Having trouble with alternative TRY or branching. Ending up with duplicate rows or just successful matches only.

Hi all

I am having problems with trying to compare and text to scrape text. The text works fine and test variables. When its successful goes onto return the iterations of rows. the page has 84 records but only scrapes 54. I am trying to scrape all 84 with blank column data if a match isnt found. For some reason so far just writes the successful matches only.
How do i include all 84 rows with and without matches? I thought it would be just if its not successful branch before test variables and return value. All i am getting though is double the record amount or 54 with duplicates.



I will also be adding another column of data called priority. These are just numbers. The idea is to apply a score IF the numbers are between 1 to 10 = 1, 11 to 20 = 2, 21 to 30 = 3 and so forth. I have no idea how to do this.

Any help would be greatly appreciated. It's only been a few days using this app and i think it's pretty amazing!

Cheers

Madprof

Addition the scrape numbers are from a text file which has all the extra data to test and write if extract source is a match. Priority column is for the simple maths if its between multiple numeric thresholds and outputs a simple number.

Can you also share the screenshot from the end of your robot, it seems to have been cut off

A few thoughts..
Robots will always backtrack unless you end them, they work from left to right and then work backwards through any branches that haven't been executed
In loops you need to consider the use of global variables. Variables get reset on each iteration so if you need to retain values make sure you set your variable as global
When using a test after a try step make sure you have your error handling setup correctly on the test action. Disable log as errors and select try next alternative - this will force your process down the alternative path if the test fails
If returning values, make sure there is a return step for each possible path the robot can take.. either re-join your workflow before the return value action or have multiple return steps.
Use the debug tab to step through the process, you can breakpoints to stop the process at any point and see the current state of all variables, sessions etc. Step through a record that isn't behaving correctly and see where the flow takes you

Assuming your test variable action has "Try Nearest Alternative" set on the error handling tab then you should be hitting the return step for every row that matches the criteria in your For Each Tag/Text part loops

I'd suggest stepping through the robot in debug mode. Run it through to a record that isn't behaving correctly and check that your 2 for loops are behaving as expected, it could be that those records are not matching the criteria you have set against them and therefore move onto the next iteration without executing the subsequent steps.

thanks

The above bot does only successful matches. There should be 84 records. 45 to 54 generally match. The rest of the datarows AFTER time should be blank for priority, tags. I have tried so many things. I might make it worse. If someone with experience can edit this bot it would help in alot of bots. Branching even with try + alternative just ends up with thousands of duplicated event rows or double duplicates. Not sure what to do.

Hi,

I'm not sure this is the most efficient way of doing things or even if I quite understand what you are trying to do here but maybe this will help..

I'm assuming you want a result for every link on that web page, if you find a match against your internal file then it sets the priority/tag otherwise it still returns a record but with those values blank

Set the error handling on your test variables step - Disable errors, and select Next Iteration (this will continue working through your results until a match is found or it gets to the end of the file)
Added an additional variable called matchfound - Set this to true if a match is found
Added an extra branch before your for each text part - all links on the website will eventually go down this path
Add a try step here with a test to see if a match was found
 - If true reset the value of the match found to false (for the next iteration of the web loop)
 - If false reset your priorty/tag results to blank and return the value (this will ensure a result for every link and blank values for priority/tag when no match is found)

Yep thats right. scrapes everything matches and non matches.  thanks so much!

Hi Batman could you send the file or upload it somewhere please. I keep getting events duplicating or doubling up the rows.

How about scraping the 84 results first. Then updating the rows after with a match and insert?

Thanks batman got it to work. You a champ.