VBA automate IE actions

[Rasmussen]

Hello,

I found this VBA from automatetheweb and I found it very useful to my daily work.

I want to automate the search we daily do with VAT numbers from the EU vies validation page.

So the VBA is suppose to go to the website http://ec.europa.eu/taxation_customs/vies/, then insert A2 in country code and B2 in the text field, then hit submit to get result.

I then need it to show the result in C2, wether it's valid or not.

My problem is, that when I use debug (F8) function in the VBA, there is no problems, but when I then try to run the macro from developer field, it gets stuck at the result page, it doesnt list the result in C2?

The code is following.

'start a new subroutine called SearchBotSub SearchBot()
 
    'dimension (declare or set aside memory for) our variables
    Dim objIE As InternetExplorer 'special object variable representing the IE browser
    Dim aEle As HTMLLinkElement 'special object variable for an  (link) element
    Dim y As Integer 'integer variable we'll use as a counter
    Dim result As String 'string variable that will hold our result link
 
    'initiating a new instance of Internet Explorer and asigning it to objIE
    Set objIE = New InternetExplorer
 
    'make IE browser visible (False would allow IE to run in the background)
    objIE.Visible = True
 
    'navigate IE to this web page (a pretty neat search engine really)
    objIE.navigate "http://ec.europa.eu/taxation_customs/vies/"
 
    'wait here a few seconds while the browser is busy
    Do While objIE.Busy = True Or objIE.readyState <> 4: DoEvents: Loop
 
    'in the search box put cell "A2" value, the word "in" and cell "C1" value
    objIE.document.getElementById("countryCombobox").Value = _
      Sheets("Sheet1").Range("A2").Value
      objIE.document.getElementById("number").Value = _
      Sheets("Sheet1").Range("B2").Value
 
    'click the 'go' button
    objIE.document.getElementById("submit").Click
 
    'wait again for the browser
    Do While objIE.Busy = True Or objIE.readyState <> 4: DoEvents: Loop
 
    'the first search result will go in row 2
    y = 2
 
    'for each  element in the collection of objects with class of 'result__a'...
    For Each Text In objIE.document.getElementsByClassName("labelLeft")
 
        '...get the text within the element and print it to the sheet in col D
        Sheets("Sheet1").Range("D" & y).Value = Text.innerText
        Debug.Print Text.innerText
 
        'is it a yellowpages link?
        If InStr(result, "Nej, momsnummeret er ugyldigt") > 0 Or InStr(result, "Nej") > 0 Then
            'make the result red
            Sheets("Sheet1").Range("C" & y).Interior.ColorIndex = 3
            'place a 1 to the left
            Sheets("Sheet1").Range("B" & y).Value = 1
        End If
 
        'increment our row counter, so the next result goes below
        y = y + 1
 
    'repeat times the # of ele's we have in the collection
    Next
 
    'close the browser
    objIE.Quit
 
'exit our SearchBot subroutine
End Sub

Anyone who can help me out? Thanks.

 

[ZVI]

Hi and welcome to the forum!
Try inserting this code just before your For Each Text... part

    ' --> Wait for the document to load
    While objIE.Document Is Nothing
      DoEvents
    Wend
    ' <-- End of waiting

 

[Rasmussen]

Hi and welcome to the forum!
Try inserting this code just before your For Each Text... part

    ' --> Wait for the document to load
    While objIE.Document Is Nothing
      DoEvents
    Wend
    ' <-- End of waiting

Hello, thanks.
It still gets stuck at IE window, it does the search and gets result in IE, but it doesnt transfer result to excel.

 

[ZVI]

...My problem is, that when I use debug (F8) function in the VBA, there is no problems, but when I then try to run the macro from developer field, it gets stuck at the result page, it doesnt list the result in C2?...

My assumption was based on the fact the code is working in debugging mode.
But seems this line of the code is missing: result = Text.innerText inside the For-Each loop.
In the posted code the result variable was not populate.
I'd also sugest this declaration in the code: Dim Text As Variant or Dim Text As Object

 

[Rasmussen]

My assumption was based on the fact the code is working in debugging mode.
But seems this line of the code is missing: result = Text.innerText inside the For-Each loop.
In the posted code the result variable was not populate.
I'd also sugest this declaration in the code: Dim Text As Variant or Dim Text As Object

Thanks for the input. Where in the loop would you place result=?

 

[ZVI]

Thanks for the input. Where in the loop would you place result=?

See the new code line in Red:

    ' --> Wait for the document to load
    While objIE.Document Is Nothing
      DoEvents
    Wend
    ' <-- End of waiting
   
    'for each  element in the collection of objects with class of 'result__a'...
    For Each Text In objIE.Document.getElementsByClassName("labelLeft")
       
        result = Text.innerText ' <-- New code line is here
       
        '...get the text within the element and print it to the sheet in col D

 

[ZVI]

If code doesn't work, to test on myside, what are valid values of A2 and B2 in Sheet1?

 

[Rasmussen]

If code doesn't work, to test on myside, what are valid values of A2 and B2 in Sheet1?

Thank you, it works perfectly !

 

[Kyle123]

This would be much more efficent:

Public Function IsVatNumberValid(ByVal countryCode As String, ByVal vatNumber As String) As Boolean

    Static req As Object
    If req Is Nothing Then Set req = CreateObject("MSXML2.XMLHTTP")
    
    With req
        .Open "POST", "http://ec.europa.eu/taxation_customs/vies/vatResponse.html", False
        .setrequestheader "Content-Type", "application/x-www-form-urlencoded"
        .send "memberStateCode=" & countryCode & "&Number=" & vatNumber & "&Action=check&check=verify"
        IsVatNumberValid = InStr(result, "Nej, momsnummeret er ugyldigt") > 0 Or InStr(result, "Nej") >
    End With
    

End Function

You can also use it as a worksheet function, like this:

=IsVatNumberValid(A1,B1)

It returns True for a valid vat number, or False for invalid, it's also much faster than automating internet explorer

 

[Rasmussen]

One quick question. It keeps looping back to result = Text.innerText when it reaches Next. How can I remove this, so it only show the result once and not keeps looping?