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A simple guide to web scraping in Power Automate
How to extract Microsoft MVP data.
If you’re a technophobe, you probably want to avoid coding at all costs.
Thankfully, Microsoft Power Automate empowers you to create powerful workflows without a jot of code. No-code (and low-code) solutions are all the rage in 2022, so it’s time to jump on the bandwagon!
I must confess: I’m new to Power Automate, and you probably are too. This guide will only give a glimpse of the magical things you can do with this tool, and it’ll focus on web scraping.
The reasons for web scraping are varied. Examples include:
- market research
- price comparison
- competition monitoring
- lead generation
- sports betting odds analysis
Power Automate fills the void Excel has as a web scraper. If you’ve ever used the From Web option in the Data tab, you’ll know how restrictive it is. Unless your chosen website displays tabular data in HTML tables, you’re stuck. VBA can circumvent these limitations, but it’s fiddly and bothersome.
