spo_notification_generator

Introduction

Checks SPO (Students' Placement Office, IITK) site for information on new announcements / pre-placement talks / tests / interviews at regular intervals, notifies through e-mail

Python3 packages used

These are the required packages, might need to be installed using

pip3 install <package-name>

• python-dotenv for managing environment variables
• selenium for automation of browser login
• logging to ease up debugging process
• smtplib for connecting to outlook (host e-mail account), sending message
• email for managing email format

Also, the chromedriver executable is required, for selenium to use (in a headless way) to initiale login. This can be downloaded at this site.

Install

This file is to be downloaded, and run using crontab for linux/mac users, schtasks for windows users

Using crontab

Crontab entry is to be added to run the file regularly
To edit crontab entries:

crontab -e

Add below cronjob after executing above command:

0 * * * * /path/to/python3 /path/to/notification_generator.py

To view crontab entries:

crontab -l

Using schtasks

schtasks /create /sc hourly /st 00:00 /tn "Gen_Notif" /tr \path\to\python3 \path\to\notification_generator.py

Configuring .env file

This file is to be stored locally in the same folder as the notification_generator.py.
It should be populated with the following variables:

• EMAIL_ID, EMAIL_PWD -> email and password to login into email account and send emails
• PORTAL_USR, PORTAL_PWD -> portal user-id and password

Note: the host email set is of Outlook. This can be changed to other hosts by changing the smtp url

Issues that may pop up

crontab-based

PATH variable passed to crontab might not match!
This might lead to python run command working in terminal, but not using crontab.
To resolve this error, set your path before crontab entries (add below line before python execution command).

PATH=/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/bin:/usr/games:/usr/local/games:/snap/bin

For more crontab related issues visit this page