Quickly calendaring and sending email (beginner)

macOS
1

Hello!

Sorry if this is a super basic question, but I am just getting started.

I am on MacOS and occasionally on iOS, so am hoping to work something out that is cross platform like that.

For my job (as an attorney) I frequently pick court dates with the judge and opposing counsel for clients; in the past, I would use a physical file, note down the arranged date, and hand the file to my admin when I return to the office. They would then update our office’s calendar with the court date and I would pull my whole calendar from the office server (which sadly does not sync on it’s own). Due to the pandemic we have all shifted into a video court WFH arrangement where I am no longer using a physical file to write court dates. Instead I have been updating my own calendar as I pick dates and then remembering (or not) to send an email to my admin to update the firm calendar. Due to logistical issues, I do not trust that the emails to admin will result in a reliably updated calendar.

My goal is to make the update process as easy and reliable as possible. Ideally, I would only need to input Client Name, Case Number, Hearing Type, Date, Location which is all I need for Fantastical to input the date into my calendar. That same string would then be copied into an email to my admin and nicely packaged with the niceties of Hey ____, can you please update: Client Name, Case Number, Hearing Type, Date, Location)

I had been looking at Drafts for this, but was not sure about getting it into email without further steps and clicks. Is there a way to have drafts run a Text-expander snippet (inputting email address, subject, and greeting) before dropping the text into an email? Can I create an action in drafts that accomplishes the same thing?

Is there a way to add multiple calendar events to Fantastical line by line?

As in I type:
Client Name, 00CR1234, Motions, 1/1/21 at 8:30 in Div 1
Client Name, 00CR1234, Status, 2/1/21 at 9:00 in Div 1
Client Name, 00CR1234, Trial, 2/15/21 at 9:00 in Div 1

It takes those three and creates three separate date entries, and copies the whole block into an email?

Thanks for the pointers and suggestions :slight_smile:

2

Alrighty I am not a Fantastical user but here is what I think might work on iOS.

  1. Create a shortcut.
  2. Put that block of text into an “Ask for Input” action.
  3. Split the Provided Input using “Split Text” and selecting the “new line” option for that action.
  4. Put a “repeat with each” under the Split Text. Inside this repeat loop you can probably put a Fantastical Create Event action of some sort.
  5. Depending on your email client, you can either “Copy to Clipboard” the Provided Input or just create a draft with the text directly.

I’m not sure how you would do this on Mac. There’s probably a KM or AppleScript version of this but I’m not good with either.

3

I think you can do this in Drafts combining two actions available in the Drafts Directory. ‘Fantastically Good Event Parser’ should handle the diary entries and there are a number of Mail actions that use a template and allow the email to be pre addressed.

4

Thanks for the answer (and sorry about the delayed response)!

It turns out that KM is the way to go with this on Mac at least.

  1. Prompt user for data, set each as variable.
  2. Set fantastical to active app
    3)set clipboard to text with variables arranged appropriately for natural language processing.
  3. Enter Command + N for new calendar entry, paste, and enter keystrokes to enter
  4. Set Mail to active
  5. Send new message addressed to appropriate party, enter header with variables and text, enter body of email with text and variables as needed.
  6. Manually send email (until I am sure there are no weird snags)
  7. Clear clipboard
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