From Tedious to Effortless

Streamlined Data Updates with Python

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When I first joined, processing day-to-day data updates for the Sears plan was a painfully manual process.

Every month, we’d comb through tickets in an internal ticket system, manually updating a massive Excel ‘database’ file and working on a separate ‘maintenance file’ — a critical file sent monthly to CIBC Mellon to update their systems.

The process was so tedious it led to skipped steps and one of my first tasks when I joined was reconciling incongruent data between the internal and external databases. Shortly afterwards, I took ownership of the entire data update process.

Now, the entire workflow is streamlined in a scalable, maintainable system:

• tickets are exported automatically for quick review and minor edits
• the database updates are automated via scripts and macros
• maintenance files are generated automatically with only minor revisions needed at the end

What once took hours of manual work now runs automatically in a fraction of the time with near-perfect accuracy.

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Key Features

• Automated Ticket Scraping

  The Harmony Automation module streamlines data collection by automatically scraping all comments and notes from tickets in our internal system — no more manual copy-pasting or tedious browser navigation.

  Scraped comments are automatically cleaned, formatted, and sorted chronologically, turning raw text into clear, structured insights.

• Seamless Data Extraction – Minimal Effort, Maximum Efficiency

  Scraped ticket data lands automatically in a spreadsheet, requiring only light manual tweaks — just enough to let the core module work its magic. From there, it intelligently extracts structured data from notes, transforming messy text into clean, structured data. No tedious preprocessing — just quick edits, effortless automation, and ready-to-use data.

  For example, the core module will automatically extract the address, email, and phone number update from the following:

  

  You can probably begin to imagine how much time and effort this saves, especially with hundreds of such updates/tickets.

• Integrated Data Enrichment

  The tracking spreadsheet pulls in additional supplementary data from various sources using Power Query, including reports from CIBC Mellon (plan custodian) and our internal databases, to support a comprehensive set of features.

  For example, if a member dies, a note will be generated advising of any further entitlements owed (remaining guarantee period, survivor benefits, etc.). This note is added automatically when re-assigning the tickets to the colleague that handles those processes.

• Effortless System Synchronization

  Tired of manually tracking which systems need to be updated? This package automatically determines where changes should be applied — whether internal, external (plan custodian), or both.

  And the beauty is it’s fully extendable, able to handle virtually any update, automatically determining which system is affected and automatically tweaking the update to meet the requirements of that particular system. As the package evolves, more features are added, further turning complexity into simplicity.

• Automated Data Updates in Seconds

  This package transforms raw input spreadsheets into standardized Excel files — ready to update internal databases and external systems. It minimizes the need for manual reformatting and reduces processing time from hours to minutes, all while maintaining flawless data consistency.

  For updates to the internal database, the update_xl module also generates detailed, human-readable changelogs showing exactly what changes were made and when.

• Automated Ticket Closing / Re-assigning

  The Harmony Automation module contains functions to automate the closing and re-assigning of tickets, which means no more manually closing and re-assigning tickets and tedious browser navigation/actions.

  This is particularly useful during periods of higher ticket volumes, such as after sending out communications, option forms, etc.

  

  

• Custom Warnings for Specific IDs

  Custom warnings for specific IDs can be configured in cfg/warn_ids.yml, allowing you to define contextual alerts that appear during operations for particular users or transactions.

  For example, when processing a banking update for a specific member, the system can display a custom warning about additional verification steps or adjusted payment amounts, ensuring important exceptions and special instructions are never overlooked.