Log in with Active X

Hi!

Every night I have a macro that is supposed to run and open and login to a program (the Bloomberg professional) and download some data. My problem is the log in process from my macro. Now I use SendKeys but that seems VERY unreliable. Does anyone have any links with code that shows how to use some better techniques e.g. Active X to log in to a program

Any help appreciated! Thanks a lot in advance!

Microsoft ISV Community Center Forums2

Hi AndersBank,

Thats a difficult question to answer as I am not familar with Bloomberg Professional, however I had a look on Bloombergs site and there are all sorts of API's and addins available.

There is an Excel addin here....

http://about.bloomberg.com/software/info_api.html

Is that what your using... is it any help

I don't even know what Bloomberg do, is it flower arranging

Hi! Thanks for your fast answer! My problem is that I really do not know any programming and I have been dumped with a computer and I am all alone with knowone to ask for help (ohhhhh). I assumed that there would be a standardized way of logging in to a program (like SendKeys but more reliable) and that there would be like a best practice way of doing it so you could find code somewhere. The Bloomberg help is all ***. You pay $1500/month per connection and then cant asnwer a thing on their help desk. Oh by the way Bloomberg is one of the big providers of news and financial data (like Reuters). The owner/creator is Michael Bloomberg (mayor of NYC USA).

Hello,

I am trying to overcome a similar problem with our Payroll website whereby employees can access their pay data. I am sure with time I will get around the sign in problem.

Would it be possible for me to get a sign in for Bloomberg (whatever that may be !!) so that I can experiment .

What is the website that you are trying to access

ChasAA

Hello ChasAA! Sorry but it is not a website (although there is a Bloomberg website) but a program that provides financial data. However to me it seems like the login process should be the almost the same regardless of what you are trying to log in to. I mean you enter a user name and a password. There might be a difference regarding how many times to press Enter etc. but basically the same. If you have any clues please help me! Thanks alot in advance!

AndersBank,

Logging into any program is conceptually the same process, enter a user name and password, lookup the user name in an identity store (database) and check the passwords match, and set a flag that says the user is authentic. However, behind the scenes each application/web site could do this all sorts of different ways.

Security at the inital login of any application tends to be fairly high, all the methods involving the login should be well protected to stop crackers automating dictionary attacks. Trying to automate a login into an application could be used for bad as well as good.

It sounds like bloomberg are fairly large institute. If their information comes from the tinternet to the application then they might have a web service that you could use. I wouldn't be surprised if bloomberg didn't have api's to let people develop their own software that feeds from bloombergs online data.

You'll need to dop a bit of research on their site, and see what tools and api's they offer. They looked to have a few but it wasn't obvious to me which one you needed to use.