Web Page Selector with wild cards

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Posted on by eschoebitz

Hello Community,

I can't find any describtion how web page selector is working.

My expectation would be, prerequisite of finding any web ui element should be that said web element is placed on the right web page, as defined at the web page selector. Said web page selector should contain the web pages url. Am I right?

After capturing a web page selector, I got the following result:

In the bottom line I can't see any url-information.

Even if I switch to custom editor, there is no information regarding correct url:

As you can see in the first picture, the web pages url contains a customer number, which is specific for every customer.

Here my questions:

1.) How can I define the url as part of the web pages selector? At the moment it seems to me, that the url is not checked by the selection mechanism. That meens, the searched web ui element could be placed on any web page.

2.) What is the right syntax for the definition of the web page selector? Can the selector contain wildcards and/or variables in the url part?

Many thanks in advance for the support

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Power Automate Desktop

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fraenK 2,125 on at

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Please blur "internal" URLs when posting screenshots! 😉

You first have to start a browser instance or attach the browser instance to an existing one. Both is done through a URL or window title. There you have to put your URL/window matching magic.
The name of the selector doesn't really matter in this case.
eschoebitz 19 on at

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With "You first have to start a browser instance or attach the browser instance to an existing one." you mean in the automated process? I did this, shure. But independend of this fact, I would like to be be shure, that the process is still working on the web page as planned. I want to prevent the process against influence of user interaction.
So, is there an answer on my two questions?
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fraenK 2,125 on at

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This was the answer to your questions. 😉

When you use the launch browser action, it creates a web browser instance. All next actions have to reference the same instance through its variable, making sure that the actions apply to this browser window/tab only:

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/power-automate/desktop-flows/actions-reference/webautomation
As described here: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/power-automate/desktop-flows/automation-web

You can always double check the current URL https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/power-automate/desktop-flows/actions-reference/webautomation#getdetailsofwebpage
Or cross check for other elements within in the web page.
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/power-automate/desktop-flows/actions-reference/webautomation#getdetailsofelement

The UI element selectors are for DOM/document elements, not for the URL. A selector itself can include variables for "changing/dynamic" attribute values.
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/power-automate/desktop-flows/ui-elements

As you are using UI automation, a user will always have the possibility to influence the flow if you run it in attended mode. If the process doesn't require user presence, then run it in unattended mode or even better use cloud flows with HTTP actions.
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/power-automate/desktop-flows/run-pad-flow
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eschoebitz 19 on at

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Hello @fraenK ,
All this things you told me in your post I allready knew and used.
Nevertheless, thank you very much for the answer. At least I now know for sure that when checking the web ui elements, the url of the web page is not taken into account and I have to check that specifically in the process.

Thanks for your effort!