Emailing homework to the website?

Posted by cindyr on July 23, 2008 at 11:56pm

Our school has a new all-in-one copier that allows you to scan to PDF and email the file. The teachers were asking if it's possible to email the PDF to a special email address where the file would automatically be processed and uploaded to the website as today's homework.

I don't even know where to begin with this or what it would take. I know my host offers the ability to run a filter on emails sent to an address, processed by a custom command using the sh shell. But I'm not sure what that means, or how that could be tied into automatically generating a node, or even simply a file uploaded to an existing node.

Is anyone here knowledgeable enough to give me an outline of what this would take, and maybe some details on how to do it?

Thanks,
cindyr

Comments

mailhandler and mailsave

Posted by jgraham on July 24, 2008 at 12:46am

mailhandler and mailsave should do it for you.

You will probably need a custom mailbox for each instructor, unless you can control the subject of the emails. The documentation for mailhandler covers most of what you will need Mailhandler: content via mail

I'm not sure if you have any control over the content of the email via the copier, but if you do then you can set taxonomy terms per email and mailhandler can properly tag those. Then you could have "Math 100" "Mrs. Kelso's 6th grade class" etc.

See Useful command for mailhandler default commands

Get out!

Posted by cindyr on July 24, 2008 at 2:03am

Now see, this is why I love the open source community! Every time I think I have an insurmountable problem, someone else had it first and came up with a solution for me! You're awesome!

I looked all through the file handling modules, but totally missed the mail ones. Duh. Thank you.

I don't think I have control over the content of the email, I haven't tried it yet but I was told it creates a PDF from the scan and attaches it straight to a message and you have to choose the address to send it to. You don't even have a choice of email addresses to send from either, it's always the copier's email account like "copier@domain.net". But the concept is strictly for homework assignments, and we only have a small limited number of teachers, so the unique mailbox for each really isn't a problem.

Once again, THANK YOU!

Should have some control over email info

Posted by bonobo on July 24, 2008 at 3:39pm

I have set up photocopiers that email/send data over networks, and depending on how your system is set up you should have a degree of control, especially if users need to enter a passcode to use the copier. Ideally, you would be able to give each user a passcode, and then tie emails to individual users.

There would be some backend setup for you (ie, determining naming conventions for emails and users on the photocopier) but once you were done, you'd be all set.

Another option would be to use your photocopier to set up an on-the-fly lightweight document repository. All incoming docs would get stored as one central content type, and be organized for display using views. Then, teachers could create references back to documents for use in their classes. This would create an extra step for teachers, but, over time, would create a VERY useful resource. For example, after one year of use, each department would have a centralized store of all handouts for all classes, which would simplify planning and class prep for future years.

Cheers,

Bill

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