Script to automate website interaction?

[TetonsGulf]

Good Morning All-

I'm not sure this will get much attention, or if it's reasonable to seek help here, but it's such a good community it's worth a shot.

Here is what I have. Everyday I go to 8 websites that require entry of a username and password. When I've logged in, I select exactly the same info using the sites navigation and specify a report generated by the site. I then tell the site to save as an excel file and save it as an existing spreadsheet, 8 times for eight different files

How can I make this more direct? Can a script be written that provides username and password, selects the parameters I want, saves the spreadsheet and goes to the next site to repeat the process and save under a different name?

This would be used in a Windows XP/IE 7/corporate environment.

Any ideas or help would be appreciated.

[gsmanners]

That's a really vague problem. There's plenty of automation available for Firefox, but if you're in a corporate environment, there are always security issues. Is this a topic you think is really suitable for a public forum?

[TetonsGulf]

I agree it was a vague description; mainly because as you pointed out there could be security issues. Which is why I'm not asking for someone to bounce code back and forth with here on the forum!

I'm looking for directions ("Try looking at this example"), not instructions ("Step 1...") A simple "yes, it can be done and if you go to this link there's info on how." or "you can do it, but I don't recommend it." or even a "man, I'm not sure how, but it would be great if you could!" is all I'm looking for. Can it be done and how can I learn more about it to see if it's right for me?

I'm trying to make my job easier using a tool already in my possession and I'm trying it this way because trying to involve IT at my office in any sort of official capacity would take nothing short of an act of God. So I guess, yeah, I think this question is perfectly suited for a public forum.

So, did you have some ideas to share?

[cariboo907]

You may get better answers in the sever platform sub-forum. Moved.

[sandyd]

train a macro.

[Girya]

the short answer is yes, I'm assuming you'd be running the script on a ubuntu box.

as an example I wrote a script that did basically the same thing that I triggered through a sms message that I sent from my cell phone to a server.

I adapted a script I found on linux journal's website about getting billing info from vonage of skype.

you might want to find that script and it should give you a starting point

[doogy2004]

Good Morning All-

I'm not sure this will get much attention, or if it's reasonable to seek help here, but it's such a good community it's worth a shot.

Here is what I have. Everyday I go to 8 websites that require entry of a username and password. When I've logged in, I select exactly the same info using the sites navigation and specify a report generated by the site. I then tell the site to save as an excel file and save it as an existing spreadsheet, 8 times for eight different files

How can I make this more direct? Can a script be written that provides username and password, selects the parameters I want, saves the spreadsheet and goes to the next site to repeat the process and save under a different name?

This would be used in a Windows XP/IE 7/corporate environment.

Any ideas or help would be appreciated.

for windows vbscript and the sendKeys command will be your friend in this.

[Ryan Dwyer]

The best way is to use a programming language to send the requests and save the response.

If you're good at PHP you can use the cURL library (php.net/curl) to submit your login info, then request the reports and save them locally. I'm sure you can do the same in Perl, Python and so on.