Power Automate Desktop, How can I extract data from web which has dynamic table(table form are same)

[Crouching-SD]

Hi, all

What I want to do is extract data from web and save it to excel.

I tried to extract data from web and save it to excel. It worked

- Loop> Launch browser > extract data from web page > write to excel worksheet

* All web pages have same format table. but the table range can flexible

There is a problem.

- When I extract data from web page at first, there were five colulms

  While in loop, if other web page has more then 6 columns, then error occur on extract data from web page.

Then... How can I extract data from web which has dynamic table...

[Agnius]

There shouldn't be an error for pages that have more columns than what you defined. You could get an error when you define too many columns and some tables don't have them. But not when you define less than the available number of columns. That is not how it should work.

Can you share some more details of what you are trying to extract? Can you show the details of your extraction preview and the advanced options in it?

Also, can you share the error that is thrown when there are more columns on the web?

[Crouching-SD]

Hi, Agnus

Thanks for reply.

It's not a portal web site so I can't show you... I hope you understand for it.

you mean for example...

When I first extracted data from web, It had 4(Row)x4(Column).

And if the other web page had 3x3 than it will have an error for extract, right?

And if the other web page had 5x5 than it will have no error, right?

[Agnius]

Yes, technically that should be the case. Unless, of course, in the case of a 5x5 table, something else also changes in the page and the table is located in some different place in the web page structure. In that case it will obviously not work either. 

However, if the page structure is the same, apart from the fact there are more columns in the table, it should work.

[Crouching-SD]

In conclusion, it is not a problem that there are fewer or more row values than the initially set data extraction.
However, it becomes a problem if the column value decreases. (Error occurs.)

Am I right?

In my case it seems like increasing column values results in errors.

Then... is there a solution? with dynamic table?

[Agnius · Accepted solution]

Yes, you are correct. Rows are always dynamic, and columns should be okay, if the table structure does not change to a point where the columns no longer exist.

If your case results in errors when there are more columns than expected, it must mean that something else is also changing in your page structure.

I would suggest inspecting the tables themselves by right-clicking them and selecting Inspect in your browser. This will show you the position of the table in the overall page structure. Try comparing that between the two different cases with tables that have different sets of columns, and see if the parent elements of the tables are somehow different.

You can also try capturing the two different tables using Extract data from web page and then checking the Advanced settings of the extraction preview, to compare if the selectors are different between the two different tables. This way you may be able to see what changes.

If you can share the selectors generated by PAD for the two tables, we may be able to help you to modify them in a way where a single selector works for both tables.

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