A Web Automation Package is a group of Web Tasks grouped together and executed in a specific order. For Example, suppose you need to do the following:
1. Log in to a secure website.
2. Submit a search form a dozen (or several thousand) times.
3. Crawl, download, and categorize the search results.
4. Extract data from the search results and put it into Excel.
This whole process can be automated using a Web Automation Package and would consist of four Web Tasks.
All Web Tasks have two basic questions that you will need to answer:
1. Where are you getting the web pages from?
Download Task: Answer with a list of Urls, files, or HTML already downloaded to local folders.
Web Crawler Task: Answer with a Url or local file to start crawling from, and constraints to tell it when to stop.
Form Task: Answer with a list of Form Submit Statements.
2. What do you want to do with the pages once you have them?
Extract data with a Datapage: In many cases, you will want to extract data from the web pages that you have downloaded and put the data into a database or spreadsheet. To do this, you can build a Datapage extraction template. A Datapage allows you to map Fields and sections of a webpage to columns and rows in a spreadsheet or database.
Organize the pages: In some cases, you do not need to do anything with the web pages once you download them. For example, sometimes it is good enough just to submit a form and download HTML, Files, or images. You don’t necessarily need to extract data from the result page. However, you may still wish to organize the pages that are downloaded. Using a Save As Template, you can organize the pages by Date/Time info, Url parts, Package/Task info, and more.
To create a new package, select Package from the Console top menu and then select New.
The New Web Package Wizard will appear. After reading this, Select "Next".
The Web Automation Package Basics box appears. This has a line for Package Name and Description.
Change the Name to Yahoo Finance Quotes and then click "Next".