# Running external application

**URL:** <https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/t/running-external-application/800>\
**Category:** Archived Topics\
**Created:** [August 29, 2008, 3:34pm UTC](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/t/running-external-application/800 "2008-08-29T15:34:02Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![mrtweaver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/77aa72/32.png) [@mrtweaver](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/u/mrtweaver)\
**Post date:** [August 29, 2008, 3:34pm UTC](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/t/running-external-application/800/1 "2008-08-29T15:34:02Z")

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I know I have seen it somewhere and had tried it once before but for some reason I am having a heck of time finding it. I was wondering how one would run an external application file? You know something like excel or write or word? I know at one point way back a DB engineer had wrote a small exe file that gathered some important data and we ran that from within the project, just can not remember how. THanks and have a great day.

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**Author:** ![Carl.Gould](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/inductiveautomation/user_avatar/forum.inductiveautomation.com/carl.gould/32/7262_2.png) [@Carl.Gould](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/u/Carl.Gould)\
**Post date:** [August 29, 2008, 3:36pm UTC](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/t/running-external-application/800/2 "2008-08-29T15:36:01Z")

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I think you’re looking for [fpmi.system.execute()](http://www.inductiveautomation.com/products/factorypmi/usermanual/source/technical/jython/modulessystem.htm#execute)