How Customers Use Macro Express

Combine, expand and cleanup name and geographical information.

A client receives names and geographical data from many different sources. The data from each source have different and often inconsistent formats. This information must be combined and differences reconciled before it is submitted to a batch processing service.

Macros process and correct errors in the data. Common nicknames such as ‘Bob’ are converted to proper names like ‘Robert’. Other cleanup and expansions are performed. For example ‘Dave & Janice Jones’ may be converted to ‘Jones, Dave’ and ‘Jones, Janice’. Differences that cannot be automatically resolved are presented to an operator for manual mediation. The information is presented and someone chooses the correct version of the information.

Once the data is cleaned, combined and reconciled it is converted to XML format and uploaded to the data processor via the FTP commands in Macro Express Pro. When the third party has completed their processing, they send an email indicating that the conversion is done. Microsoft Outlook receives the email and special rules in Outlook trigger a macro that then downloads the results. A user can then review the final data in an Excel spreadsheet.

Cory Jackson says “We have been using Macro Express Pro to perform this conversion since July of 2008.”

Cory A. Jackson
http://bluepointdesign.com

Oh my G**, this is going to change everything I do!

I’ve been a user of Macro Express for five years now, and I thought that it was high time I dropped you an email to say thank you. I work as a CAD designer and machine programmer. I’ve been using Macro Express to automate many things in the software I use for my work.

It’s hard to say just how much time and effort Macro Express has saved, but one of my main macros saves me about 2 hours of work a week; while another is used by five or six other people in my office saving us a total of about 10 hours per week while also greatly reducing data entry mistakes. Those are just two macros out of the 390 I have written. And still, I think there are many other tasks within our company that can potentially be automated.

I think of Macro Express as my ultimate productivity tool and I have to laugh when I recall what I was doing before I found it. When I first tried Macro Express I was like “Oh my G**, this is going to change everything I do!” Five years down the line and I can confirm that it did just that!

Thank you for such a great program.

Michael S., UK

The more than 100 Macro Express Pro macros in use save over 2000 man hours each month!

Professional Grade Macros was hired in March 2001 to provide macro automation for Corsa Performance in Berea, Ohio. We chose Macro Express 3 as the best tool for the job. Macro Express soon became an integral part of their operation. In June 2007 we began using a Beta version of Macro Express Pro for all new macros. Later, existing macros were converted to run under Macro Express Pro.

The first macro written manages the printing of shipping labels. Different clients have different requirements for labeling shipments. Macros now automate the label printing by using the sales order number to look up the client and customize the label printing according to their specifications. Prior to using Macro Express Corsa employees had to print out a sales order, manually look up the client and then manually select the correct labels to print. Automation shortened a 60 second process to one second. This may not sound like much but in an operation that ships 5 full semi truck loads every week, this one macro alone saves many hours.

The advanced features in Macro Express Pro allowed us to create a single macro server that performs many tasks at once. The Directory Modification, System Event and Process Event macro activations allow macros to run when specific things change in the data. And the ability to run multiple macros at one time allow these macros to run simultaneously.

For example, as sales orders, purchase orders and engineering changes are entered into the company database, Macro Express Pro detects changes that have been made and performs data validation and warns of invalid or incomplete entries. When errors are detected an alert is emailed to the person who entered that information.

To create a subassembly requires a variety of parts built by different departments. These parts are then assembled in the final assembly area. At 5:00 AM every day, a macro runs that compares sales orders with shipping records to create a list of what needs to be built in order to meet the sales orders due that day or that are overdue. Reports are created for each manufacturing division containing a list of what they need to build that day and what is coming for the next 5 days.

Macro Express is now an integral part of all departments at Corsa Performance. The more than 100 macros in use at Corsa Performance save over 2000 man hours each month! Additional savings are realized because using macros to customize processes eliminated the need for custom database work which would have been much more expensive than the cost of writing macros for Macro Express Pro.

Although we started with Macro Express 3, using Macro Express Pro allows us to do things that could not have been done previously. I’ve never had a problem converting a macro from Macro Express 3 to Macro Express Pro.

Joseph Weinpert
Professional Grade Automation Software

I see a problem and use Macro Express to solve it.

In March 2008 a bank hired Bluepoint Design to retrieve data from a database on one system and convert it and upload it to another database. Collecting the information required using a terminal emulation program to visit several screens and harvest data from those screens. The information gathered was combined, converted and saved to a file in a format that could be imported into the new database. We decided to use Macro Express Pro (still in beta) to accomplish this. Cory Jackson, CEO of Bluepoint Design says “Macro Express has always been a ‘go to’ program for me. I see a problem and use Macro Express to solve it.“

The success of this job resulted in the referral of more banks with similar needs. The latest conversion, instead of using terminal emulation software, used a web based interface.

In June 2008 another bank asked Bluepoint Design to convert data for 18000 customers with 36000 records. Unlike the other jobs, this database could only be accessed via a java based window on a web site. The macro had to bring up multiple screens for each client, harvest customer and order information, parse and process the data and save the result into a file.

The process of collecting the data was much slower with the web based interface compared with the terminal emulation interface used previously. Because of this, additional parsing of the data was required to validate and check for errors. Even though the process was slower, the customer wanted the conversion done in a short amount of time. So 6 separate computers were utilized to run Macro Express Pro and convert different portions of the data. All copies of Macro Express Pro saved the results into a single file. The process took several days but finished on time and with complete accuracy.

Cory A. Jackson
http://bluepointdesign.com

Macro Express Pro affords the flexibility to change and add capabilities to meet ever changing needs for a minimal cost.

A large Eastern hospital with 1800 doctors asked Bluepoint Design to translate AutoScript scripts to Macro Express Pro and rewrite and update them in the process. The hospital has several different computer systems each dedicated to different tasks such as patient management, accounting and billing. Information is collected from the various systems and, using a java based web screen, entered into the main data management system. This is done using the user interfaces of the different systems just like a person could do manually.

Certain account collections are identified and information is pulled from those accounts. A screen on another system is opened and the account number is entered. Information is then gathered from the screen and data is typed into several fields. Decisions are made based on the content of the fields, information is validated, entered into another screen and results verified. Then the processing continues with the next record.

There are 30 different jobs accomplished with 9 different macros. Some jobs run continually, others daily and still others monthly. One user at the hospital has a bank of inexpenisve computers, each running Macro Express Pro, pumping data between billing system to patient management system.

Cory Jackson says “This medical institution employs powerful million dollar systems but unfortunately custom programming to integrate with legacy systems would have been extremely expensive and taken an unacceptable amount of time. Using Macro Express Pro and a little time we were able to fill their needs utilizing the normal UI for 5% of modification costs to the new systems. What’s more Macro Express Pro affords them the flexibility to change and add capabilities to meet their ever changing needs for a minimal cost.“

Since July 2008 Macro Express Pro has allowed the smooth transfer of information between disparate systems.

Cory A. Jackson
http://bluepointdesign.com

I have found Macro Express invaluable for sorting and updating stockmarket data.

I have found Macro Express invaluable for sorting and updating stockmarket data. And at only a fraction of the cost of expensive add-on programs. Macro express fetches any data I need from the internet, such as company details, new listings etc, and can automatically update my database for the entire stockmarket. Thanks Insight…a tremendous time saver!

Charles R., Austrailia
Share Trader

Macro Express has helped me to recover from severe neck and shoulder pain caused by keyboard and mouse repetitive motion.

Your Macro Express product is fantastic. I have been using it for about one year. It has helped me to recover from severe neck and shoulder pain caused by keyboard and mouse repetitive motion. My job has a lot of repetitive keystrokes. Last October while searching in the search engines for a better keyboard I saw a listing for your product. It was the first time I realized a Macro program was part of the solution to my neck and shoulder pain getting healed. So I did some research and found yours to be the best for my needs.

The price is very reasonable. The product is easy to learn and it literally cut hundreds of keystrokes and mouse movements out of my work day. I still use the Macros I wrote a year ago and am always adding more. Great Job.

My neck and shoulder pain has slowly gotten better and better and I would say its now 90 percent well. Couldn’t have happened without Macro Express.

Oh and the additional bonus, I am able to do more work because the Macros are quicker than me entering keystrokes. I love the Macro speed up tool.

Thanks for a Job Well Done.

Miguel G., CA

I saved 30 hours on one data input / software testing project.

Let me tell you a story on why I LOVE the new GETCONTROL functions.

I had to transpose data from an old version of software to a new version (which I did by manual typing last month – ugh!). Anyhow, once I had Macro Express working, I was tabbing through two data dialogs in the old product – capturing 9 fields of data and then activating new version and automatically inserting these 9 fields across 3 different tabs and layouts.

It reduced an error prone manual typing task that averaged 1 minute each down to ZERO data errors in 10 seconds each! Multiply 2600 records X 50 seconds and you saved me OVER 30 hours on one job — and no errors!!! I figure I’ve made back a minimum of 100 times my investment in the first year’s use.

Mark A. Carillon
Carillon Consulting, Inc.
2752 Greenridge Road
Orange Park, FL 32073

Email: mark@web904.com

Your product saved many man-hours of work and tens of thousands of dollars for the one project we used it with so far.

I would like to commend you on a excellent and easy to use product.

I am a software developer here and found your product saved many man-hours of work and tens of thousands of dollars for the one project we used it with so far. The IT staff and I here are very pleased with your product, and have plans to use it in the future for more projects. The cost of the project we completed with your software was around $5,000 CD, but it would have cost us $50,000 without it because we would have had to out-source that work and that is the quote we got.

Jeff J., Canada

We set up a ping routine to test connectivity to our main server.

We used your tool to set up a ping routine against several ip’s to prove that the connectivity we had to our main server leaving us blind for several hours each day. We were in Germany and our main server was in [the] USA.

Because of the data collected for a 30-day period, we were able to convincingly show that indeed there was a problem where packets were being lost, at which routers/servers we were experiencing the lost connectivity, and were able to show the exact time of day that the problems occurred. The technicians finally investigated and found that they had unshielded cable passing one of the highest electromagnetic draws in the compound. Once they replaced the cables, there was no longer a connectivity problem.

Name withheld upon request

I want to compliment Macro Express on one of its most useful but less obvious (& less promoted) features. I refer to the ability to use the same Hotkey for many different macros, depending on the window name.

I use the F5 key as my log-in key for web sites that need it, such as financial companies or professional eductional sites. MacroExpress identifies the window and supplies the correct macro to enter my logon name and password.

For those web sites that use the same proprietary security program, I use F5 again, and then use Macro Express’s “Multiple Choice” or “If Message” boxes to pick the sign-in macro.

Macro Express makes all this is amazingly fluid and easy.

Arthur M., MD

70 macros provide backup when ticket system is down for maintenance.

As part of my job, I do desktop support for a medium size call center (200+ agents). I also seem to get assigned “special projects” that no one else can do, for whatever reasons.

I thought I’d take a moment and share an example of how I use Macro Express at work. When a customer calls (in this case, from a major US airline), we are required to fill out a call or incident in our ticket base. Our ticket base is rather complex, has multiple tabs and forms, full of user supplied data, radio buttons, drop down menus, and the like.

We routinely experience ‘scheduled outages’ of our primary ticketing system while data is backed up or server maintenance is performed. During these ticket base outages, our internal network is still up; however, access to the ticket base is not accessible. Our operation is a 24 x 365 business with non-stop calls. Down-time of the ticket base used to be a major headache and a golden opportunity for lost revenue. To track tickets when the customer calls during these outages, we developed a Sharepoint file to capture critical caller data.

However, that’s only half the solution. We still MUST make a regular ticket (based on the data captured in the Sharepoint file) when the ticket base comes back up after maintenance. We used to have several agents do this “by hand”. It was realized that this was a perfect opportunity for Macro Express – to take a manual, repetitive task and automate it. Reliably. No transcriptions errors, etc. This greatly increased our productivity by leaving personnel free to take calls rather than be unavailable “scribes” for data that already existed in a “machine readable” format! Why waste time if it’s a repetitive task moving data between forms like this?!

Using Macro Express has given us a MUCH higher consistency and QUALITY of data than was previously obtained by the “human transcription” method previously used. No other tool that we’re familiar with would have worked. While the ticket base maintains SQL tables, etc; even “read only” access is extremely restricted and not a viable solution to us. If we were going enter data into our ticket base, we had to emulate a human user.

Using nothing more than the documentation that came with the product, I went from knowing NOTHING about Macro Express (other than my company had a multi-user license for it) to writing a fully functional macro in three days. That may not seem that impressive until you consider there are over 70 sub-macros involved. This uses an “industrial strength” ticket base, and Sharepoint files – each with hundreds or thousands of records (depending on length of outage). Each macro performed a specific task or series of related tasks (e.g.: Open an Excel spreadsheet generated by Sharepoint, read all the fields in a record, evaluate the critical fields, copy data to ticket base, record the processing in a text log, error processing {log all errors!}, update Sharepoint records with the appropriate ticket base #’s, and update the ticket base with the appropriate Sharepoint index #, and so on). The macro has already successfully processed thousands of records.

We generate our revenue, in part, based on being able to generate quality tickets. See the obvious connection here? It not only saves TIME (which is also money), it assures you of consistent output. If only humans were as consistent as Macro Express is…

I also use Macro Express for many of the “special projects” I get assigned (Call Mentoring, and so on). Personally, I used to use Hot Keyboard Pro. Simply stated, there is NO comparison in the sheer “horsepower” between the two products. The price difference is small and the difference in capability is night & day!

Parting tip: If you’re not already familiar with Macro Express, before tackling a project of this magnitude, I would recommend that you get acquainted with Macro Express scripting in a gradual manner. Start off simply by letting it “record” various phases of your task for you. Then study & edit the recorded macro (shorten delays, remove excess mouse movements, etc.). Once you’ve used the Macro editor and you’ve seen how the instructions are formed, you’ll learn very quickly how to write these macros “from scratch”.

P. Ferris, Tulsa, OK

We are projected to have uploaded and processed 9 million files using Macro Express Pro.

During these tough economic times the business of Property Preservation has boomed. When a home or business is foreclosed by a bank, credit union or mortgage company they hire a Property Preservation company to maintain the property. These companies provide yard care, security and watch for vandalism or damage such as broken pipes or leaky roofs.

The Property Preservation company is required to upload photos and other documentation to the lender after work is performed at the property. This information must be submitted in a timely manner as it is proof that the work has been completed. The lender’s systems used to upload this information are cumbersome and require tedious user involvement. We have automated this using Macro Express Pro.

The system consists of three basic steps. Receive inbound data, process and distribute it and upload the files to the correct websites.

The inbound processes receive photos, documents and invoices via email attachments and are handled by 4 dedicated virtual workstations. Macros read inbound email via a 3rd-party COM object. Files are then saved in folders with names generated from the email subject line. Files with invalid job numbers are immediately emailed back to the sender.

The distribution processes extract and place files into various networked computers based on information contained in the email subject lines. This task is run by 2 dedicated virtual computers. Macros continually sweep inbound folders for new jobs and photos. When found, these jobs are distributed to the next available open outbound computer, or whichever outbound computer has the least number of jobs in its queue.

24 virtual workstations log in to various client websites to upload photos and documents. There are more outbound than inbound computers because the outbound tasks take a greater amount of time. The outbound macros determine who the client is via data in the folder name. Then it looks up login information for that client and fires off an Internet Explorer COM object to upload the files. After the upload is complete it determines the next course of action via a returned status string. The event is then written to a transaction log. When failures occur, the macro emails a report to the client and posts transaction logs on a web server accessible by the clients via the Internet.

Our system saves the Property Preservation companies many hours of work and costs much less than performing the uploads themselves. One Property Preservation company, KDS Property Services, had measured savings of $14,300 in a two week period. They said, “It is a simple matter of having software perform the keystrokes that would be performed by a data entry person – only more efficiently without the chances of human error in uploading.“

We began using Macro Express Pro in February 2008 and as of November 2008 we had processed and uploaded over 6 million files. By the end of January 2009 we are projected to have uploaded 9 million. The system runs 24×7 on 30 VMWare virtual workstations. All virtual computers are running on a single HP Server. And the operation of this entire system is handled by one person!

Joseph Weinpert, CEO
Professional Grade Automation Software

Macros help control the flow of documents.

The term paperless office describes a process that uses a minimal amount of paper and its associated movement and filing and replace it with documentation in digital formats. Advantages include increased productivity, cost savings, and space savings. And it is the green thing to do. There are many paperless office systems available but many cost a lot of money and, perhaps more importantly, they may not conform to a specific company’s business processes and work flow.

Innovative Pension Strategy and Design asked Bluepoint Design to develop a custom and cost effective paperless document management system. The project was divided into several distinct tasks.

Desktop Automation

The documentation required to manage pensions and investments requires a huge filing system with large folders for every client. Everything must be searchable and easily accessible. Macros automatically process email messages to extract the date and subject line and file the data while making sure filenames and the information conform to rigid standards. Logs are created to provide for auditing, tracking and error recovery.

Fax Monitoring

Multifunction printers receive a fax, convert it to a pdf format and save it to a folder. Macro Express Pro monitors for changes in the folders. When a change is detected a macro is launched on the computer designated as the ‘Current Monitor’. The macro loads the pdf and sends it to one or more users. It renames the file and saves it in a temporary location. The users can then look at the file, handle it and file the pdf in the proper place or they can delete it.

This gives IPSD real time results with information automatically going to the correct person. Faxes are read, stored and actions logged.

Documentation Management

Paper is unavoidable. Documents come from agents, employers and employees. These paper documents are systematically scanned and converted to pdf files via macros. During the scanning process Macro Express Pro asks questions and updates the meta data making it easy to index everything for later searches.

OCR (Optical Character Recognition)

Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software is used to convert information in .pdf documents into text. This allows for indexing and later search and retrieval of the information contained in the documents. To save the operators time OCR is not performed on the documents during the scanning process. Instead, macros search for .pdf files created during the day and perform OCR overnight when the servers and the network are not busy.

Census information

Employers and agents provide information about clients and employees such as name, address, Social Security Number and date of birth. This information comes from a variety of sources that needs to be matched up, validated and corrected. The macros take into account adjustments due to name changes, marital status and corrections to date of birth. Attempts are made to automatically fix discrepancies between databases but for information that cannot be automatically corrected, the macros flag an operator with a description of the discrepancy so the information can be manually corrected. Some clients can have several thousand employees.

This combination of macros, and the scanning and OCR software has the same effect as a $30,000 documentation system. Since January 2008 these systems using Macro Express Pro save an enormous amount of time and money to help Innovative Pension Strategy and Design compete and succeed in the troubled financial marketplace.

Cory A. Jackson
http://bluepointdesign.com