topic RE: Need active hyperlink in results element in VBO in University Forum

Need active hyperlink in results element in VBO

BernadetteStroe — Fri, 04 Sep 2020 23:45:00 GMT

Hi all,

This one is frying my brain. I've created a process hoping to end up with a list of hyperlinks in an Excel sheet. Process works, but the links are plain text rather than active links to a document. What am I doing wrong?

Ideallly instead of a hyperlink spied from the results field, I need to download the htm file to a folder.
Thanks
Bernadette

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Bernadette Stroeder
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RE: Need active hyperlink in results element in VBO

jegendra — Mon, 07 Sep 2020 02:45:00 GMT

Hi Bernadette,

Since the links are inserted as in plain text format within the Excel cell, please try inserting the data with using Excel function called HYPERLINK.
For instance, insert as =HYPERLINK("www.abcd.org").

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Jega Avinasinathan
Customer Support Engineer
Blue Prism
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RE: Need active hyperlink in results element in VBO

BernadetteStroe — Mon, 07 Sep 2020 16:09:00 GMT

Thank you Jega. I've decided to go a bit further and actually download the file and save in a folder, but the end file is .htm. Can you help me there? How can I transfer an htm doc to, say Word and store it in a folder?

Best
Bernadette
BP Enthusiast/Sweden

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Bernadette Stroeder
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RE: Need active hyperlink in results element in VBO

jegendra — Tue, 08 Sep 2020 05:54:00 GMT

Hi Bernadette,

Thank you for your response.
If you prefer your HTML document to be opened and saved as in Word format or prefer to transfer the HTML into any specific folder location, please consider import and utilising MS Word VBO and Utility - File Management VBO where you may find appropriate Actions according to your RPA design requirements. These VBOs are generally available within Blue Prism Automate folder.

If you are using 64bit, it would be in
C:\Program Files\Blue Prism Limited\Blue Prism Automate\VBO
Otherwise, it would be located under
C:\Program Files (x86)\Blue Prism Limited\Blue Prism Automate\VBO

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Jega Avinasinathan
Customer Support Engineer
Blue Prism
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RE: Need active hyperlink in results element in VBO

BernadetteStroe — Tue, 08 Sep 2020 15:19:00 GMT

Thanks again Jega,

Downloading the html file to a folder sounds like the simplest solution. However, I'm quite new to BP and though I created an action to download the file to a folder it doesn't work. I suspect the reason is the expression for Source URL, but since I will use this to download various documents I'm unclear what to do. Is there a stage that I'm missing? Thinking of Get URL (have heard of that) but not sure how that will feed into the file download.

Hope you can help with this as well.

Best regards
Bernadette

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Bernadette Stroeder
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RE: Need active hyperlink in results element in VBO

MattPaisley — Tue, 08 Sep 2020 15:32:00 GMT

Bernedette,

You can do this with a calculation:

"=HYPERLINK(" & Chr(34) & [URL] & Chr(34) & ")"

I tried to do this using single quotes, but the VBO didn't like this.

Best of Luck,

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Matthew Paisley
Sr. Solutions Engineer
Blue Prism
America/New_York
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RE: Need active hyperlink in results element in VBO

BernadetteStroe — Tue, 08 Sep 2020 15:55:00 GMT

Hi Matthew,

Huge thanks! I'm really keen to get this resolved today so I can move on. Am loving the quick responses on this forum.
I used your expression, but am getting an error: Missing data URL.

Must be a stage not done yet? I'm so close!

Regards
Bernadette

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Bernadette Stroeder
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RE: Need active hyperlink in results element in VBO

MattPaisley — Tue, 08 Sep 2020 16:45:00 GMT

Bernadette,

What VBO method are you using? I am using the Write Collection action of the VBO, but this should also work with Set Cell Value.

As Jega mentions in his reply, the BP Excel VBO writes plain text to the spreadsheet. Using blueprism.com as an example, you need to write the cell as:

"=HYPERLINK("http://blueprism.com")"

The problem is that BP doesn't allow double quotes within double quotes, """. To remedy this, you prepare the string using ASCII characters Chr(34) as follows:

"=HYPERLINK(" & Chr(34) & "http://blueprism.com)" & Chr(34)

In my example below I use the variable [URL] so my calculation stage uses the formula:

"=HYPERLINK(" & Chr(34) & [URL] & Chr(34) & ")"

Hope this helps.

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Matthew Paisley
Sr. Solutions Engineer
Blue Prism
America/New_York
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RE: Need active hyperlink in results element in VBO

BernadetteStroe — Tue, 08 Sep 2020 17:51:00 GMT

Hello Matthew,

I'm using the Download file function in the file management utility as Jega suggested, rather than the Word VBO. This is a steep but enjoyable learning curve. I've tried that option and now getting the lovely exception: "Illegal characters in path". Maybe I'm over thinking it.

I've created a process to call up an SEC report for companies imported as a collection. Everything works until I get to the actual document (random example link here: https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/0001571996/000157199620000045/dell-20200731.htm

I want to download the document showing on this page to a folder. I thought the download file function would do the trick but it doesn't. I think I'm missing a stage but I'm trying to keep the process simple. As a newbie, it is difficult to know what to do next.

Thanks again

Regards
Bernadette

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Bernadette Stroeder
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RE: Need active hyperlink in results element in VBO

MattPaisley — Tue, 08 Sep 2020 18:25:00 GMT

Bernedette,

What is the format of the file that you are downloading. Can you provided a sample that doesn't contain proprietary or customer related information?

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Matthew Paisley
Sr. Solutions Engineer
Blue Prism
America/New_York
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RE: Need active hyperlink in results element in VBO

BernadetteStroe — Tue, 08 Sep 2020 18:38:00 GMT

Hi Matthew

The link is to a file that is freely available to visitors of the sec.gov website. The link I inserted is just an example, but I have a list of company names for which I need to extract quarterly reports and store in a folder so colleagues can view and use them. No customer related or proprietary information here.

I've got this far but am stumped as to the simplest way to transfer the contents of the htm page to a folder.

Thanks again for your time.
Regards
Bernadette

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Bernadette Stroeder
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