The Problem
The execution of many business processes, especially in small and medium-sized businesses, requires employees to use data from web sources like e-commerce sites, listings, or government portals. Typically, employees know where to find the required information, but browsing takes much effort if the data needs to be obtained frequently. In some companies, selected employees spend more than half of their time on repeatable actions in web browsers, copy-pasting data to spreadsheets.
Definitions
Web scraping is the process of collecting structured web data in an automated fashion, also known as web data extraction. Until RPA enabled a no-code approach to automation, it required significant coding effort and some embedded connectivity (APIs) on the web sources side. With RPA, building an effective web scraping process is as easy as automating any other repeatable workflow on a PC.
The Solution
The bots built on the ElectroNeek Platform open a browser and automatically get to a specified site, perform searches, and log or download results repeatedly without human intervention. On top of parsing, they can replicate repeatable actions on legacy websites, like completing forms or uploading files. This is useful for business processes that touch government websites or SaaS tools that limit automated actions (e.g., LinkedIn is non-automation friendly, but RPA can automate any action there).
Advantages Of the Solution:
- Quick to build using drag-and-drop functionality
- Replicate any repeatable process in a browser
- Easy to maintain as bots can automatically handle many layout/interface changes
- Flexible - easy to adjust the process in the future, if needed, and doesn’t depend on API changes
- Easy to deploy on client’s or IT Service infrastructure
Client Benefits:
- Increased execution speed of repeatable processes in the browser
- No mistakes due to manual data extraction
- Despite integration design, ElectroNeek enables the connection and automation of workflows with the best core capability SaaS apps
- Allows to allocate human resources to more valuable tasks
Popular website destinations for web scraping bots include:
- Amazon.com
- LinkedIn.com
- Indeed.com
- Ebay.com
- Yelp.com
- Yellowpages.com
- Craigslist.com
- Walmart.com