Processing XML SOAP Response Data in Zapier using Node.js

Other Questions Zapier
1

I’m working with a SOAP XML response that contains user information including email, display name, status, and session time. The XML structure looks like this:

<result>
    <headers>
        <items>
            <field>Email</field>
            <field>Display Name</field>
            <field>Status</field>
            <field>Session Time</field>
        </items>
    </headers>
    <entries>
        <items>
            <field>[email protected]</field>
            <field>Admin User</field>
            <field>Offline</field>
            <field>245</field>
        </items>
    </entries>
    <entries>
        <items>
            <field>[email protected]</field>
            <field>Manager User</field>
            <field>Online</field>
            <field>120</field>
        </items>
    </entries>
    <entries>
        <items>
            <field>[email protected]</field>
            <field>Guest User</field>
            <field>Offline</field>
            <field>87</field>
        </items>
    </entries>
</result>

Right now I can count offline users with this code:

var offlineCount = inputData.responseData.split("Offline").length;
output = [{offlineCount: offlineCount}]

This returns offlineCount: 2

I need help extracting the names of offline users and calculating the total session time for all users. I want the output to show:

  • offlineCount: 2
  • userNames: Admin User, Guest User
  • totalSessionTime: 452 (245 + 120 + 87)

What’s the best way to parse this XML and extract this information?

2

Regex is probably easier here since Zapier doesn’t play nice with external libraries. Try var matches = inputData.responseData.match(/<field>([^<]+)<\/field>/g); then group every 4 matches into one user record. Works well for structured XML like this without needing imports.

3

Just hit this same issue last month. DOMParser worked way better for me in Zapier - it’s built-in and doesn’t need external dependencies. Here’s what I used:

const parser = new DOMParser();
const xmlDoc = parser.parseFromString(inputData.responseData, 'text/xml');

const entries = xmlDoc.getElementsByTagName('entries');
let offlineUsers = [];
let totalSessionTime = 0;

for (let i = 0; i < entries.length; i++) {
    const fields = entries[i].getElementsByTagName('field');
    const displayName = fields[1].textContent;
    const status = fields[2].textContent;
    const sessionTime = parseInt(fields[3].textContent);
    
    if (status === 'Offline') {
        offlineUsers.push(displayName);
    }
    totalSessionTime += sessionTime;
}

output = [{
    offlineCount: offlineUsers.length,
    userNames: offlineUsers.join(', '),
    totalSessionTime: totalSessionTime
}];

Skips the xml2js dependency mess and handles the XML structure fine. Just use textContent to grab clean field values without the XML tags.

4

I’ve hit this same XML parsing issue in Zapier. Your string splitting method won’t work right because it’s not actually parsing the XML structure - just doing basic string matching. You need a real XML parser like xml2js or convert it to JSON first.

Here’s what I used for a similar problem:

const xml2js = require('xml2js');

xml2js.parseString(inputData.responseData, (err, result) => {
    const headers = result.result.headers[0].items[0].field;
    const entries = result.result.entries;
    
    let offlineUsers = [];
    let totalSessionTime = 0;
    
    entries.forEach(entry => {
        const fields = entry.items[0].field;
        const status = fields[2];
        const displayName = fields[1];
        const sessionTime = parseInt(fields[3]);
        
        if (status === 'Offline') {
            offlineUsers.push(displayName);
        }
        totalSessionTime += sessionTime;
    });
    
    output = [{
        offlineCount: offlineUsers.length,
        userNames: offlineUsers.join(', '),
        totalSessionTime: totalSessionTime
    }];
});

This way you’re actually mapping header positions to data fields and handling the XML structure correctly instead of just matching strings.