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CONTENTS

•  About RPA

Getting Started With

•  RPA: Key Methods and Techniques
−  Discovery
−  Build

Robotic Process
−  Manage
−  Run
−  Engage

Automation
−  Measure
−  Govern
•  Important Considerations

•  Getting Started With Robotic

Process Automation
LAHIRU FERNANDO
MVP AND RPA LEAD (ASIA PACIFIC), UIPATH •  Conclusion

Automation isn't new. Automation is a technology that dates back who perform our daily actions — without the need for highly technical
decades and has evolved over the years. For example, the term "robot" knowledge. We can use the same technology in our personal lives too.
was first used by a Czech writer named Karel Kapek in 1921. Since then,
there have been many instances where new and innovative solutions ABOUT RPA
were introduced to ease tasks performed by humans — technologies such Today, RPA is gaining more and more attention as it revolutionizes the

as autonomous vehicles, AI systems, chatbots, drones, and many more. way we work. Many organizations are investing in automating high-
volume, repetitive, mundane activities to save many human hours for
This evolution took place mainly around physical robots. However, more value-added activities.
technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML),
and natural language processing (NLP) have led the way to software WHAT MAKES RPA SO POWERFUL?
robots that reduce the manual, time-consuming, and repetitive actions RPA isn't just one technology. RPA robots can use AI, ML, computer
performed on digital platforms. vision, NLP, data analytics, and deep learning to expand their
capabilities beyond the stretch of our imagination. The joint force offers
The automation of digital platforms started with technologies such many benefits for organizations, such as:
as screen scraping, workflow automation, and artificial intelligence. •  Working 24/7 with high accuracy rates
Screen-scraping technologies create a bridge between current systems
•  Ability to scale and implement quickly using existing
and incompatible legacy applications, allowing easy data extraction.
infrastructure
Workflow automation tools specific to different software applications
enable users to automate certain manual actions within the application
environment. Further, introducing artificial intelligence into digital
platforms enabled computer systems to perform tasks in multiple
application environments using pre-trained human intelligence.

The concept of automating tasks on digital platforms is called robotic

process automation (RPA). RPA is a software robot that interacts with
computer-centric processes and aims to introduce a digital workforce
that performs repetitive tasks previously completed by humans.

Software solutions are designed to ease the many tasks that we do. But
software solutions still evolve around human input all the time. Have
we ever thought about introducing a digital assistant to interact with
the same application we created without human involvement? A digital
assistant who works on our own computer, working in the background
to perform the same tasks we do? We can easily build digital assistants

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•  Ability to mimic human actions on any digital platform without doesn't lead to better outcomes. The unattended automation solution
any change to existing applications developed for them takes care of all the documentation uploaded
into their SharePoint system by classifying, extracting, and uploading
•  Rapid return on investment (ROI)
the data into their legacy state applications. The process enables
•  Improved service delivery and customer satisfaction
caseworkers to delegate routine tasks and focus more on the children
•  Improved process efficiency to ensure they have a better future.

•  Better tracking of the performance of the robots through quick

Today, RPA is headed towards understanding humans better than ever
and easy dashboards
before. RPA robots now focus on understanding the business context

CURRENT TRENDS IN RPA around everything we perform to better automate manual actions. This

RPA improves efficiency and shifts the focus towards more valuable work. concept is called semantic automation. Semantic automation enables

Digital transformation is accelerated when complementary technologies faster development and enhanced reliability, thus providing more

like artificial intelligence and machine learning come into play. power to users and allowing them to develop their own robots. Further,
automation today creates a positive social impact by increasing
RPA continues to grow. According to a quantitative study conducted productivity in social services and addressing specific health conditions
by UiPath, State of the RPA Developer 2022, 91 percent expect their to support humans.
organizations to hire more RPA developers in the next twelve months.
It's visible that industries such as finance, technology, and insurance As there is a massive demand for resources and opportunities, let's now

are leading the way in adopting RPA into their ecosystems. look at how to come up with the right automation solution to solve your
business requirements.
Figure 1
RPA: KEY METHODS AND TECHNIQUES
Every RPA project is required to go through a set of stages during its
journey. These stages are often called the lifecycle of an RPA project.
Each step handles different aspects of the automation solution —
discovery, build, manage, run, engage, and measure. Let’s look at
each stage to better understand the activities performed and what
technologies help to best complete the assigned tasks.

DISCOVERY
Identifying the best processes to automate, optimize, and standardize
usually consumes a lot of resources and time. However, the power
of science and AI makes discovery processes more efficient. The
knowledge and experience of the employees combined with AI enable
the organization to come up with a holistic 360-degree view of all the
processes.

There are many tools that users can use to record the process steps and
Universities worldwide have already started teaching RPA to their analyze the recorded information to generate insights. Especially, the
students to prepare the next generation. According to the State of the results generated by such process and task mining tools can be easily
RPA Developer Report 2022 by UiPath, 72 percent of the students who transformed into decisions to prioritize and identify the automation
responded are already seeking opportunities in RPA after graduation. potential of the current processes. Further, the insights provided to the
Also, six out of ten respondents who work in RPA started their career RPA Center of Excellence (CoE) team can solve process inefficiencies by
from a different domain; 84 percent of respondents believe RPA has a introducing the right kind of standardization where necessary.
high potential for growth over the next five years. Further, the research
also states that 90 percent of respondents believe that RPA has and will BUILD
positively impact society. The world of RPA today is moving towards the concept of having a
robot for everyone. Hence, irrespective of an individual's background,
One such example is the use case published here about automation they should be able to build and manage their robots. Today, there are
for good implementation in child services. The process requires heavy low-code platforms for people with different levels of coding skills.
documentation and interaction with multiple legacy applications. Such development tools allow users to build scalable, adjustable, and
Some child welfare organizations tried hiring more caseworkers to take intelligent automation solutions using a simple drag-and-drop canvas
care of the tasks. However, studies have shown that increased staffing and dashboards.

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 REFCARD | GETTING STARTED WITH ROBOTIC PROCESS AUTOMATION

With the introduction of RPA, every technology company found ways to in the required data to the app screen. This reduces the time involved
build components that allow easy interaction with its platforms. Apart for the operator to search and extract the required information from
from the tools, there are many readily available components, code different applications.
snippets, and code templates available online for users to download
and use free of charge. Users can easily use such components by MEASURE
plugging them into their solution to interact with multiple software Embedded analytical capabilities of RPA platforms enable users to

applications effectively. define KPIs and track the ROI of the automation program through
different reporting platforms. Performance dashboards built on
Artificial intelligence is also a topic that we can't exclude when building data generated by the robots allow process owners, CoE leads, and
automation solutions. Integrating AI, ML, and other NLP capabilities management to monitor the performance of their digital workforce.
with RPA workflows is now just a couple of clicks away. RPA platforms
have built-in AI capabilities, which we can easily configure and train to GOVERN
use in our automation workflows to perform any complex activity. This Governance usually wraps around all stages described above to
approach has allowed business users to easily combine their workflows better control the quality of the automation solution. Quality control
with AI to perform more complicated actions, while technical users can mechanisms may vary from organization to organization as they
use the same or build their own. have their own best practices and standards, depending on the
requirements. However, it's vital to have a governance model around
MANAGE all stages to ensure consistency across the organization.
As we manage our team, managing the virtual workforce is an
essential aspect of the journey. Managing the virtual workforce usually Though every automation solution has a lifecycle, it doesn't ensure that

includes centralized deployments, processes scheduling, automation we always build the most efficient solution for the process. Identifying

workflows, checking for errors and inefficiencies, and scalability. the best procedures to automate requires a good level of research

Orchestration also enables global information management, such as and understanding of the goal and process. Let’s have a look at some

credentials, globally used configuration values, etc., for better tracking important considerations when deciding on automation.

and management. Such features provide a single centralized interface

IMPORTANT CONSIDERATIONS
to apply changes to all automation solutions with just a click.
Business processes may not be in perfect shape all the time. The processes

RUN that we see in organizations were created many years back, and those

Virtual assistants execute your processes in any way you like — processes can't be changed easily. However, these processes may have

attended, unattended, or in a hybrid model. The flexibility offered by many manual and redundant steps that can be removed and optimized.

RPA technologies enables the virtual workforce to take up multiple The most crucial point to consider is that RPA isn't a nail that we can

background processes while executing foreground processes (which use to fix a broken process that humans perform manually. Every RPA

interact with UI elements). The attended robots work in the same machine project should focus on some level of process standardization before any

as the user, helping their daily activities by conducting repetitive work automation efforts. Characteristics of a non-standardized process include:

simultaneously without interruptions. The unattended robots primarily •  Increased error rate

work on backend processes that don't require any human involvement. •  Decreased quality of routine tasks

•  Inefficient tasks
ENGAGE
Automation isn't just about automating repetitive activities. Robots •  Excess repetitive tasks
today are also capable of interacting with people as chatbots to •  Reduced functionality
understand user requirements and act accordingly. The power of AI and
•  High maintenance costs
NLP enables robots to perform human-like conversations with users
and collaborate to optimize the entire process from start to finish. •  Less reliable results

•  High variability in output

Today, automation platforms are configurable to monitor and
communicate with web or mobile applications where robots can bring •  No clearly defined inputs and outputs
in exceptions and approvals to an employee to keep meaningful work
Automation of such processes won't gain the required outcome
flowing. This concept enables users to work on value-added activities
for the organization without the proper application of process
while the robots work behind the scenes to bring required data to the
standardization. Hence, it's necessary to go through standardization
screen as soon as the user needs it. An excellent example of using such
and technical feasibility frameworks to understand the automation
apps is in a call center environment. Whenever a user receives a call,
potential and standardization needs. The following diagram illustrates
the robot captures the customer information either by listening and
a basic framework:
understanding the language or by automating specific inputs that bring

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 REFCARD | GETTING STARTED WITH ROBOTIC PROCESS AUTOMATION

Figure 2

The figure shows that any process with repetitive manual activities, •  Collecting social media statistics
rule-based decisions, electronic input, and high exception rates aren't
•  Automating customer service in call centers, bank counters,
good candidates for automation. Such processes should undergo
etc.
process improvements before applying automation. Further, we also
•  Automating standard letter writing
need to consider any changes in the process and applications involved.
Any expected changes require evaluation and reassessment before GETTING STARTED WITH ROBOTIC
considering automation. However, any process that passes through all PROCESS AUTOMATION
the criteria mentioned above is a good fit for automation. Today, most small, medium, and large companies are adopting
automation. Sometimes, introducing automation isn't straightforward
As we now have an idea of what to consider before automation, let's
because of the state of the processes, as we discussed above. However,
look at what RPA can automate. RPA is a tool that mimics human
we should develop standards, practices, and approaches to identify
interactions with digital platforms. However, with the help of different
suitable processes to automate based on the framework provided.
technologies, RPA can do even better.

PICK A FEW TOOLS TO START WITH

In general, an RPA robot can easily automate any of the following:
There are many RPA tools available in the market. After thinking about
•  Automating reading and/or sending emails and attachments
the critical points and the capabilities required, narrow your search
•  Logging into different web or enterprise applications for the perfect platform. Find the platform based on the capabilities,
•  Organizing files and folders according to business requirements budget, and how you plan to scale.
by moving, copying, and creating files and folders
SETTING UP YOUR ENVIRONMENT
•  Automatically filling in forms in web or desktop applications to
While we would like to cover every single approach in great detail,
submit data
there’s so much space in one Refcard. Hence, this section will focus on
•  Reading and writing to any database setting up an example RPA tool so that you can begin your RPA journey.

•  Analyzing data available on different platforms

REGISTERING FOR A COMMUNITY VERSION
•  Reporting across different systems UiPath offers a free-of-charge community license that anyone can
•  Scraping data from web applications use for learning and building small automation solutions. Navigate to
UiPath Cloud Platform, create your free account, and sign in to perform
•  Collecting and analyzing IoT data
the following steps. Once you sign in, your screen should look similar to
•  Performing simple and complex calculations the following screenshot:
•  Extracting data from structured, semi-structured, and
unstructured documents using templates, regex, and artificial
intelligence SEE FIGURE 3 ON NEXT PAGE

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 REFCARD | GETTING STARTED WITH ROBOTIC PROCESS AUTOMATION

Figure 3 The number of licenses available to you may depend on the version. For
example, the community version will have fewer licenses, whereas the
trial and enterprise versions will have a higher number of licenses.

CONFIGURING ORCHESTR ATOR USER

Click on the “Orchestrator” on the Tenants page or the home page to
navigate to the Orchestrator. Follow the steps below to set up your
environment:

1. Navigate to Tenant and click on “Manage Access.”

2. Find your user, and click on the “Edit” option.

3. On the “General details” screen, provide the user roles,

including username, first and last name, email address, etc.

4. We'd love to show how to enable both attended and unattended

robots. However, for the scope of this Refcard, let's enable the
attended robot for now. Click on the “Robot setup” option,
enable “Attended Robot,” and finally, click on the “Update”
button.

Now you have completed the user configuration. Next, let’s assign the
INSTALLING UIPATH DEVELOPMENT ENVIRONMENT user to a folder and complete the Orchestrator configuration.
On the Cloud platform, the right-hand side panel provides the option to
download and install the development tool named UiPath Studio. CONNECTING UIPATH STUDIO WITH ORCHESTR ATOR
Open the UiPath Assistant from the Windows Start menu. Once the
CONFIGURING LICENSES FOR YOUR ORCHESTR ATOR application is loaded, you'll get an option to sign in. Sign in with the
Navigate to the Admin page in the Cloud Platform and locate the same account in which you created your Orchestrator instance. Now
Tenants Page. The Tenants page shows all the available Orchestrator open the UiPath Studio, and you'll have all the access needed to start
tenants. Click on the “Edit License Allocation” option in the Tenant and building your first automation solution.
assign all available licenses to the Tenant.
CREATING THE FIRST AUTOMATION PROJECT
Figure 4
There are many templates that you can select to start development.
However, to keep it simple, create a blank process with any given
name. Once you are in the created solution, you'll have several panels
available to interact with.

The Solution panel contains all the files and folders in the solution.
The Activities panel is where we mostly interact to drag and drop the
required activities to build the automation workflow. Let’s do a simple
document processing task using Forms AI and UiPath Studio.

1. Go to UiPath Cloud Platform and navigate to the Document

Understanding app through the navigation panel on the left. The
following is a screenshot of the Document Understanding app.

Figure 5

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 REFCARD | GETTING STARTED WITH ROBOTIC PROCESS AUTOMATION

2. Create a new project by clicking on the New Project option and 9. Click on the Dependency Manager on the top ribbon and add:
providing a meaningful name while keeping other settings in the “UiPath.DocumentUnderstanding.ML.Activities,” “UiPath.OCR.
default configuration. Activities,” and “UiPath.IntelligentOCR.Activities” from the
official feed.
3. Navigate to the new project you created.
10. Click on the Taxonomy Manager from the top ribbon and
4. Click on the New button, select Using Forms AI (fixed layout
configure the Taxonomy as shown in the following figure:
forms) option from the dropdown, and create the Forms AI
session. Once you provide the name, it'll take you to the Forms Figure 8
AI session and will display the following screen:

Figure 6

11. Drag and drop the Load Taxonomy activity and configure the
output property.

5. Drag and drop the documents to import them into the 12. Create a String variable that can hold the sample document file

environment. Make sure all files added follow the same path.

structure. The Forms AI will automatically predict the columns 13. Drag and drop the Digitize Document activity and configure the
and extract them from the document. You can easily remove input and output arguments.
unwanted columns by clicking on the Edit option and deleting
14. Place the Data Extraction Scope activity and configure the
the field. Below is a refined structure of the Forms.
input and output properties using the variables already created.
Figure 7
15. Configure the Document Type ID field with the value "Finance.
Incoming.Form4," which you can get from the Taxonomy as per
the above screenshot.

16. Place a Machine Learning Extractor within the Data

Extraction Scope, configure it using the API key, model
endpoint, and matching fields as shown in the following
screenshot:

Figure 9

6. Navigate to the next document and click on the Predict button

to capture the fields automatically based on your configuration
of the first document. If any value isn't captured, you can
highlight the text in the document preview and press the
shortcut key of the respective field to add it.

7. Click on the Publish button to publish the Forms AI model so we

can use it in the Studio workflow.

8. Copy the endpoint of the model created by clicking on the

Copy Endpoint button and keep it in a safe place to use during
workflow creation.

Now, let’s build the UiPath workflow in Studio. Start by using the model
created to extract data from a sample document.

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17. Now place a Present Validation Station activity below the

Data Extraction Scope and configure it using the variables we WRITTEN BY LAHIRU FERNANDO,
already created for digitizing and extraction. MVP AND RPA SOLUTION ARCHITECT, UIPATH

18. Lastly, run the process and review your output. Lahiru is a long-term developer turned
international speaker, mentor, lecturer, and is
CONCLUSION currently a country director and a RPA lead for
RPA technology has evolved from simple application-specific Boundaryless Group. His background and experience as a n
engineer spans a slew of languages, technologies, and tools used
automation scripts to using multiple state-of-the-art technologies. RPA in development and enterprise process automation.  He is a UiPath
today has plenty of potential in shifting the way businesses operate. MVP, RPA solution architect, artificial intelligence, and robotics
enthusiast, and is always on the lookout for ways to learn and grow.
We explored how RPA combined with artificial intelligence and machine He has a passion for mentoring, motivating, sharing, and inspiring
the community to help reach their dreams.
learning enables companies to automate critical processes during the
Covid-19 pandemic. Many companies started their RPA journey during
this period and could successfully navigate through the operational
challenges. 600 Park Offices Drive, Suite 300
Research Triangle Park, NC 27709
888.678.0399 | 919.678.0300
As demand grows for RPA, universities worldwide are preparing the
next generation of the workforce with RPA knowledge and skills. As At DZone, we foster a collaborative environment that empowers developers and
tech professionals to share knowledge, build skills, and solve problems through
RPA revolutionizes the way we work, we also need to identify the right content, code, and community. We thoughtfully — and with intention — challenge
the status quo and value diverse perspectives so that, as one, we can inspire
candidate processes with higher automation potential. positive change through technology.

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