My company keeps a customer database using ACT! (an off-the-shelf program for this purpose), and we are not open to changing platforms. The program does not have functionality to set up emails that are sent out automatically when certain fields in the database change. I would like to create a program that will do this (although there were be several hours delay between the change and the email). I have some programming experience.
My thought is that I would write an Autoit script that runs each night and downloads the contents of the database to a text file. The script would then initiate a Python program (this is the program I am looking for help with). The program would compare the database file from that day to one that was downloaded the previous day. I would set up conditions under which the Python program would send out certain emails upon finding changes have been made to the database (i.e., not all changes trigger an email, just the ones I specify). The program I am looking for would basically give me a template into which I could program conditions, and also write the email content. I prefer the program to be written in Python or a derivitave because I have some familiarity with Python.
Everything is running XP and Server 2003.
