We have this tedious manual process where someone goes to three different websites every morning, pulls data from tables and forms, then pastes it into a spreadsheet. It takes about 90 minutes. I want to automate it, but I’m not sure about the best approach.
I know I could write a puppeteer script to do this, but honestly, that seems like it would take me days to get right, and then I’d be stuck maintaining it whenever the sites change. Plus, we have some non-technical people on the team who might need to adjust this automation later, and code isn’t going to work for them.
I’m curious if there’s a way to build this without writing traditional automation scripts. Has anyone tackled something similar? What actually made the difference between a painful process and something that actually works?
The mistake most people make is starting with code. You start with puppeteer, get lost in syntax, spend three days debugging selectors, and end up with something fragile that only you can maintain.
Instead, start with describing what you need. What three websites? What data from each? A no-code workflow builder lets you map this out visually without writing a single line of code. You connect to each site, define what to extract, set a schedule, done.
The bigger win is that your non-technical team members can update it themselves. If a site changes, they can adjust the extraction logic in the visual interface instead of waiting for you to fix code.
Latenode has templates for web data extraction that you can customize in minutes instead of building from scratch. You describe your task, the AI handles the workflow generation, then you tweak it visually.
I’d start by mapping out exactly what you’re doing manually. Write down each step: go to site A, log in, click this button, find this table, copy certain columns. Be super specific.
Then I’d ask myself: is this complicated enough to justify custom code, or can I use a template? If it’s straightforward data extraction from tables and forms, templates are your friend. They handle the tedious stuff so you can focus on customization.
The automation should solve the problem of repetition, not create a new problem of maintenance. So pick an approach that your team can actually adjust when things change.
Start with the end goal, not the tools. You want data in a spreadsheet every morning. How that happens is secondary. I’d recommend finding a solution that lets non-developers make adjustments, because that’s where most automation fails—someone leaves, nobody else understands the code, everything breaks.
Web extraction templates are better than writing puppeteer from scratch because they already handle common issues: timeouts, dynamic content, element detection. You’re not reinventing the wheel on each project.
The key decision is separating implementation from maintainability. Code-first approaches are fast to write but create long-term friction. Template-based approaches are slower to set up initially but much easier for teams to maintain and adapt over time.
For your situation with three websites and non-technical team members, a visual workflow builder is the right choice. You get reliability without the maintenance burden of custom scripts.