Download Excel from Website

Hi,

I am new to UiPath. I need help to create a bot to automate the task of downloading an excel from a webpage and save it in a local machine. I have a requirement to -

Open a webpage link
Click on an Option. This option will open a window to save the file
Choose the folder location in the local machine
Replace the existing file with the new file.

Thanks in Advance!

1 Like

Hi
Welcome to uipath community
Hope these steps would help you resolve this

—use a OPEN BROWSER activity and pass the url of the web page as input string
—inside that container use a CLICK activity to click on the download button and enable simulate click property
—then use TYPE INTO activity where mention the file path of the downloaded file to be saved in and enable simulate type property
—this will save the file to the folder we specified
—suddenly if any pop up up comes like this file already exists use a ELEMENT EXISTS activity to find the element and if that element appears it will give us a output of type Boolean named bool_output
—now use a IF condition like this bool_output = True if true it will go to THEN PART where use a CLICK activity to click on the ok button or goes to Else part where leave it empty
-then use CLICK activity to click on SAVE button to save the file

Cheers @shraddha_singh

1 Like

I have never found the type into activity for IE save as dialogue to be reliable. I always end up using the default file name and then moving the file.

Yah that would fine either
But with proper selector it’s possible to type in to the field
Or it’s possible even with set to clipboard and send hot key with key as ctrl+v

Cheers @Craig1

Consider using this:
https://go.uipath.com/component/save-as-file-download-for-internet-explorer-70545

1 Like

Hi @shraddha_singh

1.Use Open Browser activity pass the URL. If you are working chrome in properties select chrome browser type.
2.use click activity to click download button and then open new window of typing the path
there use type into activity type the path where you want save the file.

Regards,
Kommi Jeevan.

Hi Palaniyappan,

Thank you for your response!
While debugging I receive an error that cannot find the UI element corresponding to selected silverlight control. It’s because it is a silverlight application. Am I missing something to add for this to run?

Thanks!

Tools->Silverlight install plugin and try

you were almost done
Kindly install silver light extension
and try once
@shraddha_singh

done. that … it runs for one push button, however, for next activity(Click) which is to select a control on the same page runs into error. Is that because it couldn’t identify the object on the SilverLight page or the automationid is not linked to that object. How do I link that?

Thanks for the help!

Hola,

Según lo que he realizado, una buena forma de realizar la descarga y reemplazar el archivo previo, es antes de realizar la descargar limpiar el directorio contenedor, para que siempre este limpio este directorio; posterior a la descarga también se debe realizar la verificación que el archivo este descargado, me sucedió en un comienzo que realizaba la acción descargar archivo y al terminar el proceso cerraba el navegador, pero el archivo aun no había terminado su descarga por tamaño del archivo o velocidad de internet, o también me sucedió que el archivo quedaba como temporal en la carpeta descarga, para lo cual debía realizar un refrescar a la carpeta descarga y así quedaba disponible el archivo.
Para lo cual al realizar descargas también hay que tener presente que no todas las veces el archivo quedara disponible inmediatamente en la carpeta descargas, por lo cual se debe verificar un par de veces antes de dar por finalizada la acción descargar.
También, en caso de realizar muchas descargas durante la ejecución de un proceso, lo ideal es que no aparezca la ventana de ingreso de ruta de descarga, si no que se descarguen automáticamente en una ruta especifica, para esto solo basta que cada robot o proceso a ejecutarse tenga su propio archivo Preferences (Chrome), en el cual están todas las configuraciones del navegador y al ejecutarse el proceso modifique estas configuraciones y al terminar restablezca el archivo Preferences original; de esta forma uno evita tener que realizar estas acciones manualmente para cada proceso.

Saludos.
Felipe Bugueño Jimenez

Why can’t UIPath do this natively? Isn’t it supposed to be extra integrated to the Microsoft stack?

and all developers be out of work, because studio will develop everything on its own? no thx… :smile:

1 Like

I switched to using IE in my program because UIPath has never been able to handle Javascript modals in other browsers. But now I can’t download in IE 11.

I don’t understand how they have test questions that are impossible to solve without 3rd party code, that’s so far beyond mind boggling I don’t even know what to call it.

you mean JavaScript Alerts right? to be honest, there must be thousands who already passed that academy test you are talking about here… There will be always some way to achieve what you need in your workflow, just need to be creative and open minded…

Maybe, but they are called modals. They are popup windows created by Javascript. And @loginerror shared some release notes that they were finally going to be supported outside of IE in the current prerelease channel. I mean, 12 years late is better than never, but the tech is older than the company, so, again, mind boggling.

And oh, well, if other people have done it, then clearly I’m retarded. Is that what you are trying to say? Because I have no other idea what you might mean if not that.

Hi @Robot.Builder.9001

I think a nice way to address your comment would be to provide some context.

Let’s start with ACME test site. It was made quite some time ago, and at the time it was designed to be, let’s put it this way, challenging. It might even be that some elements were used on purpose to be not responsive enough.
This on its own created a way for our users to learn that RPA is all about figuring out the workarounds to any particular issue on hand.

When I first started working with UiPath Studio and browsing this Forum, I got my fair share of frustration as well. The workarounds I had to find to work with Oracle Java apps were bizarre, but functional and ultimately working quite nicely.

If I were to automate the same process today, it would be so much simpler due to the development that was done in the past 1,5 years.

Now, to the actual case of the Academy, because you gave me an idea to look at it fresh. There are fun ways you can hack your way through the course. For example, I have never tried it, but the downloading of the report seems to be a simple HTTP Request. With that knowledge, you could use a UiPath.Web.Activities pack and the HTTP Request activity it contains, and feed it data to download the file directly :wink:

You might need to provide it a cookie data first, of course, but then you could call once to check if the file exists (it seems to return either nothing or the path to the file)

And then use another HTTP Request to download the file directly on your hard drive, skipping the UI Automation part.

Naturally, this wouldn’t get you the opportunity to get frustrated work with the pop-up and to find a workaround to it, which once again might have been the Academy’s goal.
I also do remember that I used anchors for the IE download orange pop-up, which was extremely annoying at the time. I found this post with some details I shared back in the day.

As to the JavaScript itself, and how it works with different browsers - it was always tricky for Chrome and Firefox. Nowadays though, it seems to be working quite nicely with the latest activity packages.

And this brings me to the last point - please always try out the latest preview packages available if you encounter some issues. More often than not, the issue will be resolved because someone reported the particular behaviour and it was fixed in the meantime :slight_smile: