EXTRACT from VARIABLE-defined URLs ??

[eric]

Pre-purchase question:
I am evaluating AA and like it better than the alternatives, but I need to be able EXTRACT data from URLs defined by a VARIABLE. It seems this is not possible, correct ? I did read about a workaround involving copying and pasting the entire web page in text editor etc, but that is too cumbersome. Any other solutions ? Thx much.

[forumsupport]

Hello,

Automation Anywhere provides you with a very powerful tool ‘Web Recorder’ to perform web related tasks. Web Recorder understands all web controls. If websites change and web controls move, Automation Anywhere will find the correct controls and the task will continue to work. You can use this tool to automate any web tasks like login to websites, search for items, submit forms, update records, automate ERP web front end, extract web data, testing an online application etc.

1. Click on Web Recorder link or Tools->Web Recorder.

2. Enter the website and perform the activities that you want to automate

3. It will open a new browser for Internet Explorer.

4. If your actions involve extracting tabular data then use the Extract Table button from the toolbar as displayed below. Most of the websites have their data organized in html tables and this feature makes it extremely easy and quick to extract the tabular data into a csv or any other application.

5. If your actions involve extracting / copying other data like paragraphs etc. then use the Extract Data button from the toolbar as displayed below.

6. Click on 'Stop Recording' (small window in lower right corner) to stop recording your activity.

7. Type your task name and click 'Save' to save the task. If you have purchased version, you can also specify a password to lock the task.

8. Now anytime you need to perform these actions just run the task, either by double clicking the task or using the 'RUN' button and Automation Anywhere will perform the activity for you.

When you open the tasks created using Web Recorder in Task Editor, you will see all the Web Recorder commands related to the controls you worked with while recording for e.g. links, text boxes, drop down menus etc. You can enter other commands like Keystrokes, Mouse Clicks and any other command from the list of commands provided in the Task Editor. A task created using Web Recorder is not restricted to only Web Recorder commands.

For e.g. if you want to transfer data from Excel to Internet Explorer, or vice-versa then what you can do is, record your task in Internet Explorer using Web Recorder. Then edit your task and insert other actions to transfer the data to and from Excel.
Also, the 'Open Browser' command of Web Record has variable support so you can edit that command to insert variable in place of URL using F2 key.

Hope that helps. If you could tell us more about your case like if you can provide us URL of website from where you want to extract the data and exact steps to follow, we would be able to help you more with specific task.