RPA.md

RPA Robot Processing Automation

Date: 29th August 2019

Notes:

• Global Exceptional Handler ~> The job of RPA Developers becomes easier by using this feature, since the handler only needs to be defined once per each automation project and, unlike the Try Catch blocks, does not need to be attached to each activity. It will execute every time an activity fails to execute.
• Repo Browser ~> It allows you to browse through, open, and save shared automation projects stored in TFS and SVN repositories.
• WebHook ~> Regardless of how complex the app network that was integrated with Orchestrator is, information can be sent to a variety of tools such as dynamic case management, business process management or even customer relationship management programs.
• Development Robot Decoupling feature ~> a “floating” robot can be used between multiple machines by the Administrators in a Development environment without having to associate it with a certain machine. In addition, Standard Attended robots can also be converted to “floating” robots. and only Administrators can access this robot
• VB - > Visual Basic
• To create a variable click on activity dialog box and then create
• Single activity can have multiple input boxes
• Message box is used to print some output to screen, generally used to print the variabes
• Open Browser-> To open a browser by program
• Get visible Text -> used to indicate which text to work on and in output section select the variable name to store the data
• Write Line-> used to write lines
• Open Application -> used to open an application
• Type Into -> used to write something inside the application
• To generate new random values we can use the function new Random().Next(range)
• To close any application, we can use the close application activity.

Properties

• Present on right hand side tab
• used to define what our activity will do

Input

• Title -> defines a message as for what the input is made for
• Label -> used to define the question the user will be prompted with
• Result -> the variable to store the input to

Variables

• In UIPATH variables can store different types of data like
  1. Numbers
  2. Text
  3. Images
  4. Files
  5. Colors
• Data Types for variables are:
  1. Integer
  2. String ( between " ")
  3. Boolean
  4. Generic ( All of the above)
  5. Array of ( A list of any type)
• Default column in variable is used to set some default value for any variable
• Scope is the region or field inside which a variable will be visible and can be used

WorkFlows

• There are 2 types of workflows in UIPATH:
  1. Sequence ~> If our process is linear and involves execution of several consecutive actions,its best
  2. Flowchart ~> If our process involves complex connections between activities , then flowcharts are more convenient

Assign

• It is used to assign some value to a variable
• something like x=7 with x as variable

Control Flow

• It is the process of defining the rules and the automatic decisions that will be taken during the execution of workflow,through the use of if/else decisions,loops,and so on.

Operators

• % is represent by mod
• != is represent by <>
• == is represent by =
• ** is represented by ^

FlowChart

• To check some in condition inside a flow chart we use Flow Decision

Sequence

• It uses If activity for checking coditions
• It consists of 3 columns
  1. Condition ~> check the True or False condition
  2. Then ~> it does the work if a specific condition is set True
  3. Else ~> this block is run when the condition is found False

Loops

• Loops are structures most often used to automate repeatitive tasks
• easily implemented in Flowcharts
• Always make sure to provide an exit point in the flowchart

Types of Loops in Sequence

1. while Loop (pre - condition check)
2. Do While Loop (post - condition check)
3. For Each Loop ( it works on iteration over items of a list just like iteration in python list)

Select Folder

• it is an action that allows you to access all files inside the specifed folder
• To get files from a folder, in this Misc section of Select Folder type into the Value field
• to get the list of files use the command Directory.GetFiles(path-of-folder)
• Type of variable should be array of strings System.String()

Generic Value Methods

• Certain functions inbuild i UIPATH that are helpful in type conversion are :
  1. Split
  2. Replace
  3. Substring
  4. Length
  5. Contains
  6. Trim
  7. IndexOf
  8. ToUpper,ToLower
  9. ToInt
  10. ToString

Data Manuplation

• Scalar Variables ~> Holds a single value of a fixed type, for example Characters , Booleans , Numbers, Date Times
• Collections ~> Like Arrays, Lists and Queues or Strings, Dictionaries
• Tables ~> A Table is siilar to an array of dictionaries where values are accessible by row index and column names
• Generic Value ~> It can represent basic types of data, including text,number and date/times.
• ctrl + k create the variable with appropriate data type in properties of a particular activity

Get Password

• By default UiPath is not able to type in a string into a password element
• For that purpose, we use Get Password activity to create or convert a string to password type varaible
  qwerty12345 to ********
• After creating a password type variable simply use Type Into activity to perform the task

Array and Lists & Dictionary

• TO define an array type variable, with variable type Array of T or String[] and default array can also be written
• To define an list we set the variable data type as List<String> and with default value as new List(of String) from ['v1','v2']
• Invoke Method is used to append new elements to the List
• Dictionary has the data type Dictionary<String,String> and values can be appended to it using simply Assign function and works like normal dictionary does
• Syntax for dictionary is new Dictionary(Of String,Int32) From {{"key1",val1},{"key2",val2}}

String Functions

• The string functions here works similarly as python
• For example, to check if a String contains a particular word just use variable-name.Contains(word-to-find)
• In Split(" "c) function,we can use ctrl + shift + space to find all kinds of examples we can use with split method
• In split function we can pass more then one delimeter to split string using an array as variable.Split({"word1 "," word2"},StringSplitOptions.None)

Handling Text

• To print date just use the functioon Now.ToString
• To print only Month And Year use Now.ToString('MMMM yyyy')

Table Activity

• Read csv files by using activity Read CSV
• To create a Table from csv file use the function output data table
• it is preferable used while web scrapping
• To access data from table just like DBMS use something like variable-name.Select("condition")
• To access a specific column of a specific row , use sampleData.Rows(0)("Name").ToString
• We must use [] with the Select method when the column name contains spaces.
• Accessing a specific value from a row, row("First").ToString
• To color any cell, we can use set color range activity which takes an System.drawing.Color.red variable to highlight any cell with particular color

Quiz Lesson 3

1. How can a string variable called myString be converted to an all-capitals representation for future use? Ans. By using an Assign activity with myString on the left side and myString.ToUpper on the right side.
2. Which .Net method of the datatable object can be used to filter a table by a condition? Ans. Select
3. Which activity can be used to loop through each row from a DataTable? Ans. For Each Row
4. Which activity can be used to modify the value of an existing cell in a DataTable? Ans. Modify Cell Activity
5. How can you identify a column in a data table?(Select all that apply.) Ans. Using column index and name
6. Which of the following statements are true regarding the Output DataTable activity? Ans. Returns the data contained in a DataTable as a string in a csv format
7. The String.Format(“Input = {0} and Output = {1}”, “1”,”2”) expression returns which of the following text: Ans. Input = 1 and Output = 2
8. How can we test if a given address (a string variable called fullAddress) can be found on a particular street (a string variable called streetName)? Ans. fullAddress.Contains(streetName)
9. How can the index integer variable be displayed inside a Message Box activity? Ans. “Current index is: “ + index.ToString

Recording

• Single time ESC pause the recording
• Double Time Esc Stop the recording
• To use some kind of hot-keys , do the following
  1. Press Esc once ~> To pause the recording
  2. In Type option use the send Hotkey option to use any shortcut
• F2 pauses the recording for 3 seconds
• Right-click exit the recording
• In web recording , it will work similarly as selenium waiting time
• UiPath has 4 types of Recording:
  1. Basic
  2. Desktop
  3. Web
  4. Citrix
• Citrix is used for automating stuff with virtual machines
• The recorder is able to record:
  1. left clicks on buttons,checkboxes and other clickable items
  2. Typing into editable fields
• Some non-recordable things to remember are: These are Manual Recording
  1. Keyboard Shortcuts
  2. Modifier Keys
  3. Right click
  4. Mouse hover
  5. etc
• Desktop recorder is different from basic just because it provides a container based workflow that is different actions in same application are separated by different containers
• Indicate on Screen is a good function that can be used to change the snapshot used for automation
• Text function in recorder has copy function, that can be used to copy some text and store in a variable which is created itself

Basic Recording

• generates a full selector for each activity and no container, the resulted automation is slower than one that uses containers and is suitable for single activities.
• Actions are self-contained
• Simpler Workflow
• Can cause interference

Desktop

• suitable for all types of desktop apps and multiple actions; it is faster than the Basic recorder, and generates a container (with the selector of the top-level window) in which activities are enclosed, and partial selectors for each activity.
• Actions are contained inside an AttachWindow component
• No interference issues
• More Complex workflow

Web Recoring

• designed for recording in web apps and browsers, generates containers and uses the Simulate Type/Click input method by default.

Citrix

• used to record virtualized environments (VNC, virtual machines, Citrix, etc.) or SAP, permits only image, text and keyboard automation, and requires explicit positioning.
• The Citrix Recording toolbar enables you to:
  1. Click an image or text
  2. Simulate keystrokes or hotkeys
  3. Select and copy text from a window
  4. Scrape UI elements
  5. Look for elements or wait for them to vanish
  6. Find an image or wait for it to vanish
  7. Activate a window

Manual Recording

• Various types of single actions that can not be automated by simple recording are done using manual recordings
• Various Types of Single Actions are:
  1. Start and Stop an App or Browser ~>These single actions enable you to open an app or browser, as well as close them, by pointing and clicking them.
  2. Click ~> These types of actions enable you to record clicks on the desktop or a running application, select an option from a drop-down list or combo box, and select a check box or a radio button
  3. Type ~> These single actions include those that require input from the keyboard, such as keyboard shortcuts and key presses. To achieve this, two pop-up windows are used to retrieve your keyboard input.
  4. Copy ~> These actions enable you to copy a selected text from an opened application or web browser, so that you can use it later in the project. Screen scraping is also available under the Copy menu, as it enables you to extract images and text from an app or browser.
  5. Mouse Element ~> These types of actions enable you to simulate mouse movements that cannot be recorded but give you access to more functionalities, such as right-clicking, hovering or double-clicking.
  6. Find Element ~> These types of single actions enable you to identify specific UI elements or pause the automation until a particular window closes or an UI element is no longer displayed. The find relative element action is useful with apps that do not allow direct interaction with UI elements, such as Citrix.
  7. Window Element ~> Window element actions enable you to close windows. Studio does this by hooking in the operating system to make sure the application is closed.
  8. Text ~> Text single actions enable you to select or hover over text to make tooltips visible for scraping, right-click to make the context menu visible, copy and paste text and many others.
  9. Image ~> Image single actions enable you to wait for a specified image to disappear, to find a specific image in an app or website, right-click or hover over an image and others. This type of manual recording can be useful with UI elements that are saved as graphics, as they cannot be highlighted as normal fields or text

Lesson 4 Quiz

1. How can you delay the Automatic Recording? Ans. By hitting the F2 key
2. Can you combine automatic recording with step-by-step recording in the same recording sequence? Ans. Yes
3. Which recording wizard would you use to automate Virtual Machine actions? Ans. Citrix Recording
4. When is it recommended to use Desktop recording? Ans. When you automate more steps in the same window
5. Which container will Basic Recording generate? Ans. No container

Data Scraping

• Data Scraping is a function which can be used to Record any kind of data which is available in link form
• For any kind of link to be extracted as data, you need to specify atleast two links together
• Then click on next and provide the column names of each column or data type you wish to scrap data and want in csv or excel file
• To extract more data of different type , click on Extract correlated data and follow the above steps only
• The maximum number of fields represent the number of entries you wish to scrap over the webpage
• After this, click on finish and click on the next button over the webpage from which you are scraping the data
• The above task will make sure that the page will be click next as soon data from single page is extracted successfully
• Data Scrapper is also able to extract a tabular data as well very easily, as it extracts the table itself on just single click

Input Methods

1. Default (Generally used,hotkeys can be used)
2. Window Messages(Can work in background,hotkeys can be used)
3. Simulate Type (Fastest,used or prefered with Virtual Machines,hotkeys can not be used)

Output Screen Scraping

1. Full Text ~> High speed and accuracy, can work in background and able to extract the hidden text
2. Native ~> Get text by position with high speed but unable to work in background
3. OCR ~> uses google and microsoft OCR and works great with citrix automation

UI Activities Properties

• There are multiple activities that can be used to automate apps or web-apps and you can find them in the Activities panel, under the UI Automation category.

1. ContinueOnError – specifies if the automation should continue, even if the activity throws an error. This field only supports boolean values (True, False). The default value in this field is False.
2. DelayAfter – adds a pause after the activity, in milliseconds.
3. DelayBefore – adds a pause before the activity, in milliseconds.
4. TimeoutMS – specifies the amount of time (in milliseconds) to wait for a specified element to be found before an error is thrown. The default value is 30000 milliseconds (30 seconds).
5. WaitForReady - Before performing the actions, wait for the target to become ready. The following options are available:
   • None - Does not wait for anything except the target UI element to exist before executing the action
   • Interactive/Complete - Waits all of the UI elements in the target app to exist before actually executing the action.

Lesson 5 Quiz

1. Which is the best option for scraping tables from a web page?
   Ans. Data scraping wizard
2. What is the Data Scraping wizard for?(Select all that apply.)
   Ans. [Extracting whole tables from the web or other applications,Extracting correlated data from the web or other applications]
3. By using the Full Text scraping method, the robot is able to:
   Ans. [Get editable text.,Get hidden information.,Get the entire visible text.]
4. Which of the text extraction methods can return the hidden text from a UI element?
   Ans. FullText
5. Which of the following text scraping methods preserve the text position?
   Ans. [OCR,Native]

Selectors

• Selectors are the way we identify User Interface elements on the screen. They are a xml string which contain some properties that uniquely define the specified element.
• These are of 2 types:
  1. Full Selectors ~> Used in general automation
  2. Partial Selectors ~> Comes in use when containerisation automation is done
• A selector has the following structure: <node_1/><node_2/>...<node_N/>

WildCards

• There are basically 2 types of wildcards in UiPath that are:
  1. * ~> Replace any number of characters
  2. ? ~> Replace exactly one character

Highlight

• It is an activity that is used to simple Highligh an UI Element as the name suggestes

UIExplorer

• It is Automation Tool which is used to easily manage or edit the Selectors
• To add some variable inside the selector the following way should be followed

  <wind some-selectors-code "+ variable name +" further selector code>
  

• It is used to be able to automate and manage dynamic selectors faced during web automation

Anchor Base Activity

• This activity is used to find elements with unreliable selectors
• It uses the position of elements on screen
• Find Element this column is used to indicate the reliable field in the element we wish to search for our automation such as the name of the field
• Activity Field is used to declare the task to be done once the indicated element or field is finded by Anchor Base Activity
• Anchor Position ~> it is the property of this activity which can be used to define the position where the required element to search for

Relative Selector

• It works in background and relies on the internal structure of application

Properties

• Various properties of selectors are:
  1. Validate ~>The button shows the status of the selector by checking the validity of the selector definition and the visibility of the target element on the screen.
  2. Indicate Element ~>Indicate a new UI element to replace the previous one.
  3. Repair ~> Enables you to re-indicate the same target UI element and repair the selector. This operation does not completely replace the previous selector. The button is available only when the selector is invalid.
  4. Highlight ~> Brings the target element in the foreground. The highlight stays on until the option is disabled with a click. The button is enabled only if the selector is valid.
  5. Edit Attributes ~> Contains all the application components needed to identify the target application (a window, a button etc.). This section is editable.
  6. Edit Selector ~> Holds the actual selector. This section is editable.
  7. Open in UI Explorer ~> Launches the UI Explorer. The option is enabled only for valid selectors.

Lesson 6 Quiz

1. Can variables be used to build dynamic selectors? Ans. Yes
2. How can you see the full list of attributes of Ui elements? Ans. By using the UiExplorer tool.
3. What is a Selector? Ans. The “path” to the UI element, starting from the root, all the way to target element.
4. Which of the following is true regarding the Anchor Base activity? Ans. Use the screen position of the anchor and the target element.
5. What are the supported wildcard characters for selectors in UiPath Studio? Ans. * and ?

Image and Text Automation

Mouse Activities

• Using click image we can click on almost anything that is button,checkbox,textfield etc
• Click Text uses oCR to scan the screen of Virtual Machine... where as click image faster and more reliable ut fails only if background color changes
• This is done using Image Recording, it is preferred to be used when we are working on an image of a system that could be referred as the AWS instance or a Virtual Box
• In this , the main function of recording is click image and the recording to be done manually only
• click image -> this functin or activity is used as dragging and selecting an area with respect to which we can decide where to click
• click Text it does the same way as click image but in a different manner, it takes an OCR of the image and tries to find the element with same name as provided and click with respect to its position

Keyboard Actions

• If sometimes, the mouse actions fails to find the element , we can use the keyboard actions and automate the workflow using the keyboard shortcuts such as tab,ctrl+v etc.

Select and Copy

• this activity is used to copy the selectable fields inside an virtual environment
• it works similarly as , selecting the field we wish to copy

Scrap Relative

• This activity is used to copy data from non-clickable area which is done or preferred to be done using Google OCR and it can be set to find element with respect to some relative position

Lesson 7 Quiz Time

1. Creating automations in a Citrix environment is challenging because: Ans. You need to interact with the app using Image Recognition or OCR.
2. Is Reset Clipping Region mandatory to be executed at the end of a scrape relative sequence? Ans. No, for the next actions we can use other Clipping Regions.
3. What activities can be used to interact with applications in a Citrix environment? Ans . Type into, Click Image, Click Text
4. How can you scrape a field on a Citrix Environment when the value in that field changes each transaction? Ans. Find a static element nearby and use Scrape Relative
5. Click Image and Click OCR Text are not 100% reliable in Citrix environments. What method can be used instead (when applicable) to have safer actions? Ans. Setting focus on a reliable element and then navigating around the app using keyboard (up/down arrows, tab, etc) or using keyboard shortcuts. (Failed in above attempt)
6. Having an app in a Citrix environment with multiple text-boxes that look the same (size/style), how can you identify one of them to type into? Ans. By clicking relative to an unique text/image next to the textbox., You can’t identify it if it doesn’t have something unique next to it (text/image).
7. Is it possible to click a button with Click Image Activity if the target is not visible on the screen? Ans. No, you could click a button which is not visible only using selectors
8. Consider having an application in Citrix Environment that has a button named ‘Accept’ and also a label that contains the Accept word. How can Click Text be customized in order to access the correct button? Ans. By using the Occurrence property.
9. How can you improve accuracy when scraping with OCR a region that contains only digits? Ans. Use Google OCR with “Numbers Only” (Passed in above attempt)

Advanced Citrix Automation

Find Image

• This activity is used to pause the state of program until an certain Element is not found or loaded completely
• As output it gives the element which is defined to be found

Highlight

• it is used to detect/show/highlight a certain element over screen
• Highlighting a certian element can be done using
  1. Clipping Region
  2. Selector
  3. Element
• Highlight Time ~> The timeout or the amount of time for which to highlight a certain element is calculated in microseconds that is 2000 == 2 sec
• In highlight the color can be defined as well for customized workflow

Working with opening applications

• A better practice to open a certain app or application is to set shortcuts and open the app using send hotkey activity

Pick Activity

• This activity is a container based activity which further accomodates Pick branches
• This activity is used to set a certain activity to be completed in different possible conditions or scenarios
• Basically we provide a same action like opening a folder to be automate but in more then one possible condition of screen or background

Lesson 8 Quiz Time

1. What can be done when the Windows Remote Connection doesn’t allow sending hotkeys? Ans. It should work if the Windows Remote Connection is in ‘full-screen’ mode.
2. How can the robot pass a variable argument when opening an application in Citrix (eg: a web address for a browser)? Ans. In the command prompt, type in the path to the application and the argument
3. Which of the following activities can be used to select an item in drop down list, in Citrix?(Select all that apply.) Ans. Click Image , Click OCR Text
4. What happens if Find Image doesn’t actually find the desired image? Ans. An exception is thrown..
5. What is the EASIEST navigation method to be used in a form within Citrix? Ans. By sending keyboard commands/hotkeys (Passed)

Excel Automation

• Excel application scope ~> it is a container based activity and is used to do all workflows regarding the Excel file
• Visible ~> It is an inbuilt activity which if we checked tells UiPath to work on file using MSOffice and if not then all tasks are performed internally
• While using Direct access only single process can work where as while using MSOffice multiple can be done at the same time
• A range can be specified by defining the cells separated by :. A1:C5
• Build Data Table ~> this activity is used to create more data tables with very easy and simple GUI
• Add Data Row ~> this activity is used to add another row(data) inside the build data table activity or table made from it
• Append Range ~> It is used to append more data to same file
• Data tables are zero-indexed same as a list in python
• sort data table ~> This activity is used to sort some tabular data based on a certain column
• Select Range ~> This activity is used to select a range of cells over which further actions like copy/delete/paste can be performed
• Join Data Table ~> This activity is used to perform the JOIN operation
  • The Join Operation is of 4 types:
    1. inner join
    2. left join
    3. full join
• The table join criteria can be defined using either column data type or simple by column name written inside double-quotes
• the conditions can be set as more then one or either on one using AND and OR logical operators
• Output Data Table ~> This activity is used to convert a data table type variable to String
• Read Cell ~> used to read a specific cell from an excel file
• Write Cell ~> used to write in a specific cell from an excel file
• All numeric data read by Read Range function from Excel is interpreted as an Double data type
• Get row item ~> this activity is used to fetch the values of a specific column from a certain row
• Add data row ~> this activity is used to add a new row in an Excel file using an array of data which is defined using circular or curly brackets as (var1,var2) or {var1,var2}
• inputsTable.Rows.Count ~> it can be used to count the total number of rows
• Use of Workbooks is prefferable over Excel files as they do not require Excel to be installed

Lesson 9 Quiz Time

1. What happens if the AddHeaders option is checked for Read Range Activity? Ans. The first row from the specified range is considered to be the column names
2. In order to loop through all the rows of a data table, which activity should be used? Ans. For Each row
3. What activity can you use to create a DataTable from an input string? Ans. Generate Data Table
4. What happens if you try to use a Write Range activity to a .xlsx file that does not exist? Ans. It will create that file for you and write the data in it.
5. Can Excel related activities be used without having the Excel Application installed? Ans. Yes, but only for xlsx files (Passed)

PDF Automation

• Read PDF ~> This activity is used to read text from a PDF
• Read PDF with OCR ~> It goes by the name and is able to read the Image Text present in the PDF
• While using OCR to read PDF's , we have got 3 options
  1. Google OCR
  2. Microsoft OCR
  3. Abby's OCR ~> Maintains the structure of text present in PDF
• PDF activities are categorised into 2 parts:
  1. Processing large chunks of data
  2. Working on specific part of the file
• Anchor base method is more reliable then others since it can handle structural changes
• While trying to read text it is preferable to use Read PDF rather then Read PDF with OCR as OCR is more prone to errors
• In properties of PDF, the range of PDF pages can be set in the following format "1-4"

Lesson 10 Quiz Time

1. Will the Read PDF with OCR activity open the PDF document on the screen in order to read it?Will the Read PDF with OCR activity open the PDF document on the screen in order to read it? Ans. No
2. What is the easiest way to get the invoice number from a native PDF file? Ans. Open the PDF file with Adobe Acrobat Reader and scrape only the relevant information.
3. Which of the following activities requires the PDF file to be opened with Acrobat Reader in order to read it? Ans. Get Text
4. How can a robot read only the first page of a PDF file, using the PDF activities? Ans. Set the Range property to: “1”
5. If the PDF contains both images and native text, what activity should you use to read all the text from it? Ans. Read PDF with OCR

Email Automation

• Various activities supported in email automation are:
  1. SMTP ~> used to send mails
  2. POP3 ~> used to recieve mails supported by various domains
  3. IMAP ~> supports reading messages as well as marking them read or shifting to different folders
  4. Exchange ~> Microsoft supported activity for all kinds of email activities
  5. Outlook ~> automate the pre installed outlook software
• Four activities present to check mail are :
  1. POP3
  2. Outlook
  3. IMAP
  4. Exchange
• The data type of messages is System.net.mail.message
• Save Attachments activity is used to save attachments from a mail, it requires two arguments a mail type instance and path to save folder
• mail.Headers('Date') provides the Date Timestamp for any mail
• to filter mails fetched by UiPath set a filter in the properties menu such as "[RecievedTime] > '14/10/2019 09:41 AM'" or "[RecievedTime] > Now.AddDays(-1).ToString('MM/dd/yyyy hh:mm tt')"
• Take Screenshot is the activity used to take a screen shot at run time which is to be saved in a certain location using save image activity
• The attachment section of the Send Mail activity requires a file path to be sent
• To make something like message Dynamic in sending messages we can use format type same as python just replace the content to be changed dynamically with {0} and provide the argument in body section of send mail activity

Quiz Time Lesson 11

1. What activity can you use to send an email without entering the username and password of the email account? Ans. Send Outlook Mail Message
2. What activities can you use to send an email message? Ans. Send Outlook Mail Message. and Send SMTP Mail Message.
3. What is the supported variable type in the Output property field of all Get Mail activities (POP3, IMAP, Outlook, Exchange)? Ans. List (MailMessage)
4. If you are using the For Each activity to loop through a list of MailMessage variables, what should you set the TypeArgument property to? Ans. System.Net.Mail.MailMessage
5. The Send Outlook Mail Message activity will work without having Microsoft Outlook installed: Ans. False
6. Which of the following properties are found in the Get Outlook Mail Messages activity? Ans. MailFolder
7. Which of the following activities will allow you to only retrieve only unread messages? (Select all that apply.) Ans. Get OUTLOOK Mail Message and Get IMAP Mail Message
8. If you want to get only filtered MailMessage variables, what activity should you use? Ans. Get Outlook mail messages
9. Which Visual Basic property within the MailMessage class will you use to get the Date of an email? Ans. Headers(“Date”) (Passed)

Debugging And Exception Handling

• Slow Steps ~> This is the tool provided with Debugging Toolkit , it highlights each activity executing
• In Options ~> Highligh Element activity , highlights the UiElement being interacted with a Red Color
• Breakpoint ~> It is set an activity where we feel some error migth occur and then we have 3 options to continue our program execution
  1. Continue
  2. Step Over
  3. Step Into
• In Input Activities we have an option Simulate check in their properties which tend to send the input using Background Processes without using the mouse or keyboard
• Timeout property makes the activities wait for an element to appear or the activity to execute before giving an error
• Element Exists ~> This activity returns a boolean value that is True or False for an Element to be present on sceen or not
• Log Message ~> this activity can be used to set or give some message in output tab given in right side Properties panel... that is seen while execution
• Find Element ~> Stops the workflow until an element is found
• Wait Element Vanish ~> Waits for an element to disappear before continuing

Try Catch Finally

• Try Catch activity ~> it works same as in programming , if any activity fails in Try block then catch block will run followed by finally block
• System.Exception ~> It catches all types of errors
• To select all activities, it is easy by just dragging the cursor on all
• Once the type of Exception is selected in catch block.. followed by enter collapses the try block and we can start addig activities to work when error occurs
• rethrow activity ~> is used in catch block to show an error popup
• exception.message this is a primitive variable which contains the error message that might have occured

Logging Levels

• There are 6 log levels in UiPath:

  1. Verbose
  2. Trace
  3. Information
  4. Warning
  5. Error
  6. Critical

• Each log level has its own significance

• Verbose < Trace < Information < Warning < Error < Critical

• Creating user-defined log fields that have the same name as a default log field causes the logging process to become corrupted and may cause issues in the workflow you are running.

• Various Default Log Fields are:

  1. Message - The log message.
  2. Level - Defines the log severity.
  3. Timestamp - The exact date and time the action was performed.
  4. FileName - The name of the .xaml file being executed.
  5. jobId - The key of the job running the process.
  6. processName - The name of the process that triggered the logging.
  7. processVersion - The version number of the process.
  8. windowsIdentity - The name of the user that performed the action that was logged.
  9. robotName - The name of the robot (as defined in Orchestrator).

• for type conversion to integer we can use CInt as CInt(variable)

• You can separate individual components of your automation into different workflow files and then call them using Invoke Workflow.

Quiz Time Lesson 12

1. If you need to know if a UI Element is available on the screen or not, what activity should you use? Ans. Element Exists
2. What does the Locals panel display when you are working in Debug mode? Ans. The current values of your variables.
3. How many Catches can you have in a Try/Catch block? Ans. There is no limit on the number of catches.
4. What activity can be used in a Citrix environment to check whether a UI element is displayed or not? Ans. Image Exists
5. The Finally block of a Try/Catch activity is executed when: Ans. Every time, regardless if an exception occurred or not. (Passed)

Project Organization

• Following the best practices makes our project:
  1. Reliable ~> Solid Robust workflows that can handle errors
  2. Efficient ~> Shorter development time and smooth execution in production environment
  3. Maintainable ~> Easy to update when changes are required
  4. Extensible ~> New Usecases can be added

Best Practice

• Pick an appropriate layout for each workflow
  1. main WF -> flowchart/ state machine
  2. bussiness logic -> flowchart
  3. Ui Interactions(woring in same order) -> Sequence
  4. Avoid nested If else and use flowchart instead
• Break the whole process into smaller workflows
  1. Develop and test pieces independently
  2. reuse workflows across projects
  3. collaborate working on separate files
• Use Exception Handling
  1. Put problematic workflows inside Try_Catch
  2. Put externally invoked Workflows
  3. Implement recover sequence
• Make your workflows readable
  1. Give descriptive names to activities
  2. leave explanatory notes and comments using comment activity
  3. log real time execution process
• Keep it clean close applications,windows and web pages not being used

Invoke Method

• UiPath offers an activity same as import in python that is Invoke Method activity
• In this activity , we can execute any workflow and even pass arguments and import arguments
• Arguments just work as values which are provided for variables and these arguments or values of variables, can be either given as input or can be extracted as an output for another activity
• Direction column in variables define the redirection of values which can be In or Out or both In/Out
• Deserialize JSON activity ~> It is used to parse a json file and can be used to read or extract data from it
• to convert a variable... we can do it like convert.ToInt32(variable-name)

Quiz Time Lesson 13

1. What is the recommended layout for sequential activities? Ans. Sequence
2. What type of arguments can you use in a workflow? Ans. In/Out Out In
3. Is notifying the user via a Message Box activity a good way to keep track of a workflow’s execution progress ? Ans. No
4. What is the recommended layout for a sequence of UI interactions? Ans. Sequence
5. Which of the following is a good example of a workflow name? Ans. GetCustomerNumber.xaml (Passed)

RPA Developer Foundation Training - Final Test

(Passed Successfully)

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Level 2 Orchestrator Training

Link TO Version Details Of Different Orchestrators

• UiPath Orchestrator is a web based application
• It Enables efficient resource management
• It allows Workload allocation, Scheduling and monitoring of robots
• Streamlines the teamwork

Should Stop

• This activity is used in workflow to stop a executing process from Orchestrator
• It return a Boolean Value which can be used by Decision Flow

Asset

• In UiPath Studio we have an activity called Get Asset
• It gets the asset value from the Orchestrator and this activity works only when the workflow is published to Orchestrator
• Asset is basically just a variable which can be defined in the Orchestrator and used by the workflow
• It can be specified for multiple robots or individual that is using same asset variable for multiple bots with different values
• In properties panel, name of asset should be written as string that is if the name is Name then in properties write it as "Name"
• Assets are of 4 Data Types:
  1. Credentials
  2. Text
  3. Boolean
  4. Integer

Get Credentials

• Credentials type requires 2 input values (Username and Password) in Studio as well as Orchestrator
• Basically when Credential Asset is made with two values which are Username and Password
• Then they are fetched and used at run time in Studio using Get Credential activity
• To use the pass acquired from the Get Credentials we would need to use Type Secure Text activity
• To use Windows Credentials use UiPath.Credential.Activities

Type Secure text

• This activity is used to decrypt the .NET secured string from encrypted password to normal decrypted text

Queue

• the transaction items in a queue are processed in chronological order
• The items inside Queues can be processed by multiple Robots.

Add Queue Item

• This activity is used to send values or add the items to Queue in Orchestrator
• DeadLine ~> This property is used to set a sepecific time limit within which the queue item is supposed or required to be processed e.g., datetime.Now.addHours(24)
• PostPone ~> This property is used to postpone the activity upon reaching Deadline by some time like datetime.Now.addHours(2)
• Multiple robots can be assigned to process the same Queue
• Reference property can be set to an item to identify it uniquely in Orchestrator
• ItemInformation ~> this property is used to define the values to be added in the Queue present in Orchestrator

Get Transaction Item

• This activity is used to fetch values or items from the Queue made in Orchestrator
• When this activity is set into loop it iterates over and fetch all the items in the Queue
• transaction.SpecificContent("Column-name").toString

Set Transaction Status

• It is used to set status of the processed item from the Queue
• If the Status is not set by the Robot then it is set to Abandon automatically after 24 hour

Set Transaction Progress

• It is used to set some Value for the progress column in Orchestrator regarding the Processes in Queues

Complete Documentation can be found at

Orchestrator

Terminating and stopping a process

• Pressing Stop requires you to use the Should Stop activity in Studio while developing the process. The activity returns a boolean value. It informs whether the Stop button has been pressed in Orchestrator by the time the Control Flow reached the Should Stop activity. This is similar to a Save Game function in a computer game.
• Pressing Kill is the equivalent of stopping a process from the Studio. Orchestrator will connect to your Robot and send a stop command to the process.

Trigger

• Trigger is like Scheduling a process that is having Orchestrator press Play for you at a time which you specify.

Steps to Use Orchestrator

1. Create your workflow that you wish to deploy over Orchestrator
2. Open the Following url Cloud Uipath
3. In Service section , select the StudentDefault service (UiPath Orchestrator will be opened)
4. Create a machine
   1. Click on Machine in Left panel under MANAGEMENT section
   2. Click on + icon followed by Standard Machine
   3. In Name write the Name of your Laptop(you can get that from next step) and Description as you like
   4. Click on Provision
5. Open UiPath Robot on your local Machine
   1. Click on Settings icon
   2. Select Orchestrator Settings option
   3. Enter the Machine Key(you can get that by clicking on edit on Machine made in previous step)
   4. In Orchestrator Url type the cloud-orchestrator-url
   5. Click on Connect(Local System gets connected to Orchestrator at cloud)
6. Now to Add your Robot
   1. In UiPath Studio , click on Publish button given in Design Panel(just click ok)
   2. Select Machine Name given in previous step
   3. In Username, type the name configured with your UiPath Studio
   4. Click create
7. Set Environment
   1. In Robots tab, Click on environments
   2. add a new environment
   3. Click on manage in properties of environment
   4. Select your robot and click on Update
8. Set The Process
   1. Go to Process Tab
   2. Click on + icon
   3. Select the Package Name and Environment
   4. Click on Create
9. Finally you are ready to run/execute your bot
   1. Go to Jobs
   2. Click on Start Button
   3. Select The Process made in previous step
   4. Select your Robot
   5. Click Start and all done

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Level 3 Advance Training

UiPath Robotic Enterprise Framework

• This Framework is a Template provided by UiPath for transactional activities or workflow
• Transactional Activities~> Basically every project can be divided into 4 states
  1. Initial State ~> Start/Open all applications
  2. Get Transactional Information ~> Take Input or Fetch from Queue/Excel all the Data need to be processed or used for processing
  3. Process Transaction ~> Process all the information(calculation,Decision taking,Data Conversion etc)
  4. End Process ~> Close all the applications which are not required
• It can be accessed through START panel of UiPath Studio in the Template Section
• REFramework consists of few pre-build workflows which are used to simplify the Automation Task in a proper manner that are:
  1. InitAllSettings ~> Processes / Reads the config file containing essential details
  2. InitAllApplications ~> Start the Initial State and Open all neccessary applications
  3. GetAppCredential ~> In terms of Login , gain user credentials with proper security
  4. GetTransactionData ~> Get Transactional Information from User/Queues/Excel Files etc
  5. SetTransactionStatus ~> Set the status for information being used(Processed/retried/abandon/NeedToBeProccessed etc)
  6. KillAllProcess ~> To Stop the Process completely on recieving STOP signal
  7. CloseAllApplications ~> Close the applications in Workflow as soon as their work is completed
  8. TakeScreenshot ~> During Exception Occurrence, Used to Take Screenshot and store in Exceptions_Screenshots folder,to help developer
• RefFramework is based on the principle that data is stored in the form of a Queue that is FIFO
• Building productive Robots require:
  1. Proper Exception Handling(try_Catch)
  2. Recovery Abilities(ReStart or Recover from Possible failures)
  3. Effective Logging(Secure the Status of Each part of workflow)
  4. Reporting Functionalities(logs and screenshots)
  5. High Maintainability
  6. Extensibility(Easy to modify)
  7. Reusability
  8. Ease of Development
• The Framework files can be downloaded from the following Github Repository link FrameWork
• Request Credential ~> This is an activity used to get credentials from user same as input dialog
• This Framework mainly works on State machine activity which includes
  1. Main State Machine
  2. Exceptions Handling
  3. Recovery Methods
  4. States
     1. InitState(Config file,InitAllApplications) ~> Initialization(Open Application,login to website,startup required values etc)
     2. Get Transaction Data(TransactionItem,TransactionNumber)
     3. Process Transaction
     4. End State
  5. SetTransactionStatus
  6. GetAppCredentials

InitAllSettings

• In The Reframework, it is the Initial xaml file to be used
• It contains a Config workbook with 3 sheets
  1. Settings ~> We can store any configuration related to the business process such as Urls,filepaths,credentials and any process specific piece of information
  2. Constants ~> It stores the technical settings that are useful for Developers, it contains information like number of delays , retries, timeouts,image accuracy settings, static log parts
  3. Assets
• In Settings Sheet , there are 3 columns
  1. Name ~> Always contains a string which is the key in the Dictionary
  2. Value ~> Holds the dictionary value
  3. Description ~> Holds the detailed account of each setting

Exceptions

• There are 2 kinds of Exception that are:
  1. Business Exception ~> In Case of issues in data , invalid data,missing information in data. business rule exceptions are something you defined while building the process(exceptions which are expected and there is no chance of record getting success even if we retry) Transaction status is set as failed and transaction is not re-tried
  2. System/Application Exception ~> In case application not available(UI Element not available or unknown error) Transaction is re-tried

Working of REFramework

Note:

• In case Exception occurs anywhere we set SystemError to exception with data type Exeption
• At Every Phase of This Framework , logging is done for better development experience and Easy Debuggig

1. We always initiate the workflow with main.xml file
   • It contains a Flowchart with following Transactions
     1. Init
     2. Get Transaction Data
     3. Process Transaction
     4. End Process
2. Starting With Init transaction, It contains a Try_Catch_Finally block of activity
   • Assign a SystemError variable to nothing which used for Exception Verification
   • For first Time,by default reads the config file present at Folder/Data/config.xlsx to acquire basic pre-set settings/values and kills all initally running processes as defined in KillAllProcesss.xaml
   • Run InitAllApplications.xaml to open all required application upon which we have to work
3. Upon Failure of above process we move to EndProcess Transaction else
   • Move to Get Transaction Data transaction
   • It checks for StopSignal that is recieved from Cloud Console
   • Starts to access/fetch data from Queue in Orchestrator using Get Transaction Item which gives an Queue as output
   • If some Error occurs,logs are set and TransactionItem is set to Nothing
4. If no data/TransactionItem is fetched from above Transaction, The workflow moves towards End Process transaction else
   • Move to Process Transaction
   • In this, we initiate the main Processing workflow xaml file that uses the input and complete the task
   • If Some Error is Faced the workflow sets the Bussiness Exception and System Exception to initiate the Recovery Process
   • Most of the time, Upon recieving Error, its best to stop the processing
   • After Completion of the activities.. a Finally block is used to always set the transaction status of each Transaction Item
5. Upon Reaching the End Process transaction
   • It intially try to normally Close all applications and upon not being able to do so
   • It uses KillAllProcess to forcefully to its work

Transaction Processing

• A transaction represents the minimum amount of data and the necessary steps required to process the data, as to fulfill a section of a business process

• Once processed, the data is no more required

• A Business process can be divided into 3 categories:

  1. Linear ~> The steps of the process are performed only once and, if there is the need to process different data, the automation needs to be executed again.

  INIT ~> GET DATA ~> PROCESS DATA ~> END
  

  2. Iterative ~> The steps of the process are performed multiple times, but each time different data items are used

  INIT ~> GET DATA ~> | Process Data in Loop | ~> END
  

  3. Transactional ~> Similarly to iterative processes, the steps of transactional processes repeat multiple times over different data items. However, the automation is designed so that each repeatable part is processed independently

• Dispatcher ~> The dispatcher is a process used to push transaction items to an Orchestrator queue. It extracts data from one or multiple sources and uses it to create Queue items to be processed by Performer robots.

• Performer ~> The performer is a process used to pull transaction items from an orchestrator queue and process them as needed in the company. Queue items are processed one at a time.It uses error handling and retry mechanisms for each processed item.

• Dispatcher and Performer models advantages:

1. Better seperation of processes (between dispatcher & performer)
2. Better separation & distinction between architecture and process layers
3. Better error handling and retry mechanism
4. Possibility to run processes across several machines (availability)
5. Better re-usability within your project's created components
6. Improved built-in configuration & Orchestrator integration
7. Previous workflows created without REFramework can be easily adapted and deployed in order to use REFramework and the dispatcher / performer model

Re-Framework Meetup Learning

• In Config file, we have got 3 sheets
  1. Settings ~> Contain data we wish to access such as email,url,username or password
  2. Constant ~> Something like retry count
  3. Assets ~>
• A Config variable is of Dictionary (String,Object)
• Reframework can be used for multiple input types (queues,datatable,array,list et)

UiPath Security Training

Layers in Orchestrator

1. Presentation Layer(accessed via browser)
   • Communication between clients (browser,robots) and Orchestrator is encrypted using the secure https channel
   • user session is saved in a session cookie(with a configured expiration time)
   • the password complexity is configurable
   • account automatic locking after a configurable number of failed attempts
   • Protection against CSRF token
2. Service Layer(containing the business logic)
   • Role-based access control(RBAC)
   • no data sent outside customers network
   • logging - default actions are logged for auditing, and so are the users actions
   • the section containing the encryption key in the configuration files can be encrypted
3. Persistence Layer ~> Build using SQL and elastic search
   • encrypted communication with SQL server
   • each password is encrypted with a different encryption key
   • login attempts are logged - result ,IP Address, timestamp , browser info
   • user roles can be defined for data stored in SQL server to prevent unauthorized access

Potential Risks associated with RPA Projects are:

1. Robots having access to Credentials normally used by human workers
2. Robots having access to privileged information such as personal data of commpany staff, financial data
3. Unauthorized modifications of automation workflows in the development or testing phase
4. Unauthorized modification of automation workflows or runtime parameters in the production environment

Features

Features are the characteristics that are embedded in the product or solution and implemented in order to enhance the security and mitigate risks

Guidelines

Best Practices to be used while setting up RPA workflows

Code Review

• It aims to ensure that the process that will run on the live data is safe and no security breaches are possible
• Checks whether the credentials are used only where needed and are not passed outside the trusted environment
• Prevent sending sensitive data outside the trusted scope

Notes

• We can keep track of RPA projects with multiple developers in working by keeping the source code files(XAML files) in Source Code Control System
• To Store Credentials in UiPath we use:
  1. Orchestrator Credential Assets ~> encrypted using AES 256 and stored on the SQL server base but should be configured with value per robot to prevent unauthorized access
  2. Windows Credential Manager ~> works as a local machine storage and should be used only in case Orchestrator in not accessible

Protect Sensitive Data

1. Configuring a trusted Channel : VPN Connections,secure FTP sesions, HTTPS websites
2. Data encryption, when using untrusted channels
3. Usage of limited access environments, such as restricted shared folders or restricted Sharepoint domains

Environment Isolation

• During RPA Projects the Developer Team and Production Team should work in different environments
• Development Environment
  1. The RPA Developers and their robots interact only with systems that have sandbox environments
  2. the robots should not be able to connect to the UAT and production orchestartor
• Productin Environment
  1. The robots permanently monitored for malicious tempering of packages and the execution of correct version of the package
  2. access to the robots in the production should be restricted to the trusted individuals

Multitenancy

• It is a feature of Orchestrator that allows complete seperation of Data among tenants, providing a dedicated share of the instance including its data,configuration, user and role management up unitl license management
• In simple terms, using Single Orchestrator Instance an organisation can have, multiple role based users each having having seperate:
  1. Robots
  2. processes
  3. Assets
  4. Queues
  5. Data
  6. Configuration
  7. Users
  8. Roles

Protecting data in Transit and at Rest using

1. Transport Level Security 1.2 Protocol
2. Advanced Encryption Standard on 256-bit cipher
3. Secure Hash Algorithm 2

Quiz Time

1. What are the main differences between guidelines and security features? Ans. Guidelines are recommended general best practices, while security features are already implemented in the product
2. User access to the Orchestrator web app is protected using the following features: Ans. a) communication between client and Orchestrator is encrypted with HTTPS; b) Password complexity is configurable; c) the account is locked after a configurable number of unsuccessful attempts
3. Is Storing Credentials a feature or a guideline? Ans. Feature
4. Authenticating the users on the Orchestrator platform can be done with: Ans. Google accounts with OpenAuthentication 2.0,Local username and password,Active Directory username,using Windows Authentication, Azure Active Directory authentication
5. A valid SSL certificate is required to install Orchestrator. Ans. True
6. Is Package Securing a feature or a guideline? Ans. Feature
7. With the Account Lockout security feature you can prevent additional logins for a period of time after a number of failed attempts. Ans. True
8. The Audit page on the Orchestrator platform allows you to filter by: Ans. Component and Action
9. What is the common practice to keep the different versions of each XAML file in an RPA project? Ans. Source Code Control System
10. Packages uploaded into Orchestrator (either manually or published from Studio) are automatically uploaded by Orchestrator to all robots that can execute these packages. Ans. False
11. Orchestrator offers the functionality to create any number of custom roles. Ans. True
12. In an organization with Development, Testing and Production environments, an RPA Developer should not have access to the Production Environment Ans. true
13. CyberArk can be integrated with the Orchestarator in order to retrieve the robot credentials from CyberArk instead of SQL Server DB. Ans. True
14. Is Isolating Environments a feature or a guideline? Ans. Guideline
15. Security risks can appear in: Ans. Both development and production phases

UiPath Licensing Training

License for Studio

1. Named User ~> Single specific User, enables each user to access the software at any time ,on any machine
2. Concurrent User ~> Useful in BPO scenarios,indicates how many users can access the software simultaneously
3. Concurrent Runtime ~> Indicates the number of robots that can be simultaneously connected to Orchestrator , regardless of the user or machine
4. Server License ~> is required to install orchestrator instace

Notes

• All the licenses for all the robots can be easily managed by Orchestrator
• Named and Concurrent User License can not coexist in single orchestrator instance
• All the platform license must have same anniversary date

Host Licensing

• It provides full control of all the licenses belonging to an organization
• Allows centralised license management and distribution

StandAlone License

• Used when Orchestrator is not used

1. Named User License
2. Node Locked License ~> completely similar to Concurrent User license

License Activation

• To Activate any license in machine follow the following steps:

1. Open CMD as administrator
2. CD to Uipath studio folder
3. run command regutil activate /email_address /license_code
4. To check if license activated successfully run command regutil.exe get-info, it shows complete information about license
5. To export the information to a file, run command regutil export-info /out_file=Path-to-store

QuizTime

1. What Robot type is used to test an automation workflow? Ans. NonProduction
2. A Node Locked License... Ans. Can be activated and used on a single machine,allows multiple users to work successively on a machine using the same software instance, is available for unattended robots
3. A developement robot Ans. Activates studio,enables workflow execution on local machine,ensures the ability to connect the local studio instance to orchestrator
4. A Concurrent User License is dedicated to a single specific user. Ans. False
5. Which license types are available for Attended Robots and Studio? Ans. Named User and Concurrent User
6. Which UiPath Platform licenses can be managed through Orchestrator? Ans. Concurrent User,Named User, Concurrent Runtime
7. Concurrent User licenses are usually suitable in BPO scenarios, for companies whose employees work in shifts. Ans. True
8. Named User and Concurrent User licenses can coexist within a single Orchestrator tenant. Ans. False
9. All the platform licenses (managed through Orchestrator) must have the same anniversary date. Ans. True
10. For Unattended Robots, the only available Standalone License option is Ans. Node Locked
11. The number of Concurrent Runtime licenses indicates... Ans. The number of robots that can be simultaneously connected to Orchestrator , regardless of the user or machine
12. What is the required license type in a scenario where employees must be able to execute processes whenever needed? Ans. Named User

SAP Automation

• When automating SAP,start with recording the actions, most of the time it will work fine
• To Interact with unrecognised elements you can use ClickText & ClickImage and keyboard shortcuts to reach difficult buttons or menu items
• For Elusive UI Elements , simulate human activities that is what human will do activate it
• For tabular data you have to use loops , although that is hardly SAP specific
• To Read an tabular data of unknown length, read each row in an infinite loop until an operation fails
• To work on checkboxes and special elements , use the getAttributes activity, it shows a bunch of hidden information that can prove to be very useful

QuizTime

1. Can SAP client be automated if it is web hosted? Ans. It's a trap. SAP is not available on web
2. In a situation where a data table cannot be scraped by using Data Scraping but each cell is accessible by selectors, how can the robot extract all the cells from a column with a large number of rows? Ans. By generating a selector for the first cell and configuringits TableRow property to iterate through all the rows
3. If you want to record a Click activity on an ephemeral element that appears only after focusing on a text-box relative to it, can that be done? Ans. Yes, press F2 and in the 3 second pause put the focus on the text-box.
4. In a SAP application, you would like the robot to click on a specific folder in a folder hierarchy. The panel containing the hierarchy doesn’t allow more granular selectors inside of it, thus no selector can be created for a specific folder. What can be used? Ans. A Click Image activity, A Click Text activity with Native as scraping method.
5. Some UI Elements are not selectable in SAP client, but some of them are. Which might be the problem? Ans. The scripting is enabled only on the client side
6. Which is the easiest method in order to extract a table from SAP that has the scripting enabled on both sides? Ans. Using the Data Scraping wizard
7. How can the robot identify if a checkbox is checked or not? Ans. By using get Attribute activity
8. Consider having to click a button which cannot be accessed by using a selector. What other options can be used? Ans. Click relative to an element that can be identified by a selector,Use a Click Image activity set to click the image of that button, See if clicking the button can be replaced with sending a combination of keys.

RPA Developer Continuous Learning

Regex Selectors

• A Regular Expression, regex or regexp is a sequence of characters that define a search pattern.
• In order to use it:

1. You can specify the target search tag by using matching:<tag_name>=’regex’;
2. You can specify the search pattern by using <tag_name>='<regex_command>' e.g., aaname={{regex}} matching:aaname='regex' where regex is variable with required expression

Fuzzy Selector

• Fuzzy string matching is a technique to search strings which are not 100% match, and match a pattern approximately, rather than exactly.
• A selector’s fuzzy search capability enables you to locate strings based on a pattern, rather than on an exact match to your input.
• In order to use the fuzzy search capabilities, you need to include in the top-level tag of the target selector a matching option:

1. You can specify the target search tag by using matching:<tag_name>=fuzzy;
2. Determines the matching threshold by using fuzzyLevel:<tag_name>=<numerical_value>.
3. The values supported are numerical from 0 to 1, a closer to 0 value returns results with lower similarity, and a value closer to 1 returns the results with higher similarity.

• If more elements are found, the target action is executed on the first one. e.g., aaname={{regex}} matching:aaname='fuzzy' fuzzylevel:aaname='0.7'

Non-Greedy Selector

• Non-Greedy search gives you the option to search the subsequent tags in all the windows that match the top-level tag.
• In order to use the Non-Greedy search capabilities, you need to include in the top-level tag of the target selector an Idx() attribute: You can search through all active window instances for the element matching the top-level tag by using <idx='*'>.
• Please note that the <idx='1'> option only searches through the window instances in focus.
• So if there are multiple tabs open and you want Bot to apply or find the given selectors to all tabs without bringing them to foreground then we use these Non-Greedy Selector
• Non-Greedy Selectors are supported only for and .

Note:

• You should extend the selector definition to have a new namespace for search matching and for the fuzzy level where: matching = regex, fuzzy, fuzzywords, fuzzyLevel = 0 .. 1

WebDriver

• WebDriver is a remote control interface that enables introspection and manipulation of Document Object Model (DOM) elements in web browser.
• The Document Object Model (DOM) is a cross-platform and language-independent interface that treats an XML or HTML document as a tree structure wherein each node is an object representing a part of the document.
• Using this protocol, headless browser automation (simulate work) becomes possible automating web pages through the WebDriver API,without having to install extensions and even without using the GUIs
• Headless testing is when you run a UI-based browser test without showing the browser UI. It's running a test or running a script against a browser but without the browser, UI starting up.
• Types of supported drivers:

1. Chrome Driver
2. Mozilla Firefox

Installing the Web Driver Protocol

1. Start by downloading the WebDriver executable corresponding to the browser you want to use;
2. Install and download WebDriver in a location of your choice,such as C:\webdriver\Chrome
3. Select the Path variable either from User or System and Edit
4. Click and set path as C:\webdriver\Chrome
5. Restart the Robot Service for the changes to take effect and you are good to go

Activity Configuration

1. To enable the WebDriver capabilities in your browser activities select the browser you are using from the BrowserType field , then the WebDriver option from the Communications Method
2. To perform activities without the Headless Browser leave the Hidden checkmark unchecked within the Properties panel else vice-versa

Triggers

• In New Orchestrator, we have 2 types of triggers:

1. Time Triggers (ex Schedule) : plans a recurrent job
2. Queue Trigger : Triggers job whenever new items are added to Queue

• A Queue can have only 1 trigger associated with it
• When we enable an SLA,the association between the process and the queue is automatically made

Credential Store Integration in Orchestrator

• A Credential Store is a named location within a secure store from which you can retrieve robot credentials and credential assets when needed.
• Mostly Used ones are:
  1. CyberArk integration
  2. Azure KeyVault integration
  3. Orchestrator database (default)
• To add 3rd party plugins, edit the web.config file found in the installed orchestrator files by looking for plugins.SecureStores and add file names simply by adding values using comma. and restart orchestrator service

IT Automation

• The activities are built on top of the official APIs or SDKs provided by the technology vendors (e.g. Microsoft, Amazon, VMware, Citrix, and others)
• The activities run in the background, not via the UI
• The activities are developed and owned by UiPath
• They are published on the official feed and we offer long term support and official maintenance
• The activities are certified and scanned with VERACODE and FOSSA

What are the capabilities of IT Automation Activity Packages?

• Easy to Use - Easily create, update, manage and run IT automation processes
• The list of supported technologies is continuously expanding - Automation for On-Premise and Cloud IT infrastructures & services, User Management systems, Virtualized Environments;
• Seamless integration - secure integration with your existing Systems & Applications.
• Examples: Deploy Server(Cloud/onprem), AD-Create User/Reset User Password, VMware export VM to OVF...and many more

Features

• easy to use by drag and drop
• reduced setup time
• background running via APIs
• no additional costs with implementation
• blends with your existing partner ecosystem
• secure Veracode certified
• official long-term support by UiPath

Integration

1. Self Service & Delegation, Triggers, Integrations
   • schedule jobs from the Orchestrator web application - for example, the controlled maintenance power-off of a datacenter
   • jobs automatically triggered by an event - for example, a password reset based on a ticket
   • nightly trigger a servers power-off job to stop unused computers and save costs.
2. Orchestrator mobile app
   • start process jobs from your mobile devices
   • access logs and reports on the go
   • reply to Long Running Workflows approval requests
   • react to critical IT requests in real time.
3. Integrate the existing IT scripts in the UiPath automations
   • increased security - for example, credentials can be safely stored in Orchestrator assets or secure vaults
   • access control - delegate workflow executions to other colleagues
   • mobility: run them on the go
   • integrated with approval and persistence
   • support for Audit / ISO certifications - logging layer and reporting.

Important Terms

1. Microsoft Active Directory

• Active Directory (AD) is a directory service that Microsoft developed for the Windows domain networks. It is included in most Windows Server operating systems as a set of processes and services. Active Directory uses Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) versions 2 and 3, Microsoft's version of Kerberos, and DNS.
• Fore more info

2. Domain Controller

• A Server running in Active Directory Domain Service(AD DS) is called a domain controller.It authenticates and authorizes all users and computers in a Windows domain type network-assigning and enforcing security policies for all computers and installing or updating software

3. sAMAccountName

• The sAMAccountName property is a login name used to support clients and servers from the previous versions of Windows, such as Windows NT 4.0,Windows 95,Windows 98, and LAN Manager.The login name must be less than 20 characters and be unique among all security principal objects within the domain
• Fore more info

4. Microsoft Exchange Server

• Microsoft Exchange Server is a mail server and calendaring server developed by Microsoft. It runs exclusively on Windows Server operating systems
• Fore more info

5. MailBox

• User mailboxes are Exchange mailboxes that are associated with people,typically one mailbox per person. Each user mailbox has an associated Active Directory account that gives the person access to the mailbox to send and receive email messages and create meetings and appointments
• Fore more info

6. Exchange Management Shell

• The Exchange Management Shell is built on Windows PowerShell technology and provides a powerful command-line interface that enables the automation of Exchange administration tasks.
• It can be used to:
  1. Create email accounts
  2. Create Send connectors
  3. Receive connectors
  4. Configure mailbox database properties
  5. Manage distribution groups
  6. Bulk Operations
• In fact, when you do something in the Exchange admin center (EAC), the Exchange Control Panel (ECP), or the Exchange Management Console (EMC), it's the Exchange Management Shell that does the work behind the scenes.
• Fore more info

Active Directory and Exchange Server Activity

Prerequisites for Active Directory

1. Active Directory Server
2. Username
3. Password

• It offers activities for Microsoft Active Directory Domain Services (AD DS)

• It provides a hierarchical data storage for objects in a network.This set of activities enables IT professionals to easily automate important operations with Active Directory objects like users,groups,and computers

• Possible operations that can be automated are:

  1. Creating and updating user groups
  2. Managing group membership
  3. AD object management
  4. Access control and
  5. rights management

Microsoft Exchange Server

1. Install Exchange Management shell on the Exchange Server
2. The machine where the workflow is running should be domain-joined with the Exchange Server, and access should be available - FQDN(Fully Qualified Domain Name ) of the Exchange Server should be known/resolved by the robot machine. e.g., Mail.devsl.local

• It offers administration activities for On-Prem Microsoft Exchange Server 2016 and 2019
• With these activities, you can delete and create Exchange mailboxes , as well as enable and disable archiving for existing mailboxes.

Various Possible Processes that can be automated

1. Employees Onboarding

• When a new employee is hired in a company, the HR department provides the input for a UiPath automation process which can be in any format, let's say Excel.

• Our workflow will create a corresponding new user account in Active Directory, will generate a random password for it and will set it to expire after the first login, and lastly adds the user account to a list of specified groups.

2. Employees Offboarding

• When an employee leaves the company, the associated Active Directory user account is removed from the groups it belongs to and the user account is disabled.

3. Password Reset & User Account Unlock

• These are the most common IT operations that are happening on a daily basis in any company. Automating them will make the life of IT admins easier.

• For example, employees can make requests to an IT Help Desk Chatbot which automatically triggers a UiPath process to respond to their requests for password reset or user account unlock. This can happen almost instantly.

4. Active Directory Objects Management

• These are the most common IT operations that are happening on a daily basis in any company. Automating them will make the life of IT admins easier.

• For example, employees can make requests to an IT Help Desk Chatbot which automatically triggers a UiPath process to respond to their requests for password reset or user account unlock. This can happen almost instantly.

5. Access Control & Rights Delegation

• You can manage the access to miscellaneous resources via Active Directory group memberships.

Orchestration Process

Long-running workflows

• A Long running workflow is a workflow which needs to wait for an external service to complete a period of time to pass or a Human user to provide input before it can continue
• These go into a suspended state until the conditions are met for it to resume. This greatly reduces resource usage
• While the long-running workflow is waiting, the workflow context (The state variables ad of the execution) remains persistent

Asynchronous Processing

• When executing a set steps synchronously,like in the case of a For Each activity, the system waits for each iteration of the loop to complete before executing to the next one.
• When executing the steps asynchronously,like in the case of a Parallel for Each activity ,multiple transactions can be processed at the same time. The transactions are executed in different threads. Threads are series of activities that can run concurrently.

When should we choose Orchestration Process

• When our process will run in an unattended environment and requires that we use a rules engine to stitch together robot tasks, human tasks and asynchronous processing.

• When the execution of our process needs to wait for an event to complete and we don't want the robot to keep polling for resources

Universal Blob Storage

• The Universal Blob Storage allows you to publish a set of generic storage API methods.By using this approach, the application services become agnostic of the native storage provider
• The UBS makes the process of switching between different flavours of storage solutions easy and transparent, facilitating cost optimization, performance scaling and data center improvements

UiPath - Storage Framework

Definition of Terms

1. Storage ~> Abstract a key-value storage solution.The Storage Client API interface is compliant with the Object Storage cloud terminology.The API user should design the data with respect to a flat model(bucket like).
2. Storage Provider ~> The underneath implementation of the persistence system, the storage wapped by the Storage Client API interface
3. Storage Bucket ~> Bucket as it is described by the Object Storage concepts.By analogy with the traditional file systems, the bucket should be read as a disk volume
4. Storage Content ~> The actual data being persisted into the wrapped storage solution
5. Storage Content Prefix ~> The mechanism to logically group the saved content under a single bucket
6. Storage Location ~> It fully describes the location of the content inside the storage, that's the tuple (key,prefix,bucket). The key must be unique across the enclosing bucket
7. Storage Transaction ~> It's a best effort mechanism to address the all-or-nothing request for a set of storage commands

AI Computer Vision Demo

• To install, first we need to remove UIAutomation activities which comes pre-installed
• Go to Manage Package and install Computer Vision activities package given officially by UiPath
• It Gives various activities and Computer Vision Recorder
• server path is cv.uipath.com
• ESC ~> Stop Recorder
• F2 ~> Delay
• F5 ~> Refresh CV scope
• ALT + left ~> to back to main page
• All the activities are selected based on Anchors
• yellow color ~> Similar selections are present on screen
• red color ~> Selection is not unique or does not have proper unique anchor
• green color ~> selection and its anchor is unique and usable
• CV Highlight ~> This activity is used to highlight any particular element in our workflow during execution. It can use output object of some activity as its input object to detect and highlight an object/element
• Article for more learning

Intelligent OCR Activities

• Taxonomy Manager ~> Create and edit a set of document types that are sorted by Groups and Categories
• The created taxonomy can be used by converting it into a .NET data type with the Load Taxonomy activity
• The Digitize Document activity is used to turn the docs into digitalized docs generating classification algos used by the Classify Document Scope activity
• The Classify Document Scope activity allows for the usage of any classification algorithm to identify the type of a document
• classificationResults.Any tells if classification is possible or data is possible to be extracted
• The Data Extraction Scope activity enables us to retrieve information from documents based on the taxonomy and document type by calling the data extraction algorithms we configure
• The object can be mapped to a DataSet using the Export Extraction Results activity, or used as-is for more complex queries
• The Train Classifiers and Extractors scope activity allows for the completion of the feedback loop for any classifiers and data extraction algorithms capable of learning ( the Keyword Based Classifier for example)
• Important Docs to be referred when using these activities Intelligent OCR activities
• These are similar to IQBot functioning

UiPath Remote Extension

• Used to automate applications inside Remote Applications
• Needs to be installed in Remote Systems
• Can be obtained through Contacts form from UiPath website easily
• helps to use any NativeDesktop RDP and Citrix Automation

RPA Solution Architect Role

• The RPA Solution Architect will design the end-to-end architecture of the RPA solution,typically this is achieved through a diagram that represents the logical connections between the robots, the entities used, all the involved sub-processes, and the input and output data
• Involved in various stages such as development,testing and performance analytics
• Decide how many robots to be used,what their configurations are going to be and how they will be split between files and Orchestrator assets as well as what Queues, schedules and documents will be used
• Logging and Reporting
• Needs knowledge of Servers,storage,firewalls,load balancers, routers etc.

Stages of an RPA Project

1. Infrastructure Setup (Enable)

• Designing the server architecture
• Installing and configuring the architecture
• Setting up dev,test & production environments

2. Project Governance (Preparation)

• Agreeing on the project development approach
• Reviewing the RPA best practices

3. Workflow Design (Design)

• Filling the Process Design Document (PDD)
• Creating test cases and data
• Designing the solution

4. Workflow Development (Build)

• Building the workflows
• Performing Unit and Functional testing
• Creating the Development Specification Document (DSD)

5. Quality Assurance (Test)

• Executing the test cases
• Reporting the results
• Making the Go/NoGo descision

6. Hypercare (Sustain)

• Performing workflow support
• Managing Changes and improvements

Python

• The Python Activities can be used using the Package UiPath.Python.Activities
• This Package Consists of following activities:
  1. Python Scope
  2. Load Python Script
  3. Invoke Python Method
  4. Get Python Object
  5. Run Python Script

Python Scope

• This Activity is used to set or connect UiPath robot with python environment installed on your system.
• This activity requires path to the folder containing the python.exe file
• UiPath currently only supports python version < 7
• The Path to python.exe can be acquired from the Windows Environment Variables tab
• Make sure python 3.6 or less version can be accessed by cmd using python keyword.

Load Python Script

• This activity enables two kind of inputs
  1. Code ~> You can just type the complete code as within "" ( Double Quotes)
  2. File ~> Best approach is to write your code in a python file and give path to the file in this input field
• This activity gives an python instance to be referred to in another activites

Invoke Python Method

• This activity is used to execute specific functions from our python code that are present in python instance which is the output of the Load Python Script activity
• This activity enables 3 kinds of parameters:

1. Input Parameters ~> Any number of input you would like to provide to your function. This input should be in the format of object The object should be like {"some string","charcater like /"} Assuming our python code is

from collections import Counter

def CalculateCharacterLength(string,char):
    strDict = Counter(string)
    return strDict[char]

2. Instance ~> It takes python instance to work upon
3. Name ~> The input to this field is the exact function name to be called

• The output of this activity is a python object or python instance which again needs to be converted to .net object to be used along with other activities

Get Python Object

• This activity is used to Convert Python object to required data type to be used in other uipatha ativities

Run Python Script

• This activity is used to execute any python code as similar to double-clicking an python .py file

UiPath Test Suite

• Software Testing ~> Software testing is the process of verifying that a software meets certain requirements and behaves as expected
• The requirements can be differentiated into 2 aspects:
  1. Functional ~> refers to an expected behaviour
  2. Non Functional ~> System Efficiency
• Different levels of Testing:
  1. Unit or Component Testing ~> In this one we focus on testing individual 'code' units, down to the level of methods and functions (done by software developers)
  2. Integration Testing ~> In this we focus on the interactions between the components or systems
  3. System Testing ~> In this we focus on the behaviour of an entire software system or product. Also referred to as End-to-End testing
  4. Acceptance Testing ~> In this testing, we include end users and other key stakeholders, to check how the users behave with the software differently or as intended.
• Different types of testing:

  1. Black Box Testing ( Focus on Input & Output ) ~> Black box testing solely focuses on providing a certain input and verifying the output

  2. White Box Testing ( Access to Implementation ) ~> White box testing provides a certain amount of access to the source code to the tester

  3. Manual Testing (Run by a person) It is further divided into * Scripted (Requires Processing) ~> pre-defined steps of operations, followed by specific verification steps * Exploratory (Requires Thinking) ~> Manually performed, but it typically provides only a high-level charter,then it leaves the rest to the actual testing to explore in detail.

  4. Automated Testing ( Run unattended by a Robot ) It is further divided into * UI Testing ~> Test the business layer * API Testing ~> Test the API layer. It includes several interfaces and protocols, such as Soap, Rest, Queues and many other

UiPath Document Understanding

• This topic is divided into 7 sections:
  1. Introduction
  2. Taxonomy
  3. Digitize
  4. Classify
  5. Extract
  6. Validate
  7. PostPreprocessing

1. Introduction

• Document Understanding is the ability to extract and interpret information and meaning from a wide range of document types, storage formats (e.g., images, PDFs, text), and objects (e.g., handwriting, stamps, logos).
• There are two types of data extraction methodologies:
  1. Rule-Based data extraction
  2. Model-Based data extraction
• Rules-Based data extraction ~> It relies on a set of rules to extract data from a document (like using regex)
• Model-Based data extraction ~> It is based on Machine Learning
  1. Semi-structured document ~> it extracts the same data from each document, and it requires a pre-trained ML model with further retraining
  2. Non-structured document ~> It needs to "read" the text to extract the meaning and identify the right data.Thus it also requires pre-trained models and retraining.
• OCR is a method that reads text from images,recognizing each character and its position.It comes handy in the Digitize step of the process when dealing with non-native documents, like scanned files

Document Understanding Framework

1. Taxonomy ~> In this pre-processing step, you can add multiple document types and the fields you are interested in extracting.e.g., Total Amount,Patient Name , User/Product Id etc
2. Digitization ~> As the documents are processed one by one, they go through the digitiation process.The outputs of this step are the Document Object Model and a string variable containing all the document text and are passed down to the next steps
3. Classification ~> If you are working with multiple documents types in the same project, to extract data properly you need to know what type of document you're working with. The important thing is that you can use multiple classifiers in the same scope,you can configure the classifiers and, later in the framework, train them. The classification results help in applying the right strategy in extraction
4. Extraction ~> Extraction is getting just the data you are interested in. In this framework, you can use different extractors, for the different document structures, in the same scope application.The extraction results are passed further for validation.
5. Validation ~> The extracted data can be validated by a human user through the Validation Station. Validation results can then be exported and used in further automation activities
6. Export ~> Use the validated information or save it in datatable or anywhere else you want.
7. Training Classifiers and Extractors ~> Classification and Extraction are as efficient as the classifiers and extractors used are.If a document wasn't classified properly, it means it was unknown to the active classifiers. The same way goes for the incorrect data extraction.

Intelligient OCR Activities

1. Taxonomy Manager ~> With the Taxonomy Manager Wizard, you can create the Taxonomy for your document understanding project, meaning the information that you want to extract and the type of that information. e.g., Data Table,Text,Date etc
2. Load Taxonomy ~> Loads the taxonomy created with the help of the Taxonomy Manager into a variable that can be further userd with other activities
3. Digitize Document ~> For scanned documents or images, this activity will use OCR to extract the text and the Document Object Model, a JSON object containing information regarding the positions of the words on the document. (For digital documents, the text will be extracted without the use of the OCR engine)
4. Classify Document Scope ~> The scope allows multiple classifiers to be used in order to classify the documents. You can find classifiers in the intelligent OCR actvity package, as well as in other UiPath or third-party packages(e.g., Abbyy activities)
5. Configure Classifiers Wizard ~> Use it to configure the Classify Document Activity. It allows multiple classifiers to be used in order to classify the documents. You can also establish a confidence threshold for each type of classifier
6. Data Extraction Scope ~> The scope allows multiple extractors to be used in order to extract the data from the documents. e.g., UiPath.DocumentUnderstanding.ML.Activities or your own extractor
7. Configure Extractors Wizard ~> With this Wizard, you can customize which extractors will be used for each individual field,of each document type.
8. Present Validation Station ~> Opens the Validation Station, which enables you to review and correct document classification and automatic data extraction results.
9. Integrated Validation Station ~> This activity pair allows for the creation of Validation Station human tasks in a web-based environment, through UiPath's Actions
10. Validation Station ~> The extracted data can be corrected and confirmed by a human user through the Validation Station
11. Export Extraction Results ~> Once you have extracted information, you can use it as it is, or save it in a DataTable format that can be converted very easily into an Excel file
12. Train the Classifiers and Extractors used ~> Sometimes, the workflow may fail to recognize the document or extract the correct data. To improve the classifiers and extractor's performance, even if they recognized the correct data, they should be trained.

Taxonomy

• It starts with categorizing the documents and defining the information you want to extract.
• Group the documents based on the department or purpose of the documentextract tables and names or even pick the language document is written in.
• There can be only one taxinomy file per project stored in Document Processing folder under the project folder
• Once the taxonomy file is created then it can be used in the workflow using Load Taxonomy activity

Taxonomy Manager

1. Defining the Document Type:
   • Select or create the group and category that the document is a part of
   • Add new document type and define its fields
   • Note: A group can contain multiple categories and a category can contain multiple document types
2. Defining Document Fields
   • Editing the name of the document,its belongings, and define the fields that interest you in extracting
   • Defining the fields in the document, selecting the area and pairing them with their respective variable
   • New Field ~> Selecting New Field opens up the window on the right,where you can edit the field's information
3. Editing the Documents Field
   • Choose a name for the field,specify whether it is multi-value and choose its type Taxonomy Manager Doc To store taxonomy file at different location

Digitizing Scanned and Native Documents

• All the documents that are to be processed (native and scanned) must pass through this step in order for the robot to understand the kind of document it's working with and what data is relevant
• Turning the document into a DOM and extracting the text is done with the Digitize Document activity
• The Degree of Parallelism defines how many pages the workflow will analyze in parallel
• Supported Entensions are: .png, .gif, .jpe, .jpg, .jpeg, .tiff, .tif, .bmp and .pdf More About Digitize Documentation

Document Object Model

• This contains basic information regarding the processed document such as name,content type,text length, and information about each page
• Variable data type is document
• It is used during validation For More...

Document Classification

• This step is used when dealing with multiple document types
• It is done using Classify Document Scope activity
• The Document Classification Scope Wizard will open at selecting the Configure Classifiers option and it allows users to customize which classifier will be used for each individual type of document
• For this, first we create a classify.json file
• We have 2 classifiers by default
  1. Intelligent Keyword CLassifier
  2. Keyword Based Classifier
• Keyword based requries various kinds of keywords that may came up in the document in different forms, such as for Invoices : statement,invoice,invoiec , in-voice, in voice etc
• Configure Classifier is used to select the document type for which the classifer is supposed to be used
• We can have multiple classifiers used at the same time

Present Classification Station

• In Many cases, document files comes as a package. within the same file, there are multiple document types that contain different sets of information and which need to be treated separately as far as data extraction and post-processing goes.
• This activity is used to :
  1. manually split files into logical documents, by selecting a document type and a tange of pages applicable for it
  2. Verify any automatic classification and splitting of a file into logical documents and perform correctios to the automatically proposed classification and separation
• Steps:
  1. After the Classify Document Scope, add the Present Classification Station activity
  2. At run time, the classification station will open and show the automatic classification results
  3. If needed, one can adjust the Classification results.
  4. After clicking on the Save button, the workflow continues with the human validated classification information Classification Station Doc

Data Extraction

• This is the step to extract the required data from the documents

Data Extraction Scope

• Based on the structure of the document, different extractors come to play
• The Data Extraction Scope Wizard will open at selecting the Configure Extractors option and it allows users to customize which extractors will be used for each individual field
• It allows users to mix and match extractors as well as use extractors in parallel based on which extractor has the highest confidence level
• If classification result is provided then Document ID is not required
• Steps to work with form extractor:
  1. We added the Form Extractor inside the Data Extraction scope and provided the API Key from the Cloud Platform account. Next, we started to Manage Templates
  2. Created a new template for the W-4 form, using a file from the project's folder, and the OmniPageOCR and we stared configuring it
  3. We matched the first page with representative keywords. To make the multiple selections, we pressed the CTRL key
  4. We started matching the fields with the values defined in the taxonomy. We did this either by choosing the selection mode or pressing the D+X keys.
  5. When we finished mapping all the values, we saved the template.
• For unstructured or semi-structured data, we can also regex based extractor
• For semi-structured data, ML Extractors can also be used
• They can be installed using UiPath.DocumentUnderstanding.ML.Activities package
• Things to remember:
  1. The endpoint for community work is https://invoices.uipath.com
  2. API key can be found at platform.uipath.com
  3. Set-up each field in correspondant to pre-configured field types/names
  4. Other Endpoints can be found at

Validation

• For 100% accuracy of the results, human validation is always recommended. This step is triggered by the Present Validation Station activity

Present Validation Station

• This activity triggers the opening of the validation station.
• It's the tool that allows you to review and, if necessary correct the document classification and automatic data extraction results
• Use this activity inside a Try-Catch activity to check and workaround of business exceptions
• For More...

KeyBoard Shortcuts

Exporting Extraction Results

• After you validate the extracted data, you can export it to whatever environment you need in order to consume it. The extraction results can be exported as a DataSet variable which can be further processed.

Export Extraction Results

• This activity export the data extracted to a DataSet.
• When used with the automatic extraction results and the IncludeConfidence flag is to True, it is the perfect way of accessing the extracted data,with the purpose of any RPA-based validation logic available
• The DataSet variable output by the Export Extraction Results activity has a fixed structure as follows:

1. Table named Simple Fields ~> Contains columns with name equal to each field name in your document type, and the values ( on the subsequent lines ) pertaining to each field. More than one value in a column is possible if :
   • You define a field as multi-value in your taxonomy
   • for a field, with multiple suggestions
2. Table named Simple Fields - Formatted ~> it is same as simple fields but it provides the output in proper formatted way like for date YYYY-MM-DD and for Address and Name fields, these values contain a JSON representation of the Address and Name parts respectively
3. A collection of tables ~> two for each table field in the document type

Note:It is strongly recommended, for easy identification and understanding of the output DataSet content, to exercise by looping through the DataSet.Tables in a For Each activity, and writing each Table in a sheet of an Excel file using the Write Range activity.

Train Classifiers Scope

• This activity has ability to train the classifiers using either the output of the Human Validated Classification Station or the output of the Validation Station - as both sets of information are human confirmed and can be ingested by the classifiers to self-learn
• It is used using Train Classifier Scope activity

Intelligent Form Extractor

• Used got extracting handwritten words/characters from documents
• Has few limitations for Community edition:
  1. The size of the documents is limited at 1 page.
  2. Community endpoints are rate-limited per IP address at 50 requests per hour.
  3. If the rate-limit is reached, an 429 - Too Many Requests error is displayed, and the IP address is blocked for 1 hour. To Learn More...

Access to On Demand Webinar to Document Understanding

Schedule Task using Windows Scheduler

• Note: This process is not officially supported by UiPath
• To Schedule your bot, follow the given steps
  1. Publish your bot to packages that is create a .nupkg file
  2. Create a .bat file with content as "Path-to-UiRobot.exe" -file "path-of-nupkg" e.g., "C:\Users\piyus\AppData\Local\UiPath\app-20.6.0-beta0093\UiRobot.exe" -file "C:\ProgramData\UiPath\Packages\JU.ParentPortal.1.0.1.nupkg"
  3. Open Windows Task Scheduler
  4. Click on Create Task
  5. Give some name to your Bot Schedule
  6. Set Configure for to Windows Vista , Windows Server 2008
  7. In Triggers tab create a new trigger, select On a Schedule and set some time
  8. In Actions tab, set things as
     • Action: Start a Program
     • Program/Script: cmd
     • Add a argument: /c "file-name-with-extension"
     • Start in : path-to-the-directory-containing-file(without double quotes)
  9. In Conditions tab, uncheck the box with Start task only at AC Power
  10. Click ok and close the scheduler, bot is scheduled successfully