Tell us how Macro Scheduler helps you, what you use it for.

[ainterne]

Hi, running 300+ servers in my company, Macro Scheduler has enabled me to run my houskeeping admin tasks like no other tool has allowed.

The more I learn the more tasks I can think of to automate, but also the more new tasks that I didn't think possible come to mind.

The abilty to collect just raw data and pull out just what I want is so powerfull. It gives me so much info that others dont have and that naturally gives me a big advantage.

Recently using the WodSSH dll, I been able to start running a lot of the tasks using SSH, and that's a great help.

One of the satifying aspects for me, is that I sometimes recognize work that others run that is tedious, and I can help. I recently with the addition of APP Navigator wrote a scipt that saves one of my team 5 days work n every month. The ability to write something tailored to a task offers tremdous advantages.

Phil.

[rickfogle]

I work at a large Children's Hospital along with user 'gdyvig') automating our application testing, and we're migrating our systems to the Citrix environment. Our previous tool (WinRunner) does a great job with thick-client automation, but falls down, like so many do when faced with Citrix remote clients. MacroScheduler's ability to elegantly deal with image-based automation is literally a lifesaver for us.

[PepsiHog]

Oh, let's see....

I think it would be easier to tell you what I DON'T use it for.

I don't use it to eat. I don't use it to sleep. I don't use it to shower.
You get the idea.

I use Macro Scheduler to automate any thing that I want to be lazy about.
I used it to write a macro for my 5 yr old nephew, who likes to use cheat codes in games such as WarCraft and StarCraft but is too young to remember the cheat codes. So I made an exe to replace the normal shortcut. When he dbl clicks on the exe icon it shows a dialog that has two buttons. One button is Play StarCraft ( or WarCraft ) and the smaller button is cancel. Clicking Play only runs the game. In the background it checks for a combination of keys, once pressed, it sends the proper keys and codes to activate the cheats. This way my nephews can set up game play first and then start the game. Once in the actual game he presses the hotkeys and TA-DA! Once the cheats are entered, it plays a wav to indicate that he can now play the game. The macro stays in memory constantly checking that the game is still active. So once he exits the game, my macro also exits. This way he can re-enter the cheats over and over. He likes it. And my two older nephews love it. Because now they're not constantly being asked to ENTER the cheats for him!

For those that don't know - All I did was use the SEND command and the Wait command for timing. Kept adjusting the wait time until the macro had successfully entered the cheat code. Then I just used the PRESS command to tell it to press enter. I did this for each cheat code. Once it was working I created my small dialog box.

I also placed the exe's in a separate folder. Then made a shortcut for the desktop to the exe. This way I was able to use the same GAME icons for the shortcuts. This is useful because he can't read yet, so relates the picture to the game.

COOL! HUH?

PepsiHog
Hope I wasn't too wordy.

[joerg.wagner]

Moin, moin everyone,

we use the software for a whole lot of jobs.
Since Verson 5 we are cusomer for MS and we are using it more and more.
For a typical office desk we are using MS-Office, SAP and couple other software.
But the most of the time we using it for data in/out/change into and with SAP. We do Jobplaning and Jobflooplaning with it.

At some times, when i think about it, "I don't know what we have done
without it...".

It's a graet tool since the last officell "Makro Recorder" witch was included in Windows 3.11.

[sarver311]

Hey Marcus,

I have to use CA Service Desk to put in tickets and I hated their interface so I simply wrote my own front end for it using Macro Scheduler. It queries all the typical backend fields I"d have to type in and turns them into drop down menus. So now I just select a few drop downs, enter a serial and even have common templates like "printer is jammed" and click creates the ticket description and it inputs everything into the website for me! There are a multitude of tasks I have incorporated into this tool and I can't imagine doing my job with out it.

I also made a handy script to start all my startup programs and it can detect if one is already open or not so if I am in the middle of the day and want to make sure I have everything open I just run it again and it only opens the apps that are missing.

These are two of many tools that make life easy. Thanks Marcus, love this product!

[OmniSwift]

I'm currently using to pull aviation electronic manufacturing information from a SAP database, compile into a MS Access database, then generate a report such that the data becomes useful information needed to identify and prioritize manufacturing tasks and processes across a diverse profile of complex systems being manufactured.

Had to spend hour+ (heavy on the +) every day spread out throughout an entire shift getting this information manually. Often, due to the length of time to acquire the info, the information would be derived too late in the shift to make good use of it. Lost opportunities and manufacturing delays galore.

The information can now be gleaned by anyone within minutes. The entire department is empowered to work smarter through making use of accurate real-time visual status information. Status is no longer hidden or obscure to visualize.

I was able to understand and adapt to the very easy to use Macro Scheduler structure with little frustration. I found that things I tried actually worked as anticipated and worked far more reliably than I dared hope for. When stuck, I found EXACTLY what information I needed in your forums. In fact, I ecstatically found differing superior methods in other areas of interest while searching for these solutions.

I haven’t had this much fun in decades. I want to thank the crew @ mjtnet and the users of Macro Scheduler for the efforts that brought enlightenment to me of a better way to do things.

[tacquire]

We currently use it for two primary applications. One is to pull returning truck information out of a fleet management dispatch application for a produce brokerage company and dumping that information into a webpage for remote salespeople to use to find out where available empty trucks are located.

Secondly we use it to track trucks by integrating our dispatch application with google latitude. This automates what is called the Check Call process where a trucker would normally have to be contacted by phone. Now the script simply queries their latitude information and plugs that information into our dispatching application.

I started this thread a while ago and got some really interesting replies, but the thread seems to have disappeared! Not sure what happened, but I think automatic pruning might have been enabled - still getting to grips with this board software. Sorry about that.

So, let's start again. It is always interesting and very helpful to know what people use Macro Scheduler for. So, please post a paragraph or two here on how Macro Scheduler helps you in your work.

Cheers,
Marcus

[hoangvo81]

well,
we use it to regress test our flagship application.
we use it to gather data within our call center's open calls issue.
It gathers data from our call center database based on 4 groups, each groups' total call open, closed calls for the day

We also use it to pull data from our system that logs server issue, overdues etc, into one file and email that to individual who can correct the server issues.

We're using it for server load test , logging into multiple accounts on a terminal services and each account will run the application and log the time it takes to load and search for an icon.

we .. use it for alot of stuff.

[CyberCitizen]

Well like many others I use MS for various tasks.

Working in, IT / Desktop Support these were my main focuses.

However since working with MS I have over 100 scp files.

While being a game admin for Counter Strike and Counter Strike Source many years ago I wrote a demo submission tool which allowed users to submit demos of cheaters including screen shots, what servers they were on, the cheaters steam id etc.

This allowed for faster processing and banning of cheaters from the servers cause it ensured that everything required was captured for the request to be processed. If I was to re-write it again, I could do so much more with the new tools MS has built into it.

Next was an automation tool for work (help desk). This had all the built in remote control tools we used, one was so simple as to load SCCM remote control, connect to the remote computer and make it full screen (SCCM doesn't do this by default). From there the tool got more features which included restarting the print spooler & deleting corrupt print jobs that was causing the spooler to crash.

There has also been software install tools where SCCM would take upto 2x hours to install applications as the primary software install server was located in Dallas Texas and we were in Australia, poor setup I know, but that was not my area to fix. That being said I wrote a script that would copy the software down to the remote machines temp directory, extract the application & remotely execute the install command. Saving at least an hour of waiting for the SCCM inventory to cycle though. Once it was installed it would remove the install files from the temp dir & add the required membership groups to the computer.

From there now at a hospital, lots of various automation for applications that you couldn't previously. As well as increasing the remote support tools functionality to include remote messaging and computer identification.

[ABIVEN]

.

I use MacroScheduler any time I encounter repetitive operations.

In fact I have on my mouse a “MacroSchedulerâ€

[PaulSR]

We have this week gone live with a MS macro which allows a streamlined, accurate and timeous cancellation process to run within an insurance company. The macro collates data from a citrix receiver application, opens and polls relevant websites for financial data then populates an Excel spreadsheet and executes some VB macros there which allow some processing and presentation of a breakdown of figures for customers wishing to cancel a policy. The data is then returned to MS and it performs all the operations necessary to cancel the policy should that be the customers wish. This was previously performed by multiple personnel as the initial agent was not skilled enough to provide the customer with accurate data at first point of contact but now that is no longer the case. I have been blown away by how empowering MS has been in allowing me to create something which met and exceeded the business requirements.

The macro is now in use on approximately 200 PC's and so far (3 days in) we've had no problems with it whatsoever.

[Marcus Tettmar]

Thanks for that Paul! Hope you don't mind if I blog it?

[PaulSR]

Hi Marcus,

Yes of course that's absolutely fine with me. Thanks also for your help (and others) in responding to my forum queries and helping me get it over the line. On to the next one...

[Dave1142]

I have been using MS since around 2003. I have used it to totally automate many, many tasks. The strange part is that I wind up using MS a lot to correct calculation mistakes in large excel spreadsheets. When the excel gives the wrong answer, the answer is still wrong regardless of the explanation and must be corrected. If it were not for Macro Scheduler I would probably still be using paper ledgers or an antique version of Lotus.

[Dorian (MJT support)]

Recently, I've been using Macro Scheduler to.... back up all my macros.

It simply zips up my entire \Macro Scheduler 14 folder and subfolders, and saves the zipfile to my OneDrive.

Using the Macro Scheduler Timer and CountFiles functions, I can report that I just backed up 809 files in 2.581 seconds.

In the background, without human interaction.