Web Automation

Web Automation helps you to navigate between web pages and read, insert, or extract data from web UI elements.

You can use the available activities to automate web-based activities, such as data entry, screen scraping, extract web data to capture and consolidate information, log into websites and read the data, open a web browser and navigate to a specific website, and switch between web pages or browser windows. Automating such task help you to save time by using a bot to perform time-consuming, tedious, and repetitive task. Web Automation also helps integration between application, such as extracting data from a web page and adding it to a word document or excel spreadsheet.

Review the following recommendations before you create Bots for Web Automation activities:

  1. When you are using Web Element Action in your RPA Model, it is recommended not to use Find Element By Class Name attribute for Element Search Type. As the website or window instance can have multiple elements with the same class name, your bot may fail to complete the necessary task or get the preferred result.
  2. When you are specifying XPath in an action property, check its validity before running the bot. The XPath of a site can change over time, which can lead to your bot failing to complete the necessary task or get the preferred result.

Web Automation Activities

You can use the following activities to design an RPA bot to perform a web-based task:

Close the browser window.

Category: Generic Actions

Properties

  • Name: Enter the display name of the action.
  • Instance Name: Enter the browser window instance you want to close.

 

Navigates the browser back to a previous page.

Category: Generic Actions

Properties

  • Name: Enter the display name of the action.
  • Instance Name: Enter the browser window instance to which you want to navigate back.

 

Navigates the browser to the next page.

Category: Generic Actions

Properties

  • Name: Enter the display name of the action.
  • Instance Name: Enter the browser window instance in which you want to navigate forward.

 

You can use this action to specify a URL and navigate to it in the browser window.

Category: Generic Action

Properties

  • Name: Enter the display name of the action.
  • Instance Name: Enter the browser window instance in which you want to navigate to the specific page.
  • Enter URL: Specify the URL of the web page you want to display. It must start with HTTP or HTTPS and should follow the following format https://www.website name.com, for example, https//www.google.com.

 

You can use this action to open a supported browser with specified window state.

Category: Generic Actions

Properties

  • Name: Enter the display name of the action.
  • Instance Name: Enter the name of the browser instance. It helps you to differentiate between multiple browser instances and store the information regarding your browser session as a property within the object.
  • Choose Browser: Select the type of browser you want to use, such as Google Chrome, and Internet Explorer.
  • Instance Tracking: Select one of the following options for storing the instance information:
    • Forget Instance: Remove the instance information after the action is completed.
    • Keep Instance Alive: Store the instance information for subsequent activities.
  • Window State: Select the browser window state: Normal or Maximize.
The browser Instance Name needs to persist from the Open Browser activity to other browser automation activities.

 

Refresh the browser window.

Category: Generic Actions

Properties

  • Name: Enter the display name of the action.
  • Instance Name: Enter the browser window instance you want to refresh.

 

Use this action to extract a table from an HTML webpage and paste it into a Excel Workbook.

Category: UI Actions

Properties

  • Name: Enter the display name of the action.
  • Instance Name: Enter the browser window instance which contains the table you want to extract.
  • Element Search Type: Select the specific attribute that will be used to find the target table. You can use search types such as ID, Name, XPath, Tag Name, Class Name, and CSS Selector.
  • Search Parameter: Specify the unique ID or value used to locate the web element.
  • Enter Excel FilePath: Specify the full path of the Excel workbook to which the extracted table is copied.

 

Enables you to use script activities to create scripts that perform a variety of tasks, such as selection, scroll, or custom action in the user interface of the browser window.

Category: UI Actions

Properties

  • Name: Enter the display name of the action.
  • Instance Name: Enter the browser window instance in which you want to perform script action.
  • Select script action type: Select the script action type:
    • Selection: Select specific elements on the web page.
    • Custom: Specified user-defined action.
  • Enter relevant script: Specify the script that you want to run.

 

Use this action to find specified UI element on the browser windows based on the type and perform activities related to or on that UI element, such as click a UI element, or retrieve the value of an attribute of a UI element.

Category: UI Actions

Properties

  • Name: Enter the display name of the action.
  • Instance Name: Enter the browser window instance in which you want to perform script action.
  • Element Search Type: Allows to Find Element by ID, Name, XPath, Tag Name, Class Name or CSS Selector. If you want to find all the instances of an element, select Find Elements by ID, Name, XPath, Tag Name, Class Name or CSS Selector.
  • Search Parameter: Enter the value that exists for a specific attribute of a UI element you want to find.
  • Element Action: Select an activity that you want to perform on the element found as per the specified search type.
    • You can perform Left Click, Right Click, Invoke Click, Double Left Click, Clear Element, Set Text, Get Text, Get Attribute, or Wait For Element to Exist actions on the elements found either Find Element or Find Elements options.
    • You can perform the Get Matching Elements action only on the Find Elements options. If you select Get Machine Elements as Element Action, enter string in the Variable that you want to use to reference the value retrieved from Get Matching Elements action. If you want to perform any action on the elements retrieved using Get Matching Elements action, you must insert the respective activities within a List Loop and specify List Variable. You must reference the variable you specified in Get Matching Elements as the List Variable.
    •  If you select Set Text as Element Action, specify Text to Set and specify whether you want to Clear Element before setting text. Select Yes to clear the element before setting text and select No to do no clear the element before setting text.
    • If you select Get Text as Element Action, enter string in the Variable that you want to use to reference the value retrieved from get text action.
    • If you select Get Attribute as Element Action, enter the Attribute Name that you want to retrieve. Enter string in Variable that you want to use to reference the value retrieved from Get Attribute action.
    • If you select Wait for Element to Exist as Element Action, enter the Timeout value in milliseconds.

Use this action to take a screenshot of a specified UI element, the whole web page, or part of it.

Category: UI Actions

Properties

  • Name: Enter the display name of the action.
  • Instance Name: Enter the browser window instance in which you want to take the screenshot.
  • Element Search Type: Select the specific attribute that will be used to find the target UI element.
  • Search Parameter: The value that exists for a specific attribute of a UI element you want to take a screenshot.
  • Enter FilePath: Specify the name (including extension) and path of the file, you want to use to save the screenshot.

 

Switch to a different browser tab or window using a parameter within the browser.

Category: UI Actions

Properties

  • Name: Enter the display name of the action.

  • Instance Name: Enter the browser window instance to which you want to go to.

  • Match Type: Select the specific attribute that will be used to find the target browser window.

    • Window URL

    • Window Title

    • Handle ID

  • Match Type Filter: Select the filter you want to use to perform the match:

    • Exact Match

    • Contains Match

  • Is Match Case Sensitive: Select this option if you want to perform the case-sensitive match.

  • Match Parameter: The value that exists for a specific attribute of a browser window you want to go to.

 

Use this action to switch frames within a webpage to interact inside iFrames that are embedded in a webpage.

Category: UI Actions

Properties

  • Name: Enter the display name of the action.

  • Instance Name: Enter the browser window instance in which you want to switch frame.

  • Frame Selection Type: Select the specific frame type that will be used to find the target frame parameter.

    • Index

    • Name/ID

    • Parent Frame

    • Default Content

  • Frame Parameter: The value that exists for a specific frame reference that you want to switch to.