Can we read an email or attachment directly into the SAS program.

[SASuserlot]

I got a curious question., may be its stupid, but will put out there. I know we can send email through the SAS program.  but is it possible to read an email into the SAS?. if we can, then my next set of questions below, otherwise please ignore it.

1.  Lets say I have an outlook email, received  with just the text , can I read this into  SAS, How can I read into SAS.

2. My email have attachment like xlsx/cvs file  can able to read that into SAS

3. My email have the hyperlinks or locations to specific folders where data exists, Can I able to read the link/string into sas?

[ballardw · Accepted solution]

The answer is a resounding "maybe".

I researched this a couple years ago and found some examples that involved setting up rules in Outlook. However in my case the IT department had disabled all of the Outlook features that would have allowed doing such.

Some previous discussions

https://communities.sas.com/t5/SAS-Programming/Can-SAS-Read-email-inbox/td-p/195431

https://communities.sas.com/t5/SAS-Programming/Read-Email-from-Outlook-thru-SAS/td-p/612039

Old and subject to many changes: https://support.sas.com/resources/papers/proceedings10/086-2010.pdf

https://www.sas.com/content/dam/SAS/support/en/sas-global-forum-proceedings/2020/4439-2020.pdf

There are supposed to be some newer SAS / Office integration tools but I have not looked at them as they require additional licensed SAS products.

[SASuserlot]

Thanks @ballardw  for your time.