I FINALLY figured out the SELECTOR BUILDER in Power Automate Desktop

[@SOuimet30]

I don't know if it's useful to someone else, but instead of :contains , in Power Automate Desktop, it's possible to use WA_SimpleTextEqualsIgnoreCase almost as a replacement to check that the content of that field is exactly equal to the value. It seems to be an obscure remaining function of a previous version of Power Automate Desktop. For example, if there's something similar: 10y 11z 1x ... it's possible to find the row with the value 1 using something like "td:WA_SimpleTextEqualsIgnoreCase('1')" or the value x using something like "tr:has(td:WA_SimpleTextEqualsIgnoreCase('1')) td:eq(1)". However, it's not possible "tr:WA_SimpleTextEqualsIgnoreCase('1')". It is possible to use "td:contains('1')", but it doesn't match an equal value. Reference: docs.microsoft.com/en-us/previous-versions/troubleshoot/winautomation/process-development-tips/web-automation/how-to-use-the-contains-css-selector

[@DaveTheRPAGuy]

It’s funny you posted this today because just yesterday I was reading through the WinAutomation documentation to find nuggets like this because the PAD documentation is so incomplete. This is absolutely useful to someone else…ME! Haha! I have spent hours trying random JQuery functions to see what exactly PAD’s syntax is when I discovered it’s actually CSS Selectors with some JQuery-like concepts but that it actually was built specially for WinAutomation which I’ve never used. And I guess they actually brought over code directly into PAD. On one hand, that feels weird; but on the other hand, I love having more functionality. Are there any other functions like that you have found that work in PAD that you think might be useful? I’m thinking about making another video dedicated to just trying all the functions and showing what works and what doesn’t and various scenarios for selectors. After I finish typing this reply and gif submit, I’ll click on your link. I see it goes to the WinAutomation docs but the organization in that documentation is pretty awful so I don’t mind direct links haha. Thanks! Edit: hahahaha! Okay I clicked your link and that’s the exact page I read yesterday and I didn’t even notice that function! *Facepalm*

[@spencesouthall7248]

Hahahaha. Sprint a whole day doing the same thing. Found this video by googling it and it was extremely helpful.

[@gsgm1234]

This is pure gold. Thanks for upload the entire session. It's easy to understand, when knowing a line of thoughts.

[@r0n1nrcr]

Man, this was great! Just so relatable; the whole trial-and-error process. Also, not just being satisfied with "Ok, it works..." and calling it a day, but trying to optimize and eliminate redundant UI components in the Selector Builder. I wasn't bored at all. Thank you!

[@DaveTheRPAGuy]

Thanks! I really appreciate the kind words.

[@MrDennislow]

I had the same reaction when I saw the first few seconds of this video... "It's just JQuery". You're a lifesaver.

[@lukeisfinessin7983]

You just saved me more than I could ask! I create models for my job and I couldn't figure how to select the dynamic input boxes without sending keys. Man ! Thank you! You have a subscriber in me for sure.

[@DaveTheRPAGuy]

Awesome! The selectors confused me for a while =)

[@anilkumar-ml2sl]

It's past 1 in midnight but still can't stop watching it completely...I'm not really good at jQuery but somehow I relate this to the work that I am trying to do .. can't wait to give this a try on my system... Hats off to you to continue after so many failed attempts... I wish I could do the same

[@khorLDW]

Who is good in jQuery these days? Wondering what the people in Microsoft were thinking. Guess XPath is too mainstream.

[@joevaran]

Dave, thank you for the excellent video! I loved how you showed your errors and how you dealt with them.

[@ricardoluizmarcello]

Your video is perfect. I feel like it was done for me today! You’ve struggled exactly what I got stuck

[@007lbp]

Man you just save my life. I could record a video exactly the challenge you had here but now i know is jquey. Maybe you already know but PAD has an action 'click drop list ' in which could save a lot of time. Thanks man!!!!

[@DaveTheRPAGuy]

(Edited) I realized you may have meant "Set drop-down list value on web page". If that's the action you mean, then I can confirm that action did exist when I recorded this video. However, it's so long ago that I cannot remember why I didn't use it. It's possible I just didn't notice it. lol I can't remember.

[@myounis]

Thank you Dave for this amazing Tutorial , much appreciate your hard work 👌👌👌👌

[@DaveTheRPAGuy]

Thank you!

[@parentpj]

Well, that was well worth it! That opens so much more possibilities! Thanks

[@Poseidon339]

Thank you Dave, this is helping with an automation I am building. Great work!

[@Poseidon339]

Dave, I was wondering if you had time to give me a hand with a custom selector, I cannot figure it out?

[@mblodrok]

thanks Dave for sharing your experience using PAD. Great video that really helped me in learning automation with power automation. I learned a lot from your experience. You got my subscription

[@hswurtz]

Oh the joys of dynamic form fields ...

[@FragMasterBF2]

Thanks Dave, yes it was good to see that even you sometimes struggle like I do!

[@matthiasvandenbergh849]

Thank you, without this video I would have never figured it out and even now it took me hours. I had a similar problem with a dropdown menu that I could only select using a label from a distantly-related sibling. The "label:contains" didn't work for me, the following did though: div:has(label[for='xxxx'])[Class="xxx"] input . Maybe it can help others

[@leeyeung663]

Hello, please do a video on best practices in learning RPA and ways to hone and expand your skills. I’m new to RPA and am so overwhelmed with all the resources with no clear guides on which to use first or which resources are worth while. Huge fan of your channel and what you are doing.

[@DaveTheRPAGuy]

I was thinking about doing something like that. I'll put that on my list and give it some thought.

[@villanuevapaulryan9983]

Learning alot from you Dave, support from the Philippines.

[@m.fatihsirac844]

that is a great video buddy. I admire your way of doing RPA flows.

[@csabatoth4572]

Thank you for all your hard work you beautiful intelligent human being full of suffering.

[@jtabox]

​@Dave The RPA Guy This video is a bit dated, but if you ever see this comment I thank you so very much for this f-ing information about how the custom CSS selectors work. I've spent countless hours trying to figure out how to format those so I can scrape specific pages, and I always thought they're "XPath but in a Microsoft tweaked format". So I've been banging my head against the wall trying to find patterns. The minutes in your video after 17:00, with your on-screen notes, have solved a huge issue I've had, since the documentation is pretty sparse. I'll be eternally thankful to you :D

[@DaveTheRPAGuy]

I feel and have experienced your pain. =)

[@marshallthompson9365]

Dave, first thank you, really great video, I learned so much! I was wondering why you created your own mini flow to set the drop down fields and not the PAD action "Set drop-down list value on Web Page"? It appears to do what you did in one action. Maybe I shouldn't be using it either? looking forward to your answer. Thanks again, loved watching you work through the selectors.

[@DaveTheRPAGuy]

It’s a possible that the action didn’t exist 6 months ago since Microsoft has been adding a lot of stuff with each new version. It’s also possible that I just didn’t notice the action or I tested it off screen and had issues with it. I can’t remember now lol. I’d say there’s no reason to avoid the action if it works. So I’d definitely try it out and go for it if it seems to work.

[@CMartias]

Hi Dave. I really like your Videos. Recently i started with RPA. And i also found Power Automate desktop as a tool. Well i see that you had a kinda hard time with the Selectors. And thaks to that i learned that this is JQuery and not CSS Selectors as i assumed first. Then again ( no offense here ) it might have been easier to use the Flow Element 'Select an item from Drop down' from the "Fill form on website" ( Im sorry here for not being exact. My Power Automate desktop runs on German language, so i am not sure how its called in US-English ). With this it already has the option to click on a List element and then pick a choice from that list. There are also Options on how he picks the choice. You can use a variable here that PAD looks up in the list, and this can be a call value from the datarow you get from your excel sheet. ( i hope i am not too confusing )

[@janvanhaver6970]

@CMartias I fully understand your struggle with the interface language... Some of my colleagues have theirs set to German too and it takes us ages to figure out which English feature is what in German. We ended up describing what the icons look like to each other multiple times already 😄

[@AutomateWithDev]

@CMartias Actually it is not possible since 'Select an item from Drop down' command works on an element having tag or maybe combobox type of elements. If you carefully see in the video, then you would find that the dropdown here actually is a tag having a JScript functionality which enables it to act as a dropdown. Most of the modern browser based applications nowadays use this type of element which can be either automated by sending keystrokes or by clicking children elements within them.

[@DaveTheRPAGuy]

@@AutomateWithDev That's a good point. That website makes heavy use of DIVs. I'll probably go try out some of the other actions as well. When I recorded this video, I remember thinking I just wanted it to work. lol

[@DaveTheRPAGuy]

@CMartis Thanks for the suggestion! I definitely need to try out all of the actions.

[@LandmineMapper]

Thanks Dave, this is an awesome video.

[@tylerkolota]

Thanks Dave, this should help make some of my selections more robust. Btw, I’m working to automate collecting data from reports on different sites through RPA (their APIs aren’t good enough). What’s the best way to transfer file data to regular cloud flows? My org has 2 factor authentication, so I can’t just set it to upload somewhere on office365. Is just reading all the file data to a output variable and sending that variable to the regular flow the best option you know of?

[@DaveTheRPAGuy]

Unfortunately I haven’t played around with the cloud component of Power Automate in a long time and even then it was minor use. However, yeah I suppose I would try the same thing by reading all the data from the file and sending through an output variable. If it’s just a text file then that’s easy, but if it’s some other file type, it would be nice if it were possible to convert the entire file into a base 64 string. But I don’t see any actions for that in PAD, so I guess you’d need to use some custom code for that. So hopefully you just need to send a body of text.

[@srinivasnallapati2768]

Dave, Thanks for the great video, it helps us a lot. Can you do a video on Desktop Applications? Dynamic Selectors for Desktop Applications. I know it is similar to Web based applications but how we can select object dynamically and few of the objects can't be cloned in some cases. How we can overcome all those issues. I would appreciate your inputs here. thanks in advance !

[@DaveTheRPAGuy]

I'll put this idea on my list. It does seem difficult for desktop applications and not much guidance around the syntax and what is possible.

[@srinivasnallapati2768]

Thank you Dave. Even i have explored and tried to develop with one Desktop application, failed to clone the objects in some cases. Anyway I will be waiting for your Video, I hope that will solve my issues@@DaveTheRPAGuy

[@huyfe1347]

thank you for this video. I really don't undestand the selector builder. This is an headache for me. Any help on how building the selector builder?

[@educielo5646]

Would you be able to use the operator on the attributes? Maybe use StartsWith, Contains etc.. not sure if they have this but would solve those funny attributes values

[@DaveTheRPAGuy]

Yeah, there are or at least were some functions that help such as contains("sometext"), WA_SimpleTextEqualsIgnoreCase("soMeText"), not(), has(), etc. I suppose it isn't actually jquery, but they seem to have replicated its functionality.

[@abdullahbinshahzad]

How to get a UI element based on the another UI element h1 2 How to get h1 When the value in second list match

[@thomasshakypetersen1609]

subscribed, straight to the point. I like it :)

[@FranciscoCamacho_fjcamachoj]

Great video Dave, thanks for sharing!!! Can you create a video about handling errors in PAD?

[@DaveTheRPAGuy]

Yeah I plan to make a video about error handling.

[@FranciscoCamacho_fjcamachoj]

@@DaveTheRPAGuy Great, thanks!!!

[@musicmania9837]

Than k you so much for this video, This helps a lot. Thanks and Support from India :)

[@DaveTheRPAGuy]

Glad it helps! Thanks!

[@rasipogulabhaskar9858]

Really amazing...

[@MauriDR5]

Hey Dave, this is awesome!! I learned a lot from this video. Would be great to do a more detailed video on selector builder. You mentioned quickly about the desktop recorder and how that tool write the selectors: I'm stuggling with one of them and can't find any documentation about it. Are those selector "absolute XPath"? Can I change it as like I do with selectors made for web pages with JQuery syntax? Thanks a lot. Great work!!

[@DaveTheRPAGuy]

I’ll see if I can do a more detailed video on Selector Builder. It appears as through you can do similar selectors on desktop applications too, but I also haven’t found good documentation so it may just take a bunch of trial and error.

[@jatinparmar852]

Hey Dave! Thanks so much for the video :) . Was a great learning. Can you please tell me if we have to find the "exact" text using the Selectors how do we do that? As far i know contains() do not return the exact text.

[@DaveTheRPAGuy]

This is something that has frustrated me as well. I have no idea how to find an element based on the exact text. If I needed to do this, I believe the way I'd handle it is to use contains such as "p:contains('some text here')" in an action like Get details of element to get "Own Text" into a variable and then use an if statement afterward for validation to verify the Own Text equals exactly "some text here". And if you expect there to be multiple elements containing that text but only one element equaling exactly that text, then you can use :eq(#) to refer to the first, second, third, etc. in a loop.

[@yassirman1]

Hello, thanks for this amazing PAD playlist. For a non-tech guy, is there a course about selectors that could allow me to figure out/troubleshoot the errors as you do in this video?

[@DaveTheRPAGuy]

I’m not aware of a specific course or anything. I plan to make a video soonish about css selectors and xpath expressions in RPA hopefully that will apply to any tool and different scenarios. I just Google for what I need to know and then try things out for hours lol. The main problem I’ve found is that CSS Selector tutorials usually aren’t catered to RPA and so the use cases and examples aren’t super helpful. So I suppose I would advise looking up selenium examples and that will usually get you what you want in the form of blog posts and such.

[@shreyas7866]

Hi Dave, Thank you, this has helped me for my web automation. I just wanted to know how to deal with date picker or how to pass date(FromDate, ToDate) in date picker input field. I have tried with populate text field but it just sending dates from excel to input field but the next button after putting dates is disabled as it is. Kindly advice on the same.

[@DaveTheRPAGuy]

Send Keys is usually the answer there. Is this a public website you could point me to where I could try it myself? I could make a video about it for funsies too.

[@abdullahbinshahzad]

How to grab a UI element within

[@jorghiti8785]

looks like jquery but i think it does not act like it , jquey select all child element with > , mpa select only the first child . also the id is written Id instead id.

[@DaveTheRPAGuy]

Yeah I figure it’s just based heavily on JQuery syntax. Plus the same syntax works for UI automation too and that can’t really be JQuery so it’s gotta be some custom syntax that is influenced by it.

[@gaberBoB]

Hi Dave, great work.... I'm still strugling with those CSS selectors.... I have got great challenge... maybe you will be able to help me... I need to get number of "yellow" stars from google reviews... do you have any idea how to do this?

[@DaveTheRPAGuy]

I glanced at it, and the only easy way I see is to see if the HTML contains a text representation of the stars. Usually for accessibility for screen reading technology for the vision impaired, there is often a text version of an image that might contain the number of stars. In addition, at least on the webpage I looked at, right next to the stars, there is text that says like 4.6. And actually yeah now that see it, there’s a label in the element like aria-label=“Rated 4.6 out of 5”.

[@ayazshaikh2043]

Hello Dave, Thanks a lot for taking out time and posting this amazing videos and helping us understand how we can set the process and run the power automate. I have a question at my work we have webportal in which there is combo box where we select the account and click submit then all the information related that account will pop up. Now how can I set the process where I click on combo box and then select the account from the down down menu. The accounts will be like in 100 and its not fixed its gets added and get removed. So any query which can run like in the combo box through power automate i click an account and then get the data and then click the next account. I am sorry for making the question too big, but don't know how to explain it to you in simple terms.

[@DaveTheRPAGuy]

This answer may not be super quick or easy for you to implement. But if I understand correctly, you basically need to click something that then makes more elements available (in a dropdown/combo box) and then you need to click one of the new elements that is shown. If so, what I would do is figure out a CSS/JQuery selector that you can make dynamic so that you can pass into it the name of whatever the thing is you need to select. Does that make sense? It might look something like ... li[name="%VariableName%"].

[@huiqintong5116]

​@@DaveTheRPAGuy​ Thanks for the video. I am still having difficulty to apply this video to my works which is similar to this lady (have to choose a correct account from a combobox list per the website I am working on, in order to extract info). Despite many rounds trying, I seem to see two parts relevant to this, but still not able to nail it. Can I pls reach out to you personally for help?

[@DaveTheRPAGuy]

@@huiqintong5116 Do you happen to use Discord? Anders Jensen has a discord server called “I Love Automation”, and there are some very knowledgeable people there who know more than I do about PAD. That would be a great place to ask about your scenario. You can just search for public servers for the name of the discord server “I Love Automation”.

[@huiqintong5116]

@@DaveTheRPAGuy Thanks for sharing the info, will check out on that! Thanks!

[@metacomputer]

Question: Any idea why the Microsoft Edge gets stuck on opening a blank page? Following along...My copy of Edge lands on the about Blank page...Tried setting the home page. Sometimes the program opens the webpage, sometimes it gets stuck, on blank. If you click on a new tab, the program goes to the web page, Weird.

[@DaveTheRPAGuy]

It seems to happen with some tools. It could be that Edge has been updated and PAD’s browser extension hasn’t been fixed to account for it. That used to happen with Blue Prism as well.

[@metacomputer]

@@DaveTheRPAGuy thank you.

[@pavan3683]

Great Video Dave, learnt a lot from this and I will be coming back to this often for reference. Do you know if there is a way to give a dynamic ui element as input which changes every often. The flow must wait for my manual ui input and once I click on required ui element, it can proceed further. Thank you

[@DaveTheRPAGuy]

I'd probably just have a message box popup at that point in the flow, you then click whatever button it is, and then you click in the message box to have the automated flow continue.

[@pavan3683]

@@DaveTheRPAGuy Yes. This is what I needed. Thank you.

[@ShivamKumar-mq4pv]

how to print multiple web pages with heading of that page inside power automate

[@DaveTheRPAGuy]

What do you mean by “print”?

[@ShivamKumar-mq4pv]

@@DaveTheRPAGuy print many web pages in pdf format by using power automate desktop. And thank you for reply 😊

[@TheNicknick1]

Thanks

[@motshidisimasinta5972]

Hi, how do scrape html table data cos the wizard requires CSS selector, Attribute and Regex parameters, kindly assist

[@motshidisimasinta5972]

I just wanna scrape html table back to excel

[@DaveTheRPAGuy]

I haven't tried that yet in Power Automate Desktop. I'd like to think I'll get around to making a video about it, but I just don't have a ton of extra time. Is there anything specific you need? Is it the CSS Selector that's the issue or the Regex?

[@motshidisimasinta5972]

@@DaveTheRPAGuy I have managed to do it via the web extraction feature, I had to select on select the entire HTML table option... thanks for the response boss

[@alexandreguimaraes8942]

Your my hero

[@basketberna]

Hi Dave, great content in your channel. I haven't seen the entire video but I will see it section by section. I have a question for you :) Imagine that you have a Window with some UI selectors. Then you change the name of your Window selector (renaming it to a most friendly name). Then when you try to add new UI selectors to te same window, PAD creates a new Window section. I'm struggling to get the UI Windows and Elements as clean as possible but I'm stuck on this little detail. Can you help me with that? Thanks a lot and keep up the good job

[@DaveTheRPAGuy]

I have the same issue. I can’t make the UI elements list look clean either! It bugs me so much.

[@basketberna]

@@DaveTheRPAGuy OMG, do you have a PAD to reply to KZbin comments? :D Thank you so much for the reply. Let's hope in the future MS improves this funcionality. Do you know if there is any voting idea for that? I've searched but no success. Cheers

[@DaveTheRPAGuy]

@@basketberna haha that would be hilarious. I don’t know of any good ways to provide feedback. I haven’t really tried to even post on any forums yet either though. I just gotta find some extra time to get into Power Automate more. lol

[@asam]

@@DaveTheRPAGuy Hey! You can drag and drop the UI elements from one group to another. So in the end you just have one big group, and it looks clean like that. And you can rename the group also. So if you do that from the start, you don't have to reapply the new name when you reference them. Thank you for your videos, it has helped me and I am learning a lot while I am struggling with you.

[@DaveTheRPAGuy]

@@asam Thanks for the suggestion! I played around with dragging and dropping the UI elements some but had some issues with it working right. I'll definitely go back in and try it again.

[@robertgrzelak3350]

Is it possible to somehow use Windows authentication password in PAD? In my company we need to change our passwords every month so I need to update automation every time I change it :-/

[@DaveTheRPAGuy]

Unfortunately that’s just going to be based on the app you’re automating. As far as updating the password monthly, that’s unfortunate. All the options that come to mind only make sense for unattended automation. Ideally you wouldn’t store the password in your flow if it’s a real password, but I mean I get it. I’d have to give that one more thought. The best thing I can think of is to automate changing your password and then have the password automatically stored into a windows credential, but it looks like PAD doesn’t have built in actions for Windows Credentials so you’d have to use PowerShell or something like that. I dunno haha that’s a tough one!

[@daxteoh27]

Hi Dave, thanks for your video, love the way you teach and solving the problem. I have one question, I wonder is it possible to send variable keys without selecting UI elements? e.g. use "send key" to move to the next field, then type out the variable value.

[@DaveTheRPAGuy]

Yep, there’s an action for Send Keys. It supports most of the Send Keys functionality you might expect, but it has some limitations.

[@daxteoh27]

@@DaveTheRPAGuy I tried, I can tab to side field, but cannot type my variable value out... :(

[@metacomputer]

I have no luck using this product. It is always imprecise and untrustworthy in its clicks. Any idea what I doing wrong?

[@DaveTheRPAGuy]

Usually it takes some kind of editing in the Selector Builder. Are you doing much in there? Oftentimes it just takes unchecking some boxes that look like they have unreliable values and such. Do you happen to have an example of a website or app that is publicly accessible? I could try it myself and maybe record a video if I feel like I have any suggestions.

[@metacomputer]

@@DaveTheRPAGuy Thanks for responding. How to do get to the selector builder? Sorry for being such a newb.

[@DaveTheRPAGuy]

@@metacomputer You can get to it on the right side with the tabs to edit existing elements. I use it a fair bit in the video so that may be the easiest way to see it.

[@metacomputer]

@@DaveTheRPAGuy Great...that video is helpful to have on while you develop. I am working on systems for home health in the pandemic. We are stretched pretty thin. I appreciate the help. Thank you.

[@Nipunj9]

👍

[@Greedst]

Its a CSS selector not a Jquery selector....

[@DaveTheRPAGuy]

As I’ve explained in other comments, it cannot be CSS Selectors due to some of the syntax that doesn’t exist in CSS Selectors. For example, CSS Selectors are not capable of using the inner text of the HTML. It’s a known limitation, but in PAD, you can do things like this: “div:contains(‘First Name’)” which is not possible in a CSS Selector. So while I might agree that it’s possible it isn’t JQuery Selectors and instead is Microsoft’s own syntax, it’s so close to JQuery that we might as well call it that and not CSS Selectors.

[@tererererere]

can i consult my powerautomate problem to u? please🙏🏼

[@DaveTheRPAGuy]

You may want to join Anders Jensens' discord server "I Love Automation" and ask there where more people can help, but you can ask here depending on how complex the issue is.

[@tererererere]

@@DaveTheRPAGuy id love to!!! Thanks for the invite, can u share the invite link?

[@DaveTheRPAGuy]

@@tererererere discord.gg/iloveautomation

[@boltonnumber1]

Its xpath (Edit: is not it's JQuery Selectors)

[@DaveTheRPAGuy]

What is? (Edit: if you mean like the path-like selectors, it is definitely not XPath. If anything, it’s JQuery Selectors because of some of the syntax which is not supported in XPath expressions.)

[@boltonnumber1]

@@DaveTheRPAGuy Your right it uses jQuery's own selector

[@ThePorpoisepower]

ughhhhh jQuery

[@DaveTheRPAGuy]

Hahahaha you don’t like JQuery?