Robotic Process Automation Projects: Build real-world RPA solutions using UiPath and Automation Anywhere

✍ Scribed by Nandan Mullakara, Arun Kumar Asokan

• Publisher: Packt Publishing
• Year: 2020
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 380
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

Learn RPA by building business solutions such as ERP and CRM automation, software robots, and intelligent process automation from scratch

Key Features

• Use popular RPA tools Automation Anywhere A2019 and UiPath, for real-world task automation
• Build automation solutions for domains such as System Administration, Finance, HR, Supply Chain, and Customer Relations
• Extend your RPA capabilities by implementing Intelligent process automation with APIs and AI

Book Description

Robotic Process automation helps businesses to automate monotonous tasks that can be performed by machines.

This project-based guide will help you progress through easy to more advanced RPA projects. You'll learn the principles of RPA and how to architect solutions to meet the demands of business automation, along with exploring the most popular RPA tools - UiPath and Automation Anywhere. In the first part, you'll learn how to use UiPath by building a simple helpdesk ticket system. You'll then automate CRM systems by integrating Excel data with UiPath. After this, the book will guide you through building an AI-based social media moderator using Google Cloud Vision API. In the second part, you'll learn about Automation Anywhere's latest Cloud RPA platform (A2019) by creating projects such as an automated ERP administration system, an AI bot for order and invoice processing, and an automated emergency notification system for employees. Later, you'll get hands-on with advanced RPA tasks such as invoking APIs, before covering complex concepts such as Artificial Intelligence (AI) and machine learning in automation to take your understanding of RPA to the next level.

By the end of the book, you'll have a solid foundation in RPA with experience in building real-world projects.

What you will learn

• Explore RPA principles, techniques, and tools using an example-driven approach
• Understand the basics of UiPath by building a helpdesk ticket generation system
• Automate read and write operations from Excel in a CRM system using UiPath
• Build an AI-based social media moderator platform using Google Cloud Vision API with UiPath
• Explore how to use Automation Anywhere by building a simple sales order processing system
• Build an automated employee emergency reporting system using Automation Anywhere
• Test your knowledge of building an automated workflow through fun exercises

Who this book is for

This RPA book is for enterprise application developers, software developers, business analysts, or any professional who wants to implement RPA across various domains of the business. The book assumes some understanding of enterprise systems. Computer programming experience will also be beneficial.

Table of Contents

1. Getting Started with Robotic Process Automation
2. Help Desk Ticket Generation
3. CRM Automation
4. Moderate Social Media Using AI
5. Purchase Order Processing with UiPath ReFramework
6. Completing an RPA Challenge
7. Sales Order Processing
8. ERP User Administration
9. Employee Emergency Notifications
10. Using AI and RPA for Invoice Processing
11. Appendix A and B for UiPath
12. Appendix: Looking forward and Next Steps

✦ Table of Contents

Cover
Title Page
Copyright and Credits
Dedication
Contributors
About Packt
Table of Contents
Preface
Chapter 1: Getting Started with Robotic Process Automation
Technical requirements
What is RPA? 
A quick definition
Benefits of RPA
Types of RPA
Attended automation
Unattended automation
Our RPA tools – UiPath and Automation Anywhere
UiPath 
UiPath Studio
UiPath Orchestrator
UiPath Robot
UiPath – an integrated view
Automation Anywhere
Enterprise Control Room
Build
Manage
Analyze
IQ Bot
Our projects 
Installation and setup
Installing UiPath
UiPath Studio and Robot
Configuring Automation Anywhere
Registration and setup
Installing the bot agent and verifying the setup
Summary
Chapter 2: Help Desk Ticket Generation
Technical requirements
Project overview
Project detail
Project groundwork
Creating project folders
Creating an Excel sheet with ticket data
Registering and logging in to Zoho Desk
Main workflow
Project setup
Configuring the initial part of the main workflow
Reading from Excel
Exception handling
Invoking the Excel workflow from Main
Creating a support ticket in the Zoho Desk ticketing system
Recording ticket creation activities
Configuring the recorded activities
Validating successful ticket creation
Handling exceptions
Putting it all together
Testing the automation
Project enhancements 
Summary
Chapter 3: CRM Automation
Technical requirements
Project overview
Project details
CRM preparation
Setting up the project
Extracting the customer list from CRM
Preparing the browser
Web recording
Data scraping
Using a Catch block for the Get Customer List Sequence
Looking up customer information
Creating a data table
Looping and creating company URLs
Extracting company details from Crunchbase.com
Invoking the RequestCustomerDetails workflow from the Main workflow
Updating the CRM with customer information
Looping through the data table and updating the CRM
Summary
Chapter 4: Moderating Social Media Using AI
Technical requirements
Project overview
Project detail
Getting started with the project
Project groundwork
Reading parameters from the configuration file
Passing the configuration parameters to the main workflow
Reading image files from the input folder and creating a list
Reading files in the input folder
Reading and writing the image path list to the ImageDetails Excel file
Handling exceptions for the BuildExcelList workflow
Testing the BuildExcelList workflow
Setting up the Google Cloud Vision API's key and credentials
Setting up the Google Cloud Vision API services
Setting up a credential manager
Reading credentials from Windows Credential Manager
Looping through images and invoking the Google Cloud Vision API
Installing the UiPath GoogleVision package from UiPath Go!
Adding SafeSearch to the main workflow
Updating the image sheet with the API results
Passing the parameters and invoking SafeSearch 
Moving processed images to the Output folder 
Testing the automation 
Summary
Chapter 5: Purchase Order Processing with UiPath ReFramework
Technical requirements
Project overview
Robotic Enterprise Framework (ReFramework)
Project detail
Project groundwork
Creating the PO spreadsheet
Setting up Apptivo
Getting started with the project
Purchase order Dispatcher
Purchase order Performer
Init state changes
Updating the InitAllApplications workflow
Invoking the InitAllApplications workflow
Process state changes
Attaching and activating the PO application
Creating the POs
Preparing to input PO data
Inputting the PO data
Handling PO entry errors 
Capturing the PO
Updating the PO in the spreadsheet
Testing the Automation
Summary
Chapter 6: Completing an RPA Challenge
Technical requirements
Project details
Project groundwork
Completing the challenge with UiPath
Getting started with the UiPath project
Creating the challenge automation
Reading the RPA challenge Excel data
Inputting data into the RPA challenge forms
Testing the UiPath challenge automation
Recapping the UiPath projects
Automation Anywhere A2019
Completing the challenge with Automation Anywhere
Getting started with the Automation Anywhere control room
Creating the RPA challenge automation bot
Reading the RPA challenge Excel data
Preparing the RPA challenge website for input
Looping through each row and column
Iterating through each column and reading headers
Mapping and inputting the challenge data to the website
Testing the Automation Anywhere challenge automation 
Summary
Chapter 7: Sales Order Processing
Technical requirements
Project overview 
Project details
Project groundwork
Creating the Parent bot 
Exception handling 
Opening and reading Excel data
Creating the Child bot for SO processing
Using the recorder to capture SO creation
Filling in customer details for an SO
Filling in item details for an SO
Passing the SO number 
Invoking the Child bot and updating the Excel sheet 
Looping through rows and invoking the Child bot
Updating Excel with the SO number
Moving the Excel file to the Processed folder
Testing the automation
Summary
Chapter 8: ERP User Administration
Technical requirements
Project overview 
Project detail
Project groundwork
Creating a user request PDF
Signing up for Saas application 
Opening the Automation Anywhere A2019 control room
Creating the Parent bot
Exception handling 
Extracting user details from PDF
Assigning user data to row variables
Extracting user details with String operations
Validating email addresses with regular expressions
Creating the Child bot for new user creation
Creating a new user in Freshsales
Handling form validation errors
Handling exceptions 
Invoking the Child bot and creating the new user
Moving the PDF to the Processed folder on success
Notifying the user in case of insufficient data
Logging errors and sending email notifications
Triggers
Testing the automation
Summary
Chapter 9: Employee Emergency Notifications
Technical requirements
Project overview 
Twilio
Project details
Project groundwork
Creating the employee spreadsheet 
Signing up for Twilio
Opening the Automation Anywhere A2019 Control Room
Creating a Child bot to send messages
Exception handling 
Saving Twilio credentials
Adding variables for the Child bot
Invoking the Twilio REST post method
Returning a response flag to the Parent bot
Unit testing the Child bot
Creating the Parent bot
Initializing Twilio and opening the employee Excel file
Looping through the employee list and sending text messages 
Checking and logging responses from the Child bot
Exception handling in the Parent bot
Testing the automation
Summary
Chapter 10: Using AI and RPA for Invoice Processing
Technical requirements
Intelligent document processing
UiPath – Document Understanding
Automation Anywhere – IQ Bot
Project overview 
Project details
Project groundwork
Opening the Automation Anywhere A2019 Control Room
Downloading sample invoices
Creating the IQ Bot learning instance 
Setting up the initial IQ Bot learning instance
Reviewing and updating field mappings
Uploading invoices to IQ Bot 
Downloading structured data from IQ Bot
Checking the automation
Automation Anywhere projects – recap
Summary
Appendix A and B for UiPath
Appendix A – Connecting UiPath Robot to Orchestrator
Getting started
Creating a Standard Robot in Orchestrator
Adding an environment for the Bot
Connecting Orchestrator to the local Robot
Appendix B – Publishing to Orchestrator
Publishing to Orchestrator
Creating a new process
Running the process
Scheduling the process
Appendix: Looking Forward and Next Steps
Other Books You May Enjoy
Index