How to extract "Due Date" from PDF stored in a local and set up a calendar reminder?

Help Studio
1

Hello,

I have a project to do where I have to extract the “Due Date” from this 20 pages long PDF file which is stored in my local. I want to make a flow where I can extract the due date and set up a reminder in an outlook.

Is it possible to do it? Thanks in advance!

Preet

2

Hey Preet! This is definitely possible. Two approaches can be followed here. If the PDF is a digital document (when its opened up can you highlight the Due Date text independently) You can use a Read PDF Text activity to convert your document to a String. Then you can use different string manipulations methods to retrieve the due date. If the PDF document is an image (when its opened up and you try to highlight does it highlight a square of where you are dragging?) then you can use Read PDF With OCR to convert the document to a String as well. Then you can use string manipulation like the other solution. If you need help extracting the due date from the result, please respond with the String result and we can solve that as well!

1 Like
3

Hi Jose,

I appreciate your prompt response with detailed information. I was able to extract one of the page from my PDF file which is stored on my local. Moving forward with the same flow, now I want to create a sequence with which I can set up a reminder in outlook by using due date.

Could you please help with that?

4

Hello -

Can I get help on this, please.

Regards,
Preet

5

Hi, did you have problems automating outlook for this?

6

Hi Bruno - I have a PDF stored in my local and that PDF has a due date mentioned in it, as I posted in the screenshot above.

Now I want to extract that “Due Date” from the PDF and want to create an outlook reminder. I have been trying to figure out which activity I can use to automate this flow.

I thought of using the “Add Outlook Appointment” activity but again not sure how to utilize it.

Any tips or suggestions on this query?

Thanks,

7

I dont know that activity, but if you want to do with code, here is how i would do at first inside an Invoke Code activity:

Dim ns As Microsoft.Office.Interop.Outlook.NameSpace = New Microsoft.Office.Interop.Outlook.Application().GetNamespace("MAPI")
Dim calendarFolder As Microsoft.Office.Interop.Outlook.MAPIFolder = ns.GetDefaultFolder(Microsoft.Office.Interop.Outlook.OlDefaultFolders.olFolderCalendar)
Dim items As Microsoft.Office.Interop.Outlook.Items = calendarFolder.Items
Dim appItem As Microsoft.Office.Interop.Outlook.AppointmentItem = DirectCast(items.Add(Microsoft.Office.Interop.Outlook.OlItemType.olAppointmentItem),Microsoft.Office.Interop.Outlook.AppointmentItem)

appItem.Subject = "my subject"


appItem.Save()
appItem.Display(True)

You just need the Interop package if you dont have yet and fill all the properties in the appItem you will need.
image

8

Thanks for the details! I appreciate it.