Exporting Facebook group comments to Excel using Power Query?

[trapperjohn22]

I am the admin of a social gambling club full of friends. Each week, all members place one bet on our common sports betting gambling account (e.g. BetFair or the like)(all 50ish members use the same account). The members then post the details (such as what the bet was, and how much their wager amount was) of their weekly bet on the weekly Facebook Group thread (each separate week has a new parent post. It is a Secret Group, which I am an admin in). I then download the results of each bet placed on the sports betting website to Excel and have to manually match the bet posted on facebook with the bets placed on our sports betting account (which takes 30-40 mins per week). At the end, I have a members name in one column, and then the columns to the right contain the bet information (wager amount, bet result, sport type, etc). That bet result information then informs calculation and output sheets to track member progress.

I am looking for a way to make the process of matching the facebook information more simplified by getting the Facebook data into excel and getting each member to post the unique bet ID generated by from the sports betting website (a string of text and numbers that is identical between bets placed on that account except for the fact that the last digit increases numerically by 1 as each bet is placed). Then use formulas to match the sports betting account information up with the facebook information automatically.

I thought Power Query would be able to help me with this task, however it seems that it cant access Facebook Group comment information. I heard of a potential workaround by creating a dummy admin facebook profile that receives notifications to email, and then using Power Query to query the microsoft exchange account associated with that facebook profile. However, it seems that the Excel 2016 version i have downloaded does not allow me to query Microsoft Exchange!

So, does anyone have any suggestions on how I can easily export Facebook group comment information to Excel for processing? Or alternatively, can anyone see a simpler/more efficient way of matching up the information in the bet account with each member?

 

[Matt Allington]

Facebook prevents you extracting a lot of the data. I am surprised that you can't connect to Exchange though - sounds strange to me. Have you tried to point Power Query to the web page with the comments? You can scrap websites provided the data is in tables. I don't know if the comments are, or are not in tables so you will need to test it. If the data is not in tables, you can still scrape the data but it is a lot harder. I read that you can use chrome Dev tools to find out where the text is in the html, then navigate to it in Power Query. I don't think it opwoukd be easy, but probably worth trying these things.

 

[trapperjohn22]

Thanks Matt,

My power query doesnt even have the option to query Exchange accounts. As in, when i go to the drop down menu where i understand it should be, the option isnt even there. I have excel 2016 which I purchased about 2 weeks ago via office works Australia.

The Facebook information isn't in tables, it is just the comment thread that sits under a post. I have tried to copy/paste the threads into excel which sort of works, but it is quite messy doesn't align with the names of the people who post the info. I will Google the chrome dev tools to see if that may help.

 

[Matt Allington]

What version of Excel 2016? Is it Office Professional? I seem to vaguely remember something about Power Query being free in low cost skus, but they cut some connectors and only provide them in the more expensive skus. That would be consistent with your experience.

 

[Matt Allington]

I don't think Dev tools will work. You may be able to scrape comments, but they will all be a different path, so one comment at a time. Sorry for the bum steer