topic Automating a HTML data table in Product Forum

Automating a HTML data table

NNML — Mon, 20 Jan 2020 14:18:00 GMT

Hello all,

I wonder if anyone could assist me.

I am aiming to do an automation which closes a 'case' once a PDF has been downloaded. Important steps are below:

- Launch system
- Log in
- Read data table (HTML)
- Loop through each case and check whether the last column (status) is "closed".

All the elements are in HTML which is fine as I know how to ensure that I'm picking the right row but the only problem is the table is dynamic so it updates all the time and I'm worried that when blue prism finds a case to work on i.e. row 1, the row number could change midway through the automation when a new case is added, so the current case may well become row 2 so there's potential for the automation to pick the wrong PDF against the user.

Any ideas or workarounds?

Regards

Nathan

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Nathan McDonald
Junior Programmer Analyst
University Hospitals Birmingham
Europe/London
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RE: Automating a HTML data table

MoDCore — Mon, 20 Jan 2020 15:14:00 GMT

Hi,

Do you have unquie IDin the that you can use for checks?

At the start of reading a line you need to process, capture said ID, run the process at the end do the same capture ID and check if they match, if not go and find the new ID of the row and update as required.

Could something like that work?
HTH

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Matthew Ross
Innovation Developer
NHBC
Europe/London
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RE: Automating a HTML data table

NNML — Mon, 20 Jan 2020 15:46:00 GMT

Hi Matthew,

I would say there are two unique fields in each row but the problem is I'm using the HTML path to get three bits of data before i've even downloaded the PDF and because the table is dynamic the row's position in the datatable could change very quickly and I could end up downloading the wrong PDF if more recent case comes in.

Thanks

Nathan

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Nathan McDonald
Junior Programmer Analyst
University Hospitals Birmingham
Europe/London
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RE: Automating a HTML data table

MoDCore — Tue, 21 Jan 2020 07:49:00 GMT

The flip side to this is......can you access the database behind this HTML table and do your RPA work againt that?

The HTML table i would hope has been setup in a way when you view the HTML each row has an ID in the HTML, if you use F12 and view the table when new rows come do the HTML element ids change?

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Matthew Ross
Principal Innovation Developer & Analyst
NHBC
Europe/London
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RE: Automating a HTML data table

NNML — Wed, 26 Feb 2020 13:28:00 GMT

Hi Matthew,

Thanks for the advice. I've parked this for now.

Cheers

Nathan

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Nathan McDonald
Junior Programmer Analyst
University Hospitals Birmingham
Europe/London
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