Find specific text on a webpage and extract URL behind it (Text/URL keeps moving on page)

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Posted on by makingbillions

Sorry, newbie question here that i am sure you can help me sort out.

I am extracting linkedin URLs for profiles from a webpage.

My challenge is that the URL moves around (or is sometimes missing altogether) from the profile page based on how much data has been added.

Is there a way to find the text "View on LinkedIn" on the page and capture the URL behind it?

Example urls:

www . c runchb ase .c om/p erson/d avid-u l evitch

www. c runchb ase.c om/p erson/d avid-f ewtrell

www. c runchb ase.c om/p erson/j on-h ughes-3

Appreciate any guidance.
Thanks

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Power Automate Desktop

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Pstork1 69,490 Most Valuable Professional on at

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You should be able to use the Get details of element on web page to extract that information. While in PAD open a browser session to the page where the link shows up. Then Use the Add UI Element dialog. Select the link on the page. That should copy the HTML path to the link. The attribute you will want to extract is the HRef. That has the link in it. Make sure you also setup the OnError handling for when the link isn't on the page.

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Kaif_Siddique 2,108 Super User 2024 Season 1 on at

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Hi @makingbillions ,

Elements are dynamically changing in the shared URL web page. So when trying to get UI element using UI element picker it works for first time/first URL link but not for other. In such cases, inspect the element and identify the element's static property. Here, you can notice title="View on LinkedIn" is static and not changing for all the shared the URLs.

To solve the above issue, after inspecting the UI element, enable the Text editor and write a[title="View on LinkedIn"].

Flow:

Let me know if any queries.

If you like my response, please give it a Thumbs Up.
If this helps, please Accept as solution.

Regards
Kaif

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makingbillions 4 on at

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Thank you both for your responses.

I have to admit that I am a bigger novice than you have assumed and am struggling to get this workflow to work. Sorry about this. I keep getting an error that it can't find the element with attribute a[title="View on LinkedIn"]

My workflow is meant to work like this:
1. scroll through my excel sheet which contains a URL list of C runchb ase profiles. grab one at a time and open it up in Edge.
2. grab the Linkedin profile URL from the profile page and write it back to my Excel spreadsheet.
4. loop through excel until finished.

So, facing the challenge that the LI URL keeps moving around the page, I am struggling to capture it more than one 50% of the time.

The solution you have suggested is to set up a dynamic UI element, which is possible because the LI URL link title is always "View on Linkedin"

Can you explain to me if (and How) I can I get PAD to search the whole page for a link that says "View on Linkedin" and how to capture it? I mean, I am not even sure how to enable the text editor.

Thanks again in advance.

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makingbillions 4 on at

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Can anyone show me exactly where to enter this info a[title="View on LinkedIn"] ?
Thanks

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Kaif_Siddique 2,108 Super User 2024 Season 1 on at

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Hi @makingbillions ,

Please follow below steps:
Step1:

Step2:

Hope this will help you.

Regards
Kaif

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CountCasual 6 on at

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Hi

Can I highjack this thread? I have a similar issue, but my urls don't have title, just a tekst with href. Is there any way to search the page for a spesific text and click the link behind it?

Example page: https://en .uit.no/education/courses?ar=2022&semester=V&sted=179933

Any help would be appreciated

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CountCasual 6 on at

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I'm sorry, I forgot to mention that I'm trying to click the link "Next 50".

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Kaif_Siddique 2,108 Super User 2024 Season 1 on at

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Hi @CountCasual,

First you launch the page then using UI element click on 'Next 50' button.

Hope this will help you.

Regards
Kaif

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CountCasual 6 on at

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Hi @Kaif_Siddique

Thank you for your reply. I've already tried that, but it seems like the UI element registers the path (xml?), not the text it's attached to. So when I get to the next page, the same path from the first page links back to the first page.

I figured it out, in other words. It's a bit cumbersome and less elegant, but I just have to run the data retrieval twice before the loop. But whilst we're on the subject, is there any way for PAD to look for the text rather than the path? There's no title to look for, as the html code is <a href="/education/courses?ar=2022&sted=179933&semester=V&ikbAction=ikb8&ikb8.startrow=151">Next 50</a>. The only common denominator for all links I want to click is the text "Next 50".

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