Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Zapier Email Parser: Extract Text From Automated Emails

parser.zapier.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 86 posts

Re: Zapier Email Parser: Extract Text From Automated Emails

#71

Post by ceejayoz »

userbinator wrote: post #48
ceejayoz wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you want infuriating marketing, try Googling for an integration between two obscure web services. The Zapier "Zapbook" automatically makes a page for each possible combination of the services they hook into, giving useless bullshit like https://zapier.com/zapbook/ducksboard/aim/ (which, by the way, isn't the same as https://zapier.com/zapbook/aim/ducksboard/ either).

Zapier lets you connect apps together in interesting ways, whether or not it really makes sense to. Maybe someone out there will find it useful to be able to manage their dashboards with instant messages.

Try this one on for size, then: https://zapier.com/zapbook/drupal/zapier/

"Sorry! This App Isn't Available Yet" spam is a frustrating thing to find when looking for converters between systems.

Re: Zapier Email Parser: Extract Text From Automated Emails

#72

Post by aantix »

tectonic wrote: post #50
sunsu wrote: post #3

This is a killer feature for Zapier and i'm really excited. Zapier has been a huge time saver for us at BetterVoice.com. How many times do you get approached by customers or other vendors about "when are you going to integrate with XYZ" product? If you just integrate ONE time with Zapier, you're immediately connected with over 200 other online services. Then your answer to those customers/vendors can be: "We're integ…

If you're looking for an open source alternative, please consider my Huginn project, which now has quite an active community. https://github.com/cantino/huginn

+1 for Huginn. It's amazing.

Re: Zapier Email Parser: Extract Text From Automated Emails

#73

Post by zemanel »

hayksaakian wrote: post #36
userbinator wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For some reason, this comment really read like a marketing testimonial.

well they have a vested interest in discussing their product/company, and given their association with the OP, they chose to describe it in a positive way. this is what a testimonial would be if testimonials were invented in 2014

as a former freelancer whose work gross last year came from doing Zapier integrations for vendors (some currently public catalogue services, others private), i can subscribe to sunsu's comment as entirely accurate, given that the problems i was asked to solve and was payed for, covered that nature of what was described and more.

Re: Zapier Email Parser: Extract Text From Automated Emails

#74

Post by recmend »

jxf wrote: post #35
bratsche wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand.. if you send automated emails to yourself in a human-friendly format, why not just use a Google API to push the same data into the spreadsheet at the same time? Zapier may be really cool, but it still seems like you're taking raw data, converting it to human-readable form, then sending that to Zapier to attempt to extract the raw data again. Or am I misunderstanding?

The difference is that you have to do new work every time the destination of the data changes. Using an interface to say "here are the relevant parts" is a lot nicer than having to code it yourself.

you will have to change the zapier parser template as well when the destination format changes.

Re: Zapier Email Parser: Extract Text From Automated Emails

#75

Post by notlisted »

nathanathan wrote: post #28
lugg wrote: post #11

Would love to see an open source tool like this for parsing general text / csv / fixedwidth / html in a similar way. Very nifty concept.

I made an open source tool that does something like this using a modified version of the Levenshtein distance algorithm: https://github.com/nathanathan/fuzzyTemplateMatcher Here's a demo you can play around with: http://nathanathan.com/fuzzyTemplateMatcher/

It has some problems e.g. take out the dog, call my mother (it is entirely possible I missed the point of the code)

Re: Zapier Email Parser: Extract Text From Automated Emails

#76

Post by recmend »

blntechie wrote: post #58
jcampbell1 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am playing with it now. I want to have my EZPass (RFID auto tolls) statements sent to my inbox. Right now I get an email with a url, then I have to type a PIN code, just to see my monthly statement. I am too lazy to do it every month, but it would be nice the statements just appeared in my inbox.

Can it fetch data from URL and parse it? The landing page doesn't mention this.

you can use kimonolabs.com / import.io for HTML parsing

Re: Zapier Email Parser: Extract Text From Automated Emails

#77

Post by recmend »

nl wrote: post #46
est wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IIRC, this is not parsing , there is a Gmail API mentioned during 2013 Google IO https://developers.google.com/schemas/tutorials/google-now-c... https://developers.google.com/gmail/actions/getting-started

They do parsing as well. I forward all my work flight itineraries to Gmail (so I get Google Now notifications) after cut & pasting them out of the Word document I get them in. Gmail parses them and displays them using the "Flight details" format, even though there is none of the information required for the "Actions" thing linked above.

Gmail doesn't do any parsing, Gmail provides the SDK described here https://developers.google.com/schemas/tutorials/google-now-c...

When developer / brands create emails following Gmail quick action guidelines, and you have Google Now enabled, then you will see Google Now cards.

Re: Zapier Email Parser: Extract Text From Automated Emails

#78

Post by carlosrt »

chezmo wrote: post #60

Congratulations Bryan for launching it! We are doing the same at http://mailparser.io and I can confirm that there is a real need for a solution like that. A lot of our existing customers use mailparser.io in combination with Zapier. Those customers can now directly use the parser of Zapier. Which sucks for us but which is surely great for the customer and Zapier ... :-) One caveat though, a lot of use-cases are not…

How would you parse lists and tables from a website? e.g. parsing an online schedule in order to use the data in a responsive mobile or native app?

Random site example: peoplewhodance.net/events/NYE/schedule.html

Re: Zapier Email Parser: Extract Text From Automated Emails

#79

Post by nthj »

davidw wrote: post #68
patio11 wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These are business expenses rather than things I am selling. As such, they're on my corporate credit cards. Regrettably, those don't have API access, and the best way to get information from them is currently "Log in once a month, dump a PDF file, and email it to the bookkeeper."

As a tech guy, I always feel extremely guilty about it, but my Italian accountant is cool with me dumping a big pile of receipts and papers in his office every few months. Even US accountants are often more or less ok with this, even if it makes me a bit sick to my stomach.

> As a tech guy, I always feel extremely guilty about it

As a tech guy, business people routinely dump big piles of raw data in my office every few days. I mutter a bit about how this is why we invented databases and then laugh all the way to the bank.

And I guarantee you the business people don't feel at all guilty about it.

Re: Zapier Email Parser: Extract Text From Automated Emails

#80

Post by mcintyre1994 »

ceejayoz wrote: post #70
mcintyre1994 wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're Googling for an integration between two obscure web services, doesn't that imply you have an idea for how you want to use the integration between them? Finding out Zapier will allow you to seems like both useful and intelligent marketing.

Except that's not what's offered. https://zapier.com/zapbook/drupal/zapier/ "Vote to connect Drupal and Zapier" brings up "Sorry! This App Isn't Available Yet". No integration is possible. It's a useless search result.

Fair enough, I see what you mean with that example. Does that only happen if one of the pairs is Zapier or are there others where it does too? Your other example seems to work, and in the comments they claimed it's used too.
Post reply on HN