Schedule QM Transaction Downloads

Scott Saylor

Has anyone created a script (that can be scheduled) to start Quicken and perform a transaction download to update accounts? I miss the schedule feature in Quicken for Windows.

jacobs

But you can use the Mac's Energy Saver Preference to wake the Mac at a specified time every day, and then use a utility like Keyboard Maestro to do your bidding. 

Scott Saylor

It worked! I disabled the screensaver password, scheduled the Mac to wake and created a calendar event to execute the Automator update script a few minutes later. I also made a change in the Quicken Status Window to show all, even when no errors. This provides confirmation that the update did occur. Thanks all!!

RickO

I have not, but you could do this easily with Keyboard Maestro ($36).

Scott Saylor

I worked up a Workflow in Automator to start Quicken and then recorded the mouse click steps to start Quicken and update transactions and it does work. I scheduled the Workflow as an event in Calendar and got it to adhere to a schedule, however, the Desktop has to be open to execute successfully. It will not run successfully if the screen saver is active, or user is logged out. I might be able to add a login step in the workflow. As I recall, the Windows version raw as a task completely.in the background.

I’ll check out Keyboard Maestro but it may have the same limitations if it’s just a screen scraper.

RickO

Nothing is going to work if the account is logged out. Probably not either if the Mac is asleep. I don't think KM will be affected by the screen saver being active though. Or by display (not computer) sleep. KM might be able to wake the computer at a certain time.

jacobs

But you can use the Mac's Energy Saver Preference to wake the Mac at a specified time every day, and then use a utility like Keyboard Maestro to do your bidding. 

RickO

Good point! I never paid attention to the Schedule button on the Energy Saver Preference Pane.

Scott Saylor

Great suggestions. I think I could create the necessary cascading events -
* Energy Saver scheduled to wake/Login (I have auto login set for my account)
* Schedule Calendar task that executes the Automator script
I'll let you know how it goes.
Thanks!

Scott Saylor

It worked! I disabled the screensaver password, scheduled the Mac to wake and created a calendar event to execute the Automator update script a few minutes later. I also made a change in the Quicken Status Window to show all, even when no errors. This provides confirmation that the update did occur. Thanks all!!

Scott Saylor

UPDATE - v1.0 of this script to automat transaction updates in Quicken for Mac used "Watch Me Do" action in Automator to record the mouse clicks required to perform an update for all accounts. I had some time to dig deeper and added an Apple Script that executes the appropriate keyboard commands to perform the same action.

Now, in v1.1, I can go back and set my dock to hide, resize the Quicken App, etc. without these changes affecting the screen scraping script. Next up will be supplying a password to open the Quicken file since I had to disable password protection to make Quicken ready for work when opening. I'll post another update later.

Cheers!

Scott Saylor

That was easy. I should say that it's NEVER a good idea to use a password in a script....