IE script for manipulating forms based on Excel data - excel

Question

I'm attempting to:
open a specific URL & pass log-in information
grab data from Excel and search specified data
once search is complete, manipulate a data field to correlating Excel data and execute several commands within the application
close IE or loop search for next cell in data
I've attempted using VBA forms and modules.
I found this code online which seemed to have worked once to pass my credentials, but I can't get it to work again.
These Objects all.email & all.password would be found in the source code on the webpage as the ID?
HTMLDoc.all.Email.Value = "email#example.com"
HTMLDoc.all.Password.Value = "ex5566"
Dim HTMLDoc As HTMLDocument
Dim oBrowser As InternetExplorer
Sub Login_2_Website()
Dim oHTML_Element As IHTMLElement
Dim sURL As String
On Error GoTo Err_Clear
sURL = "example.com"
Set oBrowser = New InternetExplorer
oBrowser.Silent = True
oBrowser.timeout = 60
oBrowser.navigate sURL
oBrowser.Visible = True
Do
' Wait till the Browser is loaded
Loop Until oBrowser.readyState = READYSTATE_COMPLETE
Set HTMLDoc = oBrowser.Document
HTMLDoc.all.Email.Value = "email#example.com"
HTMLDoc.all.Password.Value = "ex5566"
For Each oHTML_Element In HTMLDoc.getElementsByTagName("input")
If oHTML_Element.Type = "submit" Then oHTML_Element.Click: Exit For
Next
' oBrowser.Refresh ' Refresh If Needed
Err_Clear:
If Err <> 0 Then
Err.Clear
Resume Next
End If
End Sub

Answer 1

I think you can use the same code, which you use for finding the submit button, to find the e-mail and password elements. If you know which name or id these elements have (by checking the html code of the page), you can use for instance If oHTML_Element.Name = "password" then oHTML_Element.Value = "ex5566"
If the specific elements have an ID, you can also go directly to them by using oHTML_Element = document.getElementById("[id of element]")
oHTML_Element.Value = "password" This can also be done if they don't have an id, but only a name, but then you have to find out if the name is used multiple times.

Answer 2

The web developer can name their inputs, buttons, forms, ids whatever they want. The email could be named Email, or ID, or Username, or XYZ, this is why you must inspect the elements in the website so you can build your code accordingly. Lets take twitter for example.
<input class="js-username-field email-input js-initial-focus" type="text" name="session[username_or_email]" autocomplete="on" value="" placeholder="Phone, email or username">
The tag is an input tag, with a class name of js-username-field email-input js-initial-focus there is no ID on it, therefore you can not use HTMLDoc.getElementByID, you have to use HTMLDoc.getElementsByClassName or you could use HTMLDoc.getElementsByTagName but if there are more than 1 input you have to loop them and correctly detect the one you need.
Its easier than it sounds but you have to have some basic knowledge of HTML. Continuing with twitter, the tag for the password is:
<input class="js-password-field" type="password" name="session[password]" placeholder="Password">
Different class and different name to differentiate between the two. And finally the login/submit button:
<button type="submit" class="submit EdgeButton EdgeButton--primary EdgeButtom--medium">Log in</button>
With these 3 portions of the HTML elements, you can log in the following way:
HTMLDoc.getElementsByClassName("js-username-field email-input js-initial-focus")(0).Value = "email#example.com"
HTMLDoc.getElementsByClassName("js-password-field")(0).Value = "ex5566"
HTMLDoc.getElementsByClassName("submit EdgeButton EdgeButton--primary EdgeButtom--medium")(0).Click
What does the (0) mean? in HTML you can have many tags with the same class name, and they all are on an array when you call getElementsByClassName, since the login site only has 1 tag with those class names, the array position of "0" is the one you are looking for.
Again, the developer can name the class, the id, anything they want, therefore you want to inspect the website to properly code your script.