This past week was all about getting a “missing report checker” script off the ground. We have a system (let’s call it Matchmaker) that’s supposed to generate daily reports, but sometimes they just don’t show up. Historically, this meant tedious manual checks. My goal was to automate that, so we know immediately if a report is missing and can chase it down, saving headaches and ensuring data integrity.

  • Core logic first. Getting the script to actually identify a missing report meant connecting to the Matchmaker system, pulling data, and then a lot of date and string matching to compare against expected reports. Seeing that first “Yep, report X for Y date is missing!” message pop up felt like a small victory.
  • Logging is always forgotten, then essential. A script you run manually isn’t automation. For background processes, good logging is crucial. I added file-based logging so I could see what the script was doing, when it ran, and if it hit issues, without babysitting a console. It’s a simple thing, but it makes a world of difference for unattended tasks.
  • Scheduling was a rabbit hole. I explored a few options for triggering the script, eventually settling on an “at-logon” task. It’s not perfect, but for this specific use case, it works well enough. I even wrote a quick decision doc for myself, outlining why I chose that method over others and what the trade-offs were. Felt good to document the thought process instead of just hacking it together.
  • Email notifications for failures. What’s worse than a script silently failing? A script silently failing that you don’t even know is failing! I specifically targeted login errors (if credentials expire or the system is down) and general script crashes. Getting that SMTP setup right was a minor pain, but now, if something goes sideways, I’ll get an email. It’s a huge relief knowing I won’t be blindsided by a week’s worth of missing reports because the checker itself stopped working.

This whole process felt like a mini-lesson in building an operational tool, even for something relatively small. It’s not just about the core logic, it’s about visibility, reliability, and handling errors. I felt a bit like an ops engineer for a few days, which was a cool change of pace. It reinforced that even simple scripts need a certain level of care to be truly useful.

Next: Refine report output, add more detailed error handling.