Guide for Using iMacros to Pull Real Estate Records
By Rick Dawson – www.taxsale.net www.deedgrabber.com
Setup (one time only): 1. Install iMacros and enter your Scripting license key (Help->Enter License Key) 2. Open iMacros. There are three file locations you need know about: •
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Datasources : We will typically be looking up properties by parcel number. This folder is where you will keep the lists of parcel numbers you want to look up. Downloads: This is where iMacros will save your results that it retrieved from the web. Macros: This is where the macros you record will be stored. A macro is just a set of instructions for each website, telling iMacros what to retrieve. More on this later.
I suggest setting the location of these three folders to somewhere convenient on your computer. You will need to access all three regularly. I like to put each folder on my desktop for easy access. Here’s how you do that: In iMacros, go to Tools->Options->Paths tab. Here’s what you should see:
Click the small file folder icon for each folder and navigate to your desktop. Then choose “Make new folder”. For Folder Macros create “IMMacros”. For Folder DataSources create “IMDatasources”. For Folder Downloads create “IMDownloads”. Click OK. Now you will know where to easily access these folders later, and you’ve programmed iMacros with where to find them as well.
Setup (for each new county you want to run): File Preparation:
Step 1: Copy the parcel numbers from your existing list into a new spreadsheet or type them in manually into a new spreadsheet.
Open your list and copy only the column of parcel numbers, and paste it into a new spreadsheet.
Remove any column headings. Save this spreadsheet as File Type=CSV and name the file something you can remember. I usually name mine “[County Name]parcels”.
Save the file in the IMDatasources file you just created on your desktop.
Create the Macro:
Step 1: Locate the county website where you would like to pull data. For this example we will use the Lake County, Indiana Assessor’s website to get property information.
This website is located at http://in-lake-assessor.governmaxa.com/propertymax/rover30.asp Go to the website in a regular browser and see what is available on the site for a sample parcel number on your list. Decide what data you would like to retrieve, and become familiar with how to navigate in the site to view that data. For our example, let’s retrieve owner name and address, property type, assessed value, lot square footage/acreage, and improvement square footage. Step 2: Record a one-time only macro. The macro is what tells iMacros where to go and what information you’d like to gather.
Open iMacros and enter the county website in the address bar and navigate to where you would normally go to manually enter your parcel number. Next, click on the #Current.iim macro on the top left of the screen, click the Record tab, and click the record button that appears.
Click the field where the parcel number is requested. Enter a sample parcel number from your list manually and click the appropriate search button. If the input area for the parcel number consists of several fields, be sure to click on each field before entering that part of the parcel number.
Then navigate to the page that contains the information you’re looking for. Some of the information you’re looking for may be available right on the first page. In that case stay on that page for now. Click the “Extraction Wizard” button when you’re on the first page containing data you want. The following box will appear:
You are now ready to retrieve data from this page. I suggest retrieving the property parcel number first. This will give you a reference for the data you are about to pull, so you can be sure you’re matching the right data with the right parcel number later. For each piece of data you want for the parcel that’s on this screen, click on that data with the mouse. Next, in the box labeled “ATTR:”, change the specific data found there to “*”. Click the Find POS button.
Finally click “Test EXTRACT tag”, and a popup will tell you what you should expect to extract with that command.
Repeat for each additional field you want to pull. When you’ve pulled all the data for the page you want, click “Close”. You can again navigate in the website at this point – if there is more data you want on other pages, navigate to those pages and repeat the above process to get more data on each page. When you’ve used the extraction wizard to extract all the data you want to get, close the Wizard and navigate back to the beginning again. Usually you can do this by clicking a “New Search”, “New Parcel” link, or something similar. Click Stop on the Recording tab. You’re now done recording the macro. Step 3: Pre-edit the macro
Click on “#Current” in the macro list like you did last time, and click the edit tab and “Edit Macro” button. The macro will pop up in Notepad.
Remove any lines that start with the “URL GOTO=…” Click File->Save in Notepad. Step 4: Test-play the macro
Click “#Current” for the macro, then the Play tab and Play button.
You should observe your sample parcel number being typed in, then a popup will show you the data that iMacros is extracting. The navigation should return to where it started.
You’re now ready to automate the macro to accept an unlimited number of parcel numbers. Step 5: Modify the macro to accept your file of parcel numbers
Again click the Edit tab and Edit Macro button so your macro appears in Notepad.
Go to the end of the first line (begins with VERSION BUILD=…) and hit enter to create a blank line. Paste in the following code: SET !EXTRACT_TEST_POPUP NO SET !DATASOURCE filename.csv SET !DATASOURCE_LINE {{!LOOP}}
Replace filename with the name of the parcel number-only file you created at the beginning. Step 6: Further modify the macro to insert parcel number and save results.
At this point your macro should look something like this:
It’s not really necessary to understand this code completely. We just want to recognize the major sections of it.
If the parcel number is entered all at once, in one field (skip this section if parcel number is broken up into several fields)
Here we want to find the section of the macro where the parcel number is entered. We will just look for the sample parcel number we typed in while recording the macro. Now we need to replace that number with the following: {{!COL1}} This tells the macro which column the parcel number is found in, in the datasource spreadsheet we created. VERSION BUILD=7050969 SET !EXTRACT_TEST_POPUP NO SET !DATASOURCE lakeparcels.csv SET !DATASOURCE_LINE {{!LOOP}} TAB T=1 TAB CLOSEALLOTHERS FRAME NAME=body TAG POS=1 TYPE=INPUT:TEXT FORM=NAME:searchform ATTR=NAME:p.parcelid CONTENT={{!COL1}} TAG POS=1 TYPE=INPUT:SUBMIT FORM=NAME:searchform ATTR=NAME:go&&VALUE:Go TAG POS=43 TYPE=FONT ATTR=TXT:* EXTRACT=TXT TAG POS=44 TYPE=FONT ATTR=TXT:* EXTRACT=TXT TAG POS=52 TYPE=FONT ATTR=TXT:* EXTRACT=TXT FRAME NAME=body TAG POS=1 TYPE=A ATTR=TXT:ParcelNumber
If the parcel number is entered in several pieces:
Sometimes a county requires that a parcel number like 109-43-443 to be entered like this:
As instructed earlier, when you record the macro, be sure to click on each field separately even if the cursor automatically jumps to the next field. The macro file will look a little different:
Macro with single parcel number field: TAG POS=1 TYPE=INPUT:TEXT FORM=NAME:searchform ATTR=NAME:p.parcelid CONTENT={{!COL1}}
Macro with several parcel number fields broken up:
We will need to break up those parcel numbers in our Datasource spreadsheet, and enter each segment of the parcel number separately. First, replace each segment of the sample parcel number entered with {{!COL1}}, {{!COL2}}, {{!COL3}}, etc: TAG POS=1 TYPE=INPUT:TEXT FORM=ID:form1 ATTR=ID:bookf CONTENT={{!COL1}} TAG POS=1 TYPE=INPUT:TEXT FORM=ID:form1 ATTR=ID:mapf CONTENT={{!COL2}} TAG POS=1 TYPE=INPUT:TEXT FORM=ID:form1 ATTR=ID:itemf CONTENT={{!COL3}} Then you’ll need to modify your parcel number file so it has the appropriate number of columns. Say this is our Datasources spreadsheet:
We see that we need to enter 3 numbers of the parcel number in the first field, 2 in the second, and 3 in the third. Highlight the column and choose Data->Text to Columns. If you’re using an older version of Excel this feature IS available but may be accessed slightly differently.
In this case, we’ll choose “Fixed Width” because we know we want 3 digits, 2 digits, then 3 digits.
We’ll just click where we want to divide the number as shown, and click next and Finish. If there had been any zeros in the parcel numbers, we would have needed to take another step. Excel will cut off any leading zeros, and we want to restore those. See this example:
For row one we would have wanted 108, 09, 566. There are also other columns with the leading zero cut off. Highlight each column, right click, choose “Format Cells”, Custom.
In the “Type:” box, type in zeros until the column reaches the proper width. In other words, if there are supposed to be 2 digits for the column, type “00”. If there are supposed to be 3, type “000”, and so on.
Repeat this for each column. Now the sheet is how we want it:
Resave the datasource file, make sure it’s CSV format, and in the proper location as discussed previously. Either Parcel Number Format – Resume Here
The last thing we need to do is add a command to save the data we collect into a file. That command is: SAVEAS TYPE=EXTRACT FOLDER=* FILE=countynameresults.csv This will save your results file in the Downloads folder you created at the beginning. Replace countyname with the name of the county you’re searching. VERSION BUILD=7050969 SET !EXTRACT_TEST_POPUP NO SET !DATASOURCE lakeparcels.csv SET !DATASOURCE_LINE {{!LOOP}} TAB T=1 TAB CLOSEALLOTHERS FRAME NAME=body TAG POS=1 TYPE=INPUT:TEXT FORM=NAME:searchform ATTR=NAME:p.parcelid CONTENT={{!COL1}}
TAG POS=1 TYPE=INPUT:SUBMIT FORM=NAME:searchform ATTR=NAME:go&&VALUE:Go TAG POS=43 TYPE=FONT ATTR=TXT:* EXTRACT=TXT TAG POS=44 TYPE=FONT ATTR=TXT:* EXTRACT=TXT TAG POS=52 TYPE=FONT ATTR=TXT:* EXTRACT=TXT FRAME NAME=body TAG POS=1 TYPE=A ATTR=TXT:ParcelNumber SAVEAS TYPE=EXTRACT FOLDER=* FILE=lakeresults.csv
NOTE: Delete or rename the countynameresults.csv file in the Downloads folder anytime you run the macro again, including if you have to correct something with it. Otherwise iMacros will continue to write in the file and it can get confusing. Also, never have the countynameresults.csv file open in Excel when you run the macro, or it will not be able to write to the file. Save your macro and give it name. Filename: countynamemacro.iim File Type: Any
Just about done! Step 7: Run the macro and get results
It’s time to gather the data. Refresh the macro list so your macro now appears:
Select your macro and go to the play tab:
Manually navigate the browser to where you need to start your search, and enter the number of records in your parcel number files (the number of times iMacros needs to loop through).
Click Play(Loop)
Step 8: Retrieve your results file
Once iMacros has completed running, open the file “ countynameresults.csv” in your IMDownloads folder your created earlier. If you followed my suggestion, the first column will contain the parcel number followed by the additional information you wanted:
Copy and paste this information right next to your original list and make sure the parcel numbers match up. Now you can filter your list! Make sure to rename your results file (perhaps add a date to it?) and delete the old results file so next time you run the macro there is a blank file to start with again.
