Pline is a simple and intuitive self-service data extraction tool made for those who require quality data instantly ready for analysis.
It is an automated data extraction tool meant to assist individuals and businesses alike that require efficient, accurate, and real-time data from the web. With Pline, users can easily create custom workflows and modify data fields as per their preferences.
In this day and age, time is money, and losing time is losing money. Pline understands the paramount importance of our users’ precious time. We get that instead of getting bogged down by tedious data collection processes, your focus should be on extracting insights sooner. This can strengthen academic research, professional projects, and empower business decisions with actionable quality data.
This is why Pline offers these five time-saving hacks.
No-code Data Collection
Other web scrapers and data extraction tools available on the web often require extensive coding experience. However, with Pline, you don’t need any coding knowledge. It is completely fine if you’re completely new to coding or don’t know how to write a single line of code because it is a no-code data collection tool.
Pline is quick and easy to set up once you install the Chrome extension.
When you enable the extension, Pline provides step-by-step guidelines each time you choose to build a custom workflow. It lets you take control of everything from selecting the data fields to setting the number of records for the data extraction process. Then afterward by relying on your experience and intuition, you can easily nail your regular data collection.
Hence, you can start extracting the data you need right away, just point, click, and collect – no coding necessary.
Not just coding – even if you are completely new to data extraction, Pline has inbuilt tutorials that you can always go back to if you ever get stuck in the process.
Automation
With Pline, you can experience a perfect harmony between ‘automation’ and ‘human in the loop’.
Automation is most effective on websites with multiple pages of content, where each page lists numerous items. Think of an example like Amazon where a single item like a gaming mouse can be available across up to 20 pages.
- In this feature, Pline first allows you to select the page type, specifying whether it’s a page with a vertical or a grid list of items.
- Then, it lets you group similar data items from the page and asks you to select fields from which you want to extract the given information.
- To simplify the process and make it easy to follow, the data extraction extension provides step-by-step guidelines.
- After that, you select the pagination structure of the page, indicating whether it has a next button at the end of the list, a load more button, or an infinite scroll.
- Then you tag the button as requested by the workflow. Once you review and save the complete workflow, it is ready for use.
When you automate the workflow, data from each page is extracted within a second so the time you can save using automation is significant.
Thus by utilizing automation, you can collect numerous data records instantly without manually selecting every data point on each page, clicking to the next, and losing time.
Use-Case
Imagine you are the marketing executive at an electronics retail company who needs to stay up to date with the latest trends in the market and plan your marketing campaigns.
Now once you set up a new workflow or use the prebuilt workflow using Pline’s automated data extraction feature, you can easily scrape data from product review websites, social media platforms, and competitor websites at the frequency of your choice without manual intervention.
You then notice that smart home appliances are trending among the target segment for this month.
Thus, thanks to Pline’s automation feature, you get this data instantly ready for analysis. Then from the insights, you can plan a marketing campaign highlighting your range of smart home products, their features, and benefits, and more.
Browse and Capture
Another important feature of our data extraction tool is that it keeps “Human-in-the-loop”.
Browse and Capture is best for curated data extraction from relevant pages. When you run this workflow, you are in full control of the data-capturing process.
- First, you could clone one of the prebuilt workflows to ‘My workflows’ and run that to collect data. Or you can create a custom workflow by selecting the page type, grouping items, and tagging data fields.
- After that, you can choose the fields from which you want to extract data and review the sample data records. Once you’re satisfied, you can save the workflow and begin the extraction process. Data will only be collected when you click “Approve Records” or “Auto approve all data”.
- Next, you can manually navigate to the next page, select the item from which you want to extract data, approve the extracted data from the selected fields, and repeat the process until you have collected the required amount of data.
The main difference between ‘browse and capture’ and ‘automation’ is that with automation, once you start the process, you can rest assured that Pline seamlessly collects the data for you for the set number of records. And you won’t have to check on it until the process is over.
Whereas, ‘browse and capture’ lets you handpick the data fields that you need and collect data from the selected field within seconds. Thus, enabling you to improve data quality control, and skip the tedious and time-consuming copy-pasting process.
Multi-tab Extraction
This is one of the greatest time-saving hacks that Pline offers. This feature allows you to extract data from the same website simultaneously in multiple tabs.
It is excellent in increasing efficiency for data extraction by utilizing multiple tabs and handling large volumes of data. Instead of collecting data from one page at a time, the parallel data collection process drastically reduces the overall time required for data collection.
While one tab is extracting data, you can set up other tabs to maximize your productivity, minimize downtime, and streamline workflow.
If you look at the multi-tab extraction feature from a bigger picture then you can realize that quick access to data means quicker insights. With faster real-time insights, you can promptly leverage market trends, make timely business decisions, and be miles ahead of your competitors.
Adaptive Selector
The “Browse and Capture” now has an additional feature that allows you to edit the selection of data fields. That feature is the “Adaptive Selector Tool”.
This feature comes in handy during extraction when Pline moves to the next page, and suddenly the page structure changes, causing certain data fields to become misaligned.
For example, if you are collecting prices of earbuds and the structure of the next page changes so that the ‘price’ field becomes ‘color’, you can use this feature to edit the misaligned data field. This allows you to clear the incorrect data, replace the field from ‘color’ to ‘price’, and continue running the program seamlessly.
It allows flexible data field selection in dynamic web page environments.
Therefore, even when web page structures change, it enables Pline users to easily adjust the selection of data fields without interrupting the data collection process.
Bottom Line
Pline makes data collection easy with these time-saving hacks that we call in-built features:
Simplified No-Code Data Collection – Make data collection a breeze with Pline’s easy-to-follow guidelines and intuitive platform- no coding necessary.
Automation Made Easy – Streamline your workflow by automating data collection tasks effortlessly.
Browse and Capture – Surf web pages while effortlessly capturing valuable data with our innovative Browse and Capture feature, giving you ultimate control over what you collect.
Multi-tab Extraction: Open multiple pages of the same website, extract data from each tab simultaneously, and take your productivity to the next level.
Adaptive Selector: Adjust data fields flexibly and seamlessly even when web page structures change and ensure uninterrupted data collection.
Don’t settle for outdated data scraping methods. Experience the vanguard of quick and time-saving data extraction with the data extraction tool Pline. Try it now and unleash the full potential of your data-driven endeavors!