UNIX for Advanced & Expert Users

hi all
i am working in a organisation where we are using Ab Initio tool for datawarehousing purpose.Ab initio is installed on a unix environment.after developing the code we migrate it to production using certain commands which gets executed in the unix box.there are specific number of predefined operations for which there are small commands with different parameters.
the process is as follows:
1.the developer after completing the code send a requst to the admin team with an excel sheet attachment where the operation to be done and parameters are specified.
2.Admin team does the operation by running the command and send a word document with project number and other details.
i want to do the entire process automated.i mean there shold be a specific tamplete where the developer has to fill the form and after clicking the submit button an autogenerated mail will be triggered to the admin teams mail box.our mail server is on unix.then after receving the mail the work will be done accordingly and on completion the word doc will be sent to the respective users.everyting will be automated.
i need your help to do the entire process.i have small idea about unix scripting.but not muchidea on portal development.and the mail server is on unix.we are using windoxs xp.we open unix session on our terminal through putty.
i ll keep posting my queries through the entire proess..
bye

How and where do you intend to extract the information out of the Excel and Word documents?

i ll accept the information from excel sheet and use them as parameters for some commands.after the cmd gets executed successfully i ll prepare a word doc with the output and send it to specific mail id..everything should be automated

Yes at a 20,000ft view that is true, I am asking after the mechanics.

You will find it non-trival to extract data from a Word or Excel document on a UNIX machine, they are native Windows formats, and such is the way of the world, that the easiest place to manipulate those is with OLE, VisualBasic or .Net code in a Windows environment.

So imagine you had a windows program that used MAPI to retrieve the emails, extract the attachments, use Excel and Word to extract the fields, then use putty's plink to send that data to a UNIX host.

i agree to the fact you have mentioned.
can u please suggest any alternative approach to do the same

You could try using OpenOffice to crack the Word/Excel file format but I think that would be far more work.

If you have Windows environments in your mix then use them to do those jobs that are easiest on a Windows platform. Life is short enough as it is and I imagine you want a solution sooner rather than later.

Hi.

As an aside, from my reading of the blurb at Ab Initio Software Corporation: About Ab Initio it looks like it is intended to solve these kinds of automation problems for you ... cheers, drl