Web data extractions using loops

[maroblouna]

Hello AA team

I have just purchased and installed enerprise version and I am trying out a few tasks in order to get aquainted with the tool.
I have come up with the following problems for which I would like to ask for your help:

1. When I am using the Extract data option on the Web Recorder, the mouse changes to that yellow line indicating "Click on the data etc.etc." . There I'm not sure what I should be doing because if I click on a text paragraph once, or even if I high-light the whole set of paragraphs it doesn't seem to respond, the mouse remains the same and the only way to stop the recording is to press "esc" which is supposed to cancel the data selection. Could you please indicate me how to use this feature correctly?

2. In the task editor I have a extract table statement followed by a loop for every row of the table. What I am trying to do is have the task click on the contents of every cell of the table using the loop. However when I open the Mouse click command and press F2 in order to introduce the $table Column" variable it doesn't seem to react, the only thing I am allowed to do is mouse click at a specific window-screen position. How can I insert the variable?

3. In the same table processing loop as 2. I need to extract data from each page opened by the clck preformed in 2. However when I open the web recorder / Extract data command, it asks for a specific URL. How can I tell it to extract specific data from the dynamically opened pages through the loop?

I would very much appreciate your prompt help as I seem to be completely stuck with these problems.

Thanks in advance,
Maro

[forumsupport]

Hello Maro,

Regarding your queries,

1) This is strange. Is it possible for you to send us URL of webpage and tell us what data you want to extract so that we can try reproducing the scenario at our end? You can view a demo on how Web Recorder works at,
Automation Anywhere - Learning Center

2) Instead of Mouse Click command, use 'Manage Web Controls' command of Web Recorder to click on cell of the table. You can use variable (Table Column)with this command to click on next cell in each iteration of loop.

3) If layout of webpage is same then Web recorder will take care of changing parameters in a URL. You just have to record the task once, if you want to run the same task with different parameters then make use of variables in place of a fixed value and run the task. Web Recorder will take care of dynamic URL. We have attached a sample task for your reference.

Please copy it under location, 'C:\...\My Documents\Automation Anywhere\Automation Anywhere\My Tasks' folder.

This task will browse through all the online samples on Tethys website one by one. Table on webpage has two columns Task number and Task name. In each iteration task will click on respective task name link, will extract data from details page and then will come back to page having list of tasks. In that way task will browse through all the sample tasks.

Hope that helps. If you could send us URL of website and steps to automate the task, we would be able to help you more with specific task.

[maroblouna]

Hi,

Thanks for your prompt reply; As of points 2&3 I have downloaded the sample task and I will try it out later. Thank you.

As of problem 1, unfortunately the web-recorder demo does not exhibit the data extraction feature, it only shows how to automate filling up a form... I suspect it's not an AA problem, it must be something that I am doing very wrong, because it hapens with absolutely all URLs I've tried.

For instance, your own http://www.tethyssolutions.com/all-a...e-versions.htm.

I start web recorder and paste the url. AA loads the page (I wait until loading is complete) and I click on "Extract Data" button at the little Web recorder window down on the left. The cursor gets its yellow "Please click on the data..." tail and that's where my confusion begins. If I just click anywhere on the text of "Standard and Premier version offers companies of all sizes a comprehensive, intelligent automation software that you can use to automate any business & IT tasks. No programming required. Premier license allows task to exe capability." paragraph, or any other paragraph, it doesn't seem to react and recognise in any way that I am trying to extract this particular data. If I click twice, or even if I highlight the paragraph, the same. Moreover, while the cursor has it's yellow tail I can't press the stop recording button. The only option I have in order to get the cursor normal again, is to press "ESC" and then when I save the task it is (naturally) empty.

I think the problem is that I don't actually know how to use the "cursor with the yellow tail" right.

[forumsupport]

Hello,

Can you please tell us, on which OS you are evaluating the product?

What you have to do is,

. Click on Tools->Web Recorder.
. Specify the URL say www.tethyssolutions.com and click on Start button.
. Wait for webpage to get loaded fully.
. Click on Extract data button and click on the data you want to extract. Extract Data window will come up to specify the variable in which you want to store the extracted data.
Note: If yellow bar does not go then hit Esc and try again.

Hope that helps.

[maroblouna]

Hi again.

I'm running AA on Windows Vista. Unfortunately the problem with the "yellow tail" insists no matter how many times I press "esc" and start again.

I am beginning to suspect that Vista is causing more than this particular problem: The sample script you told me to download, called "ExtractDetailsSample...etc" abends on line 7 : extract table command. It gives the following message:

Internet explorer window was closed while the task was executing. The task could not complete.
An error occured at line 7. Please open the task inthe Task Editor ...

... Why do you think is this happening? does it have somethign to do with Vista and IE setup?

Thanks again for your support,
Maro

[forumsupport]

Hello,

Yes, in Vista you need to turn off the protected mode.

Can you please try this, in IE window, under Tools->Internet Options click on Security tab. At the bottom of Internet Option window, you will find one checkbox to turn On/off protected mode (see attached screenshot). You need to uncheck that checkbox.

Hope that helps

[maroblouna]

I'm afraid that's not it.. The security protected mode IS already unchecked, Internet zone security is already set to medium and privacy configuration is already low when the task abended.
It opens the IE window and loads the target page (step 6), and at step 7 it abends because it discovers that the window has been closed (why does it close?) by itself .

Also the Web recorder problem with the yellow line still persists.
Please help!!

[forumsupport]

Hello,

Can you please email us your phone number at http://www.tethyssolutions.com/support_form.htm so that one of our Technical Support staffs can call you to help you resolve the problem.

Alternatively, you can reach us at 1-888-484-3535 x 3

[mkorsinsky]

I'm trying to do the same thing and the web recorder is not picking up the dynamic url. My test script retrieves a list of stocks from a database and then tries to get the closing price from yahoo. Here's the portion of code:

3 Open "http://finance.yahoo.com"
4 Start Loop " Each row in a SQL query dataset"
5 Comment: Please enter your commands to loop. Use $Dataset Column$ variable for each record in Dataset.
6 Navigate URL "http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=$Dataset Column(1)$"
7 If Web Control Exists( Other HTML Control Value : 10.79 ) in the webpage 'M: Summary for MACY'S INC - Yahoo! Finance' Then
8 Comment: Please enter the conditional commands here.
9 Get text from Other HTML contol into $PrevClose$ in the webpage 'M: Summary for MACY'S INC - Yahoo! Finance'
10 End If
11 Log to File: $Dataset Column(1)$ $PrevClose$ in "C:\Documents and Settings\miriam\Desktop\ExtractYahooPx.txt"
12 End Loop
13 Close Browser

[forumsupport]

Hello,

If layout of webpage is same then Web recorder will take care of changing parameters in a URL. We have attached a sample task for your reference. To run this task,
. Please copy it under location, 'C:\...\My Documents\Automation Anywhere\Automation Anywhere\My Tasks' folder.
. Copy .txt under C:\.

This sample task works with dynamic URL and extracts the closing price into text file.

Hope that helps.