UiPath Scraping Techniques

Jumping into the world of UiPath scraping? You're in for a ride that's both exciting and hugely rewarding. In this article, we'll show you the world of UiPath scraping. We'll show you the three types of UiPath scraping and how to scrape with UiPath. 

UiPath is one of the most popular tools out there for scraping. It is easy to use and effective for its purpose. It's also very fast. UiPath's web scraping feature can extract up to 1 million rows of data in less than an hour

As put by user Vamsi on G2: 

UiPath RPA helps us to get over tedious work and makes it faster to get ROI. And coming to UiPath Studio in specific, it's a user-friendly platform to build code, deploy, manage and run bots when compared to it's competitors.

There are so many new products released in recent times which actually helps us to get rid of additional/ external applications/ services we use in daily basis in automation. UiPath is good at providing the required resources for its users.

What Is UiPath Scraping?

Data scraping, particularly with UiPath Studio, revolutionizes how we gather information from web pages and applications. At its core, structured data extraction is about pulling out organized data—think tables or lists—from a webpage into a more usable format like databases or Excel spreadsheets. Analyzing online data becomes a breeze with this indispensable technique.

Why does this matter? Because it allows us to transform raw web page content into structured datasets that can be easily manipulated and analyzed. Imagine you're working on market research and need to compile a list of job postings from an online portal; UiPath makes this not only possible but straightforward.

Types of UiPath Scraping

Learning how to leverage tools like UiPath for scraping can significantly enhance productivity. Whether you're in customer support, sales, or any office job that requires handling vast amounts of data, understanding the different types of scraping available in UiPath is crucial. Let's dive into the three primary forms: screen scraping, web scraping, and data scraping.

Screen Scraping 

Screen scraping is a powerful method used to extract visible data from applications where standard methods might not work. This technique is particularly useful when dealing with legacy systems or applications that do not offer an API for direct access. 

UiPath's Screen Scraping Wizard simplifies this process by allowing users to select the area on their screen they wish to scrape. It then employs optical character recognition (OCR) or full text capture depending on what works best for that particular application. UiPath's data scraping tool supports extraction from AJAX, JavaScript, and other dynamic websites

• Optical Character Recognition (OCR): Best suited for images or documents where text needs to be extracted.
• Full Text Capture: Ideal for extracting large amounts of text quickly from software interfaces.

Data Scraping 

Data scraping focuses on extracting structured data from web pages and other documents into a format that can be easily managed and analyzed—think tables converted into Excel spreadsheets or databases. The beauty of UiPath Data Scraping tool lies in its ability to recognize patterns in the structured data it scrapes; thus enabling it to automatically navigate through multiple pages and collect all relevant information without manual intervention.

Web Scraping 

Last but certainly not least is web scraping—a technique widely employed across various industries due its versatility. Web Scraper allows users gather specific information directly off websites ranging simple contact details complex financial reports. What sets apart however, its seamless integration browser activities, enabling automate entire workflows around gathered insights instantaneously.

UiPath's data scraping tool can extract structured data from web pages, PDFs, and Excel files

By mastering these three types scraping techniques provided within platform, you unlock potential streamline tasks previously thought time-consuming cumbersome. With right approach dedication, becoming proficient using AI Automation Software such as UiPath will undoubtedly boost your productivity levels new heights.

How To Scrape with UiPath

Web scraping with UiPath involves creating an automation process that can extract data from web pages. UiPath offers several tools and activities specifically designed for web scraping, making it relatively straightforward to implement. Here's a step-by-step guide to get you started with basic web scraping using UiPath:

Step 1: Install UiPath Studio

Ensure you have UiPath Studio installed on your computer. You can download it from the UiPath official website.

Step 2: Create a New Project

Open UiPath Studio and create a new project by selecting "Process" from the options provided.

Step 3: Use the 'Data Scraping' Wizard

• In the UiPath Studio, navigate to the "Design" tab, and click on "Data Scraping". This will open the Data Scraping wizard, which is specifically designed to scrape structured data from web pages.
• Follow the wizard's instructions. You'll be prompted to open a web browser and navigate to the page from which you want to scrape data.

Step 4: Select the Data to Scrape

• Once you're on the web page, use your mouse to select the first element of the data you wish to scrape. UiPath will attempt to identify similar items on the page.
• After selecting the first item, you'll be asked to indicate a second element of the same kind to help UiPath understand the pattern of the data.
• UiPath will then highlight the detected data in the web page. You can review the selection and adjust it if necessary.

Step 5: Configure Data Extraction

• After selecting the data, the wizard will show you a preview of the data to be scraped. Here, you can configure column names and choose whether you need to extract URLs.
• You can also modify the data extraction details by clicking on "Extract Correlated Data" if you need to scrape more detailed information related to your initial selection.

Step 6: Finish and Save

• Once you have configured the data extraction, click "Finish". UiPath will generate the necessary activities and sequences in your project to perform the web scraping.
• You can now run the project to scrape the data. The extracted data will typically be stored in a DataTable variable, which you can then write to an Excel file, a database, or any other storage mechanism of your choice using the appropriate activities.

Remember, when scraping data from websites, it's important to comply with the website's terms of service and any relevant legal regulations, such as copyright laws and privacy regulations.

UiPath Scraping Alternatives

If you've tried to use UiPath and it's not for you, there are UiPath alternatives that will get the job done effectively. 

There are many tools out there on the market when it comes to web scraping. Some are built for specific purposes, such as scraping Notion or scraping Zapier. Other alternatives to look at include: 

• Magical
• Blue Prism
• Microsoft Power Automate 
• Appian 

A Final Word

Learning how to use UiPath scraping is a skill worth having if you take the time to familiarize yourself with UiPath and its functions. One word of caution though: ALWAYS stay in the ethical and legal green zone when using UiPath scrapers or any scrapers. Don't do something you'll regret later.