what I'd like to do or if it's feasible. So I'm hoping someone here knows what I mean.
I'd like to trigger macros throughout my day that would queue to run at night or on command.
The list of macros would change everyday and is dependant on what I tag/trigger/queue.
Examples of tasks:
Post a blog.
Set up email draft in Mailchimp.
Post event on community calendar.
Keep business stats updated in Google Sheets
Organize folders
Archive projects
Research for appointments the next am
Etcetera
These are all macros that function well independently and are mainly triggered internally but there are a few webhooks.
Would I just create filters to mark which macros to run? (plus lots of pauses and loops that and the end of one macro it resets, pauses and then begins the next).
Would one macro be able to run multiple times if triggered? (IE if I ask to draft two blog posts)
Is there some hidden thing I'm not seeing that makes this not feasible?
Thanks.
P.S. This forum really helped speed up the learning curve.
If I was going to do this I think I'd design a plain-text table in BBEdit.
The file would be scanned by a Queue-Runner-Macro at convenient intervals – whatever those turned out to be.
Time Macro-Name Parameters
None Make Blog Entry Blog-Title-Text
20:00 Archive Job-F451
...
Queued items with “None” for the time would be executed in order.
Entries with a numeric time would be executed on time.
There might be a delay parameter, so I could tell the Queue-Runner macro how long to wait before doing the next scan – and/or adjust the interval between sequentially executed macros.
You could do all kinds of things, although you'd want to avoid bogging down your computer too much.
My apologies in the delay, I thought I'd responded but must have left it open...
Thank you for that. It got me going in the right direction, some things I was hoping to queue I found other ways of doing such as headless chrome or RPA, but at night my macbook goes out and does work for my clients that I charge them for while I sleep, like drafting their marketing emails, and reposting events. Slowly task by task it's building, and my clients are starting to come around to the idea.
Just curious about bogging down my computer too much... Any examples of what would cause that? And what would be the repercussions of it? I've always found the answer to that question in other automation integrations by overloading something, it breaking and me needing tech support sheepishly.
When planning I was afraid of overloading so I was going to use a semaphore lock, but don't run with it now as it's only working for 20 minutes a night at most and I'm normally keeping my eye on it while watching tv. Is a semaphore lock a good way to avoid overloading anything?
It's probably not the night queue, sometimes my computer is crashing, but I have automator, km, alfred, and robomotion machines (sometimes two) running. Thanks for the activity monitor advice - I think i'll find the answer there.