Automation

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Does anyone use any automation software at all?

I did use task scheduler on windows and that worked a treat, but for some reason, this has just stopped working and I can find any decent alternatives.

Any suggestions would be appreciated, preferably free
Ed

 

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I just write whatever code i want, nearly all programming languages are now free.

 

If only 1, I could code, 2 if I had the time to learn to code

Then maybe ha ha

Ed

 

Can learn basic bash or python in a week.

However scripting languages work best with console programs or programs with an API.

You are correct if you need to automate a GUI you will need something else, there are lot test tools out there what make automating either web or thick client UI's pretty easy. Selenium is the most well known open source one.

I guess if you want hot keys and nice UI etc, maybe its worth looking at end user automation tools, I don't use em but lots links on web. Maybe someone else can help.

 

Cheers DM

I have just discovered selenium, so will see how I get on with that

Ed

 

What do you want to automate? there's plenty of solutions for different needs. Usually automation refers to devopsy type of stuff, where you automate deployments of code and/or infrastructure. I assume this is not what you need.
Task scheduler has many quirks when mixing local and domain accounts, shares etc but it works.
Batch or ps scripts can do all kinds, you can automate simple tasks with AutoIt, Autohotkey you can have stuff running on defined key combinations.

 

Ive just started looking at Ansible.
I was going to start my CCNP but I still have two and a half years to run so going to look at Juniper Automation and DevOps as that will relate more to a Junior Networking role in the current place.

 

Been looking into a few options to be honest. I have some regular boring tasks I have to do, one was to run a report to t let us know how many assignments have been created, all I would do for this was remote onto the computer in work, locate, edit with IDLE and then run or press F5. The report would then complete. I did have a program called system scheduler that would run this but that stopped and I could not work out how and why, I also tried a few others like Z cron, task till dawn and task scheduler - these would not produce the report I needed. So this week, I started looking into python and came across something called Pyinstaller, which builds and compiles a script and creates an executable, then I managed to get this to work with windows task scheduler - so that is a win.

My next thing I want to do, involves logging into a website and downloading the results of an attendance register and on the Friday of each week, placing them into a teams group for someone. The first thing I am going to do with this is write the whole process down and then do it in chunks, I know I can use selenium and other things, possibly Scrapy or similar, I just need to work out the elements of the web pages that carry out the actions and put them in a script, then I can use Pyinstaller and task scheduler to do its thing.

Its actually quite good when you get in to all of this

 

Yeah, I will give them a go as well at some point if I stumble with the python approach
Ed

 

So after some messing about, it seems my choices are to use AutoIT for anythingthats program related and for web based stuff, Selenium with python.
Not looked into PowerShell yet

Ed

 

Who administers the box running the website? Where does the server live?

 

If you are after reports generally its easier to hit the data directly, it could be in MySQL or Postgres database on webserver in which case you can write SQL queries and save the results as CSV. It could be stuff stored in files on the filesystem etc. You could write python to process the files.

You rarely automate a UI or do screen scraping as a developer, its simply not a good way to get the job done. You manipulate things directly through programatic API or you go to lower level stuff like, filesystem or network.

Its all programming at this point and you just use code to get to the data directly where it lives. Then you can look at more advanced things like adding a REST endpoint to supply the reports direct or a BI dashboard or reporting solution that makes reports look nice or enables you to drill down or perform ad hoc queries etc.

All modern languages allow for embedded SQL, so you either write SQL and do the job manually with a SQL client or you embed the SQL in a script or program.

All cron schedulers do is execute jobs on a periodic basis. You have to write the program that executes the job or it has to be a standard off the shelf program.

IDLE is python Integrated Development Environment (IDE), python needs the python runtime to run, so if you are schduling stuff you need the python runtime on the box, the correct environment variables for bash or poweshell to pick it up. Also your scheduling program needs to be installed correctly. I expect one these got broken somehow, it should be fixable.

 

Yeah I completely agree with this. You either want to use an API or do the automation directly on the box itself.

You're making more work for yourself trying to automate a UI.

 

Yeah, I get what you are saying, however I must point out that I am no developer, but from what I have picked up so far, I think I have the base tools to achieve what I want. Will let you know if I actually pull this off, would be interesting, found a thing called Robo browser to work through as well
Ed

 

I was browsing online and came across your post about automation software. I totally get it. Automating tasks can be a game-changer.

 

Absolutely agree with you. I completely understand where you're coming from. The ability to automate tasks can truly be a game-changer. If you're looking for alternatives to task schedulers on Windows, you might want to see this website. It's a website that provides information and suggestions on automation tools, both free and paid. I agree with the points you and others made about automating UI versus using APIs or lower-level approaches. It's often more efficient to work directly with the data where it lives. Automation through code can be a powerful solution.