No Nested Loops, I've used up all my options...help

[trentonponder]

As AA does not support nested loops I'm forced to make do with the loops that exist.

So far in one task I'm using SQL, Excel and IE Table Loops to so that I can maintain the spirit of nested loops, but its quite cumbersome and would be far more useful if I can nest multiple SQL and Excel loops.

I'm forced to use an IE table for my main loop and within that loop there are multiple web controls for a different website then where the IE table is being extracted from. However if I first extract the table then none of the web controls work. If I instead first run the web controls then the IE table data does not extract.

It appears as if the IE loop limits what can be done within the loop.

To illustrate:
Loop within IE Table (extracted from site A)
Open Site B
Click on link in site B using $Table Column(1)
End Loop

Anything on Site B does not work.

If I do the reverse:

Open Site B
Loop within IE Table (extracted from Site A)
Click on link in Site B
End Loop

Then the extraction doesn't work.

Any ideas?

[forumsupport]

Hello,

You can use 'Read from CSV/Text File' and 'Loop for each row in CSV/Text File' commands to loop for each row in table #1 and inside this loop, use 'Loop for each row in IE table' command for table #2.

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. Table1 on webpage has two columns Task number and Task name. In each iteration task will click on respective task name link, Extract table from details page 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, we would be able to help you more with specific task.

Note: Use Automation Anywhere 5.5 to run this task.

[trentonponder]

Thank you, I upgraded to 5.5 and the new option to loop through a CSV/Text file is useful, but only because I need multiple options as nested loops is unavailable.

One strange issue. When looping through a CSV file, I cannot open the actual file. I receive an 'file is in use error.' There is no way to unlock this without closing AA completely (including all services). Stopping the actual task does not free it up.

Is this intentional or some kind of glitch?

[forumsupport]

Hello,

This is very strange as we have never heard or seen such type of behaviour before. However, let us investigate.

Is it possible for you to upload your task so that we can reproduce the issue and suggest viable solution?

Otherwise, you can also email us your task at, Ask the Automation Expert. Automation Anywhere - The Leading Automation Software

You can locate your task by selecting your task from Task List, right clicking that particular task and selecting 'Locate on disk' from context menu.

It would help us investigate further.