Newsletter Index

For a while, I was handling a task that wasn’t part of my official role but belonged to another department: presenting weekly product updates during the Italian team’s meetings. These presentations were mostly based on the newsletters sent to customers the week before.

The problem was that there was no easy way to check if a newsletter had been published for that market. The information was scattered across inboxes with no clear index, which meant wasting time every week—both for me and for other colleagues in the same situation.

I noticed that the browser version of the newsletters followed a consistent URL pattern, based on language and date. This made it possible to automatically retrieve the information. I started with a small script for personal use, but once I realized that others were facing the same issue, I turned it into a shared tool: a web page that updates automatically and lists all published newsletters, with date filters included.

A simple, practical, and accessible solution for everyone on the team.

Languages and Libraries: I used Python with Requests and BeautifulSoup to scrape the company website, extracting titles, dates, and URLs of each published newsletter.

Web Interface: The information is presented in an HTML template, styled with CSS, and includes date filtering using vanilla JavaScript.

Automatic Updates: The script runs periodically to keep the index up to date.

Deployment: The project was hosted on a VPS with an Apache server, making it accessible internally through any browser within the corporate network.

Results or Impact

Weekly time savings for multiple team members

Fast, centralized access to all published newsletters

Improved preparation for internal meetings

A simple and maintainable tool that other departments found useful too

Lessons Learned

Technically, I strengthened my skills with BeautifulSoup and Python automation.

Professionally, I learned the value of sharing solutions—how a small personal improvement can turn into something helpful for many others.