Submitting Jobs via Email

Job requests can be submitted by emailing LISSY at postbox@lisproject.org through most email software (Outlook, Thunderbird, Eudora, etc.).

Pre-requisites

The job request simply consists of standard statistical batch programs written by the user. However, in order to ensure system security, three requirements must be met in order for LISSY to properly process jobs, regardless of the programming language used.

  1. All emails must be sent in ascii/plain text format. Users must ensure that this option is enabled in the chosen email package.
  2. All job instructions must be written inside the body of the email and not as an attachment.
  3. Each job must start with a specific four-line header at the very beginning of the email body:
*user = 'userid'
*password = 'password'
*package  = 'statistical package used’ (SAS, SPSS, Stata)
*project  = 'project accessed' (LIS or LWS or LES)

Seriously consider switching to the Job Submission Interface if you are unable to properly configure your email in ascii-text format.

Note that the asterisks at the beginning of each of the header lines are mandatory. If the header contains an error, LISSY does not process the job request. It returns an email to the address from where the job request had been submitted along with the following error message: 

The header of the job you have sent is wrong

your original header :

*user     = 'WRONGUSERID'
*password = 'wrongpassword'
*project  = LIS
*package  = SAS

  -> the user is not valid
  -> you do not have the authorization to access this project

Note that the password is case-sensitive.

Job handling

Following the first four lines, users provide standard statistical batch programs bearing in mind the LISSY language-specific requirements. These are detailed for each of the three statistical languages in the Job Submission Instructions menu.



Correctly-submitted jobs are automatically processed by LISSY. The resulting output will be returned to the user at the email address registered with LIS, even if the job request is sent from a different email address.


Warnings

Users should only submit one job after the other and check the result before sending the next one.