1.

Robotic Process Automation – Introduction, Working Introduction

✓ RPA stands for Robotic Process Automation.

✓ Robotic process automation (RPA) is a software technology that makes it easy to build,
deploy, and manage software robots that emulate humans actions interacting with digital
systems and software.
✓ RPA is based on Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence (AI) which uses various
software robots to perform business-oriented tasks.
✓ Typically, it is like a bot that performs such tasks at a much higher rate than a human alone.
✓ These RPA software bots never sleep and make zero mistakes, and can interact with in-
house applications, websites, user portals, etc.
✓ They can log into applications, enter data, open emails and attachments, calculate and
complete tasks, and then log out
✓ The word 'Robot' in 'RPA' is not a physical robot but a virtual system that helps in
automating the repetitive manual computing or business process tasks.

Key Characteristics of RPA

✓ Automation of Repetitive Tasks: RPA is designed to automate rule-based tasks that don't
require human judgment or decision-making. These can include data entry, data extraction,
form filling, report generation, etc.
✓ Non-intrusive: RPA tools are usually non-invasive, meaning they don't require
significant changes to existing systems or infrastructure. They can work across multiple
applications, often mimicking human actions like mouse clicks, keyboard strokes, and
screen scraping.
✓ Scalability: RPA can be scaled up or down depending on the needs of the
organization. It allows businesses to deploy bots in different departments or processes
without significant additional cost.
✓ Error Reduction: By automating routine tasks, RPA reduces the chances of
errors that occur due to manual input. Bots can execute tasks with high accuracy, ensuring
consistency in performance.
✓ Cost Savings: RPA can lead to significant cost savings by reducing the need for human labor
for repetitive tasks. Organizations can reallocate their workforce to
more strategic activities, improving overall productivity.
Robotic Process Automation - RPA (Evaluate and Estimate)

Many of us are aware RPA came in early 2000 as a growing technology. The history of RPA
says that it had three key predecessors which were Screen Scraping, Workflow automation S
management tools, and Artificial Intelligence.
Screen Scraping
Software A screen scraping software is meant to scan large sets of static information or other
visual representation of data to pull key terms, integers or other important analytics. In the
context of RPA, we can say that the same functionality is used by RPA. Even RPA is integrating
screen-scraping capabilities into a larger suite of functions.
Workflow Automation and Management Tools
As the name suggests, such tools can help in order processing by capturing customer contact
information, invoice total as well as item ordered. They even translate these details into our
company database and notify the corresponding employee too. Such tools eliminate manual data
entry. In the context of RPA, we can say that the same functionality is used by RPA. Even RPA is
integrating its work automation tool capabilities into a larger suite of functions.
Artificial Intelligence
As we know that AI is the capability of computer systems to perform tasks that normally
require human intervention and intelligence. AI machines can replace tedious and manual labor
that is time consuming.
In the context of RPA, we can say that the same functionality is used by RPA. Even RPA is
integrating AI capabilities into a larger suite of functions.
All of the above three advancements in automation were significant in one or other sense
but what makes RPA an impactful technology is its ability to combine, refine certain aspects of
each of these technologies
 Why RPA
RPA can be used to fill the gap between systems and process. A typical enterprise is having
the following scenario:

✓ Improve speed, quality and productivity– RPA bots can be trained to undertake un-
intelligent and repetitive tasks faster and more accurately than humans ever could.

✓ Get more value from big data– Many organizations are generating so much data that they
can’t process all of it. There are many opportunities to gain insights from this data and drive
greater efficiencies. RPA is ideally suited to help parse through large datasets, both
structured and unstructured, helping organizations make sense of the data they are
collecting.

✓ Free up employees for more valuable tasks– RPA offers the opportunity to leave tedious
and repetitive work behind. Employees can take up the jobs of the future, perhaps
upskilling to implement automation and AI to achieve greater outcomes.

Become more adaptable to change– Recovering from the disruption of the last few years
involves organizations becoming more agile and nimble in dealing with change. Current
future challenges. RPA helps organizations speed up processes while reducing costs,
ensuring organizations are ready to deal with disruption and change.

✓ Accelerate training and customer assistance– Guided or attended RPA can help contact
canters get trained on systems quickly. In addition, call center agents can assist customers
faster with an RPA bot on their desktop guiding them on what to do or say next.
 Pros S Cons of RPA

Pros Some advantages of using RPA are as follows:

✓ Reduces human efforts and thus the related human errors too.
✓ Improves productivity by saving cost and time.
✓ Offers real time visibility into bug discovery.
✓ Suitable for the usage by non-technical persons too, as no programming skills are required
to use it.
✓ Easy to automate large number of processes.
✓ Feature of tracking the defects for each test cases.
✓ Needs less training to master RPA tool.

Cons Some disadvantages of using RPA are as shown:

✓ Need to reconfigure the robots for small changes in application.

✓ Dependency of bots on the speed of application.

Examples of RPA in Action

1. Invoice Processing: Bots can extract invoice data, compare it with purchase orders,
validate against payment terms, and initiate payments or trigger alerts if discrepancies
arise.
2. Customer Service: RPA can automate routine customer service tasks like responding to
simple queries, processing service requests, or updating customer records in CRM systems.
3. Data Entry and Migration: RPA can be used to automate the movement of data between
systems, such as transferring data from an Excel sheet into an enterprise system or
updating records in a database.

4. Payroll Processing: RPA can calculate employee pay, apply tax deductions, and generate
payslips by interacting with payroll systems and databases, eliminating the need for
manual data entry.
5. IT Management: RPA can handle common IT tasks like system monitoring, patching
software, and managing backup systems, reducing the workload of IT staff.
 How does RPA work

RPA tools work by mimicking the actions of humans interacting with digital systems and
applications. The steps involved in the functioning of an RPA system are:

1. Identify processes: A business identifies tasks or processes that are repetitive, rule-based
and time-consuming. These are prime candidates for automation because they’re quick and
easy to train the bots on. The business can use technology such as process discovery tools
to find automation candidates without all the manual work.

2. Select RPA tools: RPA tools need to fit the business’s needs. Once the prime processes are
identified, the business should find RPA tools based on factors like compatibility with
existing systems, ease of use, scalability and cost- effectiveness. Basically, it’s the business
of interviewing potential RPA bot candidates and finding which one’s skills best fit the job.

3. Develop the bots: Here’s the stage where the business builds and trains the bots. This
involves defining the sequence of steps required to complete a task, including logging into
applications, navigating screens, inputting data, performing calculations and making
decisions based on predefined rules. It’s like an instruction manual for the RPA bots.

4. Integrate with systems: RPA bots need to interact with various systems and applications
to complete their assigned tasks. This might involve using application programming
interfaces (APIs), screen scraping, etc. It’s like giving the RPA bot a key to every door they
need access to.

5. Testing: Before deploying RPA, a business should conduct thorough testing to ensure the
bots perform as expected. Tests involve running the bots through various scenarios to
resolve any issues or bugs. A business wouldn’t throw a new hire onto the floor without any training
or backup – and they wouldn’t do that for an RPA bot either.

6. Deployment: Now the bot is ready to work! The business can deploy the bots into the
production environment and schedule them to run at specific times or have them trigger
based on events, such as the arrival of new data.

7. Monitoring and maintenance: This is an RPA bot’s performance review. While the
automation runs, ongoing monitoring is key to ensuring the bots stick to the business plan
and everything functions as it should. Maintenance could involve updating bots to
accommodate changes in systems or processes, optimizing performance or
troubleshooting issues.
Tools for RPA
There are various tools available for RPA; however, following are some most
popular robotic process automation tools:
Blue Prism A RPA software provides an agile digital workforce to the organizations.
It can be downloaded from https://www.blueprism.com/.
Automation Anywhere Another important tool for RPA is Automation Anywhere
which can be downloaded from https://www.automationanywhere.com/
UiPath It is a RPA software. It helps organizations to automate processes efficiently.
It can be downloaded from https://www.uipath.com/
Open Span It is a robotic process automation tool based on .net framework. It helps
to integrate desktop applications. After acquired by PEGA it is now known as Pega
OpenSpan.
Work Fusion It is another robotic process automation tool, which provides AI-
powered platform to automate operations. It can be downloaded from
https://www.workfusion.com
Which Tool to Choose?
As we have seen there are lots of tools for RPA but the big question is that which tool
to choose. Followings are some parameters, which must be considered before selecting
RPA tool:

Technology The most important parameter to check is the technology say

Microsoft .NET, IBM Mainframe, Java etc., in which the tool is built. The tool has to be
platform independent so that the automation solutions support any application.
Data Data is another important parameter. We must choose the tool that makes
easy to read and write business data into multiple systems.
Interface RPA’s user interface must be user friendly because a complex user
interface will delay the process of implementation.
Interoperability As discussed, toll must be platform independent and work across
multiple applications.
Ease of management Another important parameter is how easily and effectively
robots can be managed. The tool must have high level of control and visibility.
Type of tasks The type of tasks, whether rule-based or knowledge-based, that can
be configured by RPA tool is another important parameter to be taken care while
selecting the tool.
Security Security is one more important parameter to consider. As we know that
RPA is a piece of software, how much security controls can be implemented is a factor to
be considered
 2.UiPath – Basics, Installation and Understanding User Interface Components

Introduction

Many enterprises are adopting digital methods for their operation because they
understood that future lies in routine operation being fully automated. Speed of execution
and accuracy are the two biggest advantages of digitization. On the other side, right tool
and skilled work force are the two biggest challenges of digitization. That is why industry
was looking for a fast and reliable solution, which they got in the form of RPA tool named
UiPath.UiPath is a leading Robotic Process Automation (RPA) platform designed to help
organizations automate repetitive tasks and workflows, enhancing productivity and
efficiency.

What is UiPath?

UiPath is a software platform that allows users to automate business processes by

creating software robots or "bots." These bots mimic human interactions with digital
systems to perform tasks faster, more accurately, and without fatigue.

Core Components of UiPath

UiPath platform is available with following three product suites

1. UiPath Studio

✓ The design tool where users create automation workflows using a drag- and-drop interface.
✓ Supports flowcharts, sequences, and state machines for automation.

2. UiPath Robots
✓ Bots that execute the workflows built in UiPath Studio.
▪ Attended Robots: Work alongside humans, triggered as needed.
▪ Unattended Robots: Operate independently without human intervention.

3. UiPath Orchestrator
✓ A web-based platform used to manage, monitor, and schedule bots.
✓ Ensures scalability, security, and control of automated workflows.
Why UiPath?

There are lots of tools for robotic process automation, however UiPath is the most
popular among them. Following are some of the features of UiPath that makes it attractive
for RPA −

Complete Solution

UiPath offers a complete solution with the help of three components namely UiPath
Studio, UiPath Orchestrator and UiPath Robots.

Intuitive

Working with UiPath and creating robots is very instinctive because it uses drag and drop
and flowchart activities. It is very easy to learn too.

Extensive Activity Library

UiPath is having an extensive activity library consisting of hundreds of pre-built, drag S

drop actions.

Security

UiPath also offers high level security because we can store and encrypt the credentials on
the centralized server.

Recording

UiPath provides the facility of recording as well. It has special recorders for desktop apps,
Citrix environment and terminal emulators which makes creating automation much faster
and precise.

Universal Search

It is having universal search feature which allows us to perform single search for all
automation resources like libraries, activities, projects and workflows.

Powerful Debugging

UiPath offers its user a very powerful debugging which is very intuitive and flexible.

Collaboration

UiPath promotes collaboration too, as we can store, protect and share scripts in MS Team
Foundation and SVN. We can also re-use the workflow.
Third-party Integration

UiPath also provide third party integration facility. We can plug in various cognitive and
OCR technologies from ABBYY, IBM Watson, Google, Microsoft text analysis at the API level.

Server-Based Licensing

Uipath allows server-based licensing which makes licensing process centralized and easy
to use.

UiPath – Installation
https://www.uipath.com/

Tryuipathfree
 Continue with google account

Athrudhya M

Click next and Click create organisation

Go to Download center

Click download
 Understanding User Interface Components

When you open UiPath Studio, the screen is divided into important panels.

1. Ribbon (Top Menu Bar)

The Ribbon contains all the main commands.
Tabs you will see:
• Home → Create/open projects, manage packages.
• Design → Add activities, variables, manage arguments.
• Debug → Run, pause, step-by-step debugging.
• Tools → Add browser extensions, UiPath Assistant, etc

2. Activities Panel (Left Side)

This is where all actions (activities) are available.
Examples:
• Click, Type Into, Assign
• Excel Application Scope, Send Outlook Mail Message
 3. Project Panel (Bottom Left)
Shows your project files such as:
• Main.xaml
• Other workflows
• Dependencies (packages)
• Screenshots folder
• JSON configuration files

4. Workflow Designer Panel (Center Area)

• Sequence
• Flowchart
• State Machine

5. Properties Panel (Right Side)

Shows the configuration of a selected activity.
Examples:
• For Type Into → Text to type, Delay, SimulateType
• For Click → Button selector property

6. Output Panel (Bottom)

Shows real-time logs such as:
• The workflow started
• Errors
• Messages using Write Line

7. Variables Panel (Bottom)

Used to create and manage variables:
• String
• Int32
• Boolean
• DataTable

8. Outline Panel
Shows the structure of the workflow like a tree.
Main.xaml
└─ Sequence
├─ Open Browser
├─ Type Into
└─ Click

9. Orchestrator Panel (Cloud Connected)

Only shows if UiPath is connected to cloud account.
Used for:
• Publishing projects
• Running unattended automation
 10. Search Bar (Top Right)
Universal search for:
• Activities
• Variables
• Workflows
• Settings