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Web Data Extraction -> T64 - Daily extract Mutual Funds information from a Website

Task Description: Daily extract updated information for a list of mutual funds.

Note: This sample task uses an example of http://www.smartmoney.com/ just for illustrative purposes.

Solution
1.Record a new task
  • Click on Tools->Web Recorder.
  • Type in http://www.smartmoney.com/ and click on Start
  • Select a ticker symbol for e.g. 'MIDSX' in the search box and click on search button.
  • When the mutual fund snapshot opens, click on 'Extract Table' button from the toolbar that appears on the bottom right corner.
  • Click on the table that shows Total Returns and capture it. Screenshot 1
  • Specify the .csv file to store the extracted information for e.g. C:\Funds.csv
  • Stop Recording and Save the task.
2.Create the list of mutual funds
  • Using Variable Manager, create a variable called 'MyFunds' of type List.
  • Specify to read the values from a text file.
  • Specify the path of the text file as C:\Funds.txt.
  • Specify the list of mutual funds values in the text file as shown in Screenshot 2
3.Extract information for the list of mutual funds.
  • The recorded task will extract the information for one ticker symbol.
  • To make your task extract the information for the list of mutual funds you will need to modify the recorded task.
  • Select the task and click on 'Edit' to open it in editor.
  • Insert a Loop for List around the recorded action.
  • Double-click the second line where you see your ticker symbol being typed and replace the ticker symbol MIDSX with the list variable $MyFunds$.
  • If you did not close the browser as part of recording then insert a Close Browser command before the End Loop.
  • The modified task will look as shown in Screenshot 3

Tip:

  • After every Extract Table command is executed, you can use System Variable command, $Table Column(index)$ to extract the row data of the Table when the task runs.
  • Using this System Variable you can also transfer the extracted data to any other application in any format you require

How to find which index to use in System Variable $Table Column$?

  • While recording, when you click on the Extract Table and capture a table, it will ask you for a csv file name.
  • Specify a valid filename.
  • Run the recorded task once. It will generate the csv file.
  • Open the csv file in Excel and find out which column your data is in and that is the index you need to use.
4Schedule the task
  • Select the task in the main Automation Anywhere window and click on Schedule Tab.
  • Specify the schedule options such that your task runs Daily at your desired time.
 
When you run this task, it extracts the latest information for each mutual fund and writes that information to a CSV file.

Screenshot 1:

Screenshot 2:

Screenshot 3:

 

Tags: Web data extraction, web data mining, screen scraping, extract data

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