Hello Everyone - Happy Holidays in advance!

Here's a question...I was just putting together some info to help some folks on our end get a more visual understanding of various strategic data related processes that could be automated.

If you want you can check it out here on scribd:

Data Asset Management Presentation 

 Anyway one very typical series of actions that happens repetitively is:

gather data --->sort/parse it ---> analyze it ---->present/report it--->distribute and/or publish

Now originally, all of this has been done as individual "tasks". However, notice that all these "tasks" together form a repetitive "process" and instead of just focusing on the "tasks", the higher level value and strategic goals are achieved by focusing on the entire "process".

So, with a few clicks the whole cycle gets done and boy is that amazing!

Anyway....back to my original question. Imagine a scenario where you have a FOLDER called "gathered data" and you regularly use the "download from page" function to get real time info (let's say world stock market indices or google real time trend data, or whatever...).
Each time you download data to that page, you get a new file created in that fold when you write to file (after parsing it of course assuming say it is on a page and not alerady in some kind of csv file)....

Now suppose we want to email that document to someone (I'm not going through the other 3 steps in between.....using regular expressions for parsing or maybe writing to excel to sort by numbers...then maybe using a calculator or an excel macro to do some other stuff...then presenting it in powerpoint or word or even video!..yes you can do that by converting powerpoint presentations to movies to swf, cool huh?)......

At any rate, my question is how do you call the last or most recent file in a folder as the variable in the send email actions?!

 

 PS...when I get a chance, I may add a mind map which gives a visuala understanding of how teach one of the processes in the visual has some tasks that are used regularly for it.
As an example, for gathering data, download from web, or image recognition is great for navigating pages, i.e web tasks, parsing to..SQL function can be good for that too or even reading from excel from local data content....
So as you can see, mentally it should make sense that those series of actions once mastered means that all you have to do is shuffle around a few variables from old jobs.
What I do alot is copy and paste series of actions and just change up the variables which can really help if you have a complex series of action steps that you maybe got help with. Because you just have to change the variable and file names and then you are almost there....

mixing and matching jobs can create some exciting deliverables! As an example I played around with the google trends and blogspot jobs Jag left. I basically mashed the jobs up then added the send email command.

What this effectively did was create what I call a "real time trend blogging report" that I send around to some friends often looking for fresh content. In other words, at the click of a button (you can even set up triggers to have it on complete autopilot...)

At the click of a button you get a list of latest google trends plus blogs available in the exact match (good seo) for those searches. So, you can instantly spot a hot trend (actually they call it  gap analysis if you think of the blogs as virtual real estate).....you can instantly spot "gap" between the demand (i.e. what people are searching for) and the supply (the reserved or free blogs). Here is a report I just ran - grab a few if you are into internet marketing!

Here Is Your Google Trend Report for:
bobby mcferrin
san diego earthquake
boyz ii men
brittany murphy death hoax
hakeem nicks injury
american jewelry and loan
who won the sing off
alaina reed amini
brooke astor
kid cudi arrested
sing off finale
gryson handbags
michael mccary
feckless definition
danger from for the love of ray j
mike fisher hockey player
oral roberts memorial service
john witherspoon
nota
i want a dog for christmas charlie brown
-----
bobbymcferrin.blogspot.com - reserved
sandiegoearthquake.blogspot.com - -AVAILABLE-
boyziimen.blogspot.com - reserved
brittanymurphydeathhoax.blogspot.com - reserved
hakeemnicksinjury.blogspot.com - -AVAILABLE-
americanjewelryandloan.blogspot.com - reserved
whowonthesingoff.blogspot.com - -AVAILABLE-
alainareedamini.blogspot.com - -AVAILABLE-
brookeastor.blogspot.com - reserved
kidcudiarrested.blogspot.com - -AVAILABLE-
singofffinale.blogspot.com - -AVAILABLE-
grysonhandbags.blogspot.com - -AVAILABLE-
michaelmccary.blogspot.com - -AVAILABLE-
fecklessdefinition.blogspot.com - -AVAILABLE-
dangerfromfortheloveofrayj.blogspot.com - -AVAILABLE-
mikefisherhockeyplayer.blogspot.com - -AVAILABLE-
oralrobertsmemorialservice.blogspot.com - -AVAILABLE-
johnwitherspoon.blogspot.com - reserved
nota.blogspot.com - reserved
iwantadogforchristmascharliebrown.blogspot.com - -AVAILABLE-
 

I know that's a mouthful, but thanks in advance for the help!