How would you start automating my job? - Part 2
- by Jurily
(Followup to this question)
After surviving the first wave of incoming shipments (9 hours of copy/paste), I now believe I have all the requirements.
Here is the updated workflow:
Monkey collects email attachments (4 Excel spreadsheets, 1 PDF)
Monkey creates central database, does complex calculations (right now this is also an Excel spreadsheet)
Monkey sends data to two bosses, who set the retail prices independently; first one to reply wins
Monkey sends order form to our other warehouses, also Excel
Monkey sends spreadsheets to VIP customers, carefully sanitized and formatted (4 different discount categories)
Jurily enters the data into the accounting system. I've given up on automating this part, there's too much business logic involved, and the database is a pile of sh^W legacy
My question: What technologies would you use for a quick and dirty solution? I'm mostly sold on C#, but coming from a Linux/C++ background, I'm horribly confused about my choices in Microsoft-land.
For bonus points: How would you redesign the whole system from the ground up?
P.S. in case you were wondering, my job title is System Administrator.
