UiPath - Explained

important tool offered by UiPath. It is a software package tool that helps users automate processes. This is facilitated further by UiPath Studio’s efficient functions like drag and drop. Automation processes are designed like a flowchart. There are various activities that correspond to a particular type of work. But, before we talk

Here’s a list of topics we’ll be covering in this tutorial:

• What is UiPath?
• Applications of UiPath
• What is UiPath Studio?
• Why use UiPath Studio?
• UiPath Studio Installation
• UiPath Studio – User Interface
• UiPath Studio – Exploring the Interface
• UiPath Studio Recording
• UiPath Studio Screen Scraping
• UiPath Studio Web Scraping
• UiPath Studio User Events
• Top Companies using UiPath
• Hands-On Example
• Conclusion

UiPath is a Robotic Process Automation software for Windows Desktop. It was developed to automate business processes in an organization. It helps enhance business performance by automating tedious tasks such as data migration, data entry, testing, web scraping, and screen scraping. UiPath is one of the most widely known RPA technologies as it helps automate tasks at affordable costs in minimal time. You can easily integrate UiPath with any traditional system because it’s highly user-friendly.

UiPath has been of use in various fields. Let’s discuss some of them:

Sales

• Invoice Development and Delivery – The accounting system and CRM should have accurate sales details. Bots can be used to update the accounting records, create and send invoices.
• CRM Updating – Soon Email, call, and other contact data will be incorporated into CRM. The CRM records could be updated with the customer contact information by writing a simple bot.
• Keeping Scorecards Up to Date – If your company hasn’t integrated HR with CRM, you can use an RPA bot to make sure all the adjustments in CRM are submitted to scorecards. This real-time update will help the sales team in tracking their progress.

Banking

• Check KYC – You can use RPA bots to automate several portions of the KYC process.
• Sanction of Loans – RPA can handle complex business logic and therefore, they can be used to automate loan decisions partially.
• Execution of Trade – If your system cannot handle complex orders, RPA bots can be of help. This should only be a short-term solution as transitioning to a competent system for trading would be a smart investment.

Healthcare

• Appointment Scheduling – If the data for patient diagnosis, doctor availability, location, etc. is available, the RPA bot can schedule appointments for the patients.
• Supporting Analytics – RPA bots can help by sending patients’ medical data to third parties to come up with a better diagnosis and treatment plan for the patient without violating confidentiality.

It is a visual designer tool of the UiPath platform. It helps users automate different processes with the help of visual design. It has an easy drag and drop functionality with the designs looking like a flow chart. In UiPath Studio, you can record your workflows, drag and drop widgets according to your requirements.

UiPath Studio is the primary product offered by UiPath. All of its different features can be easily integrated with any language. The UiPath Studio has two parts:

• The Process Designer – This is where the robot is built.
• The Execution Part – This is where the automation is executed.

• UiPath Studio helps automate tasks that seem repetitive.
• It makes the work easier and quicker by converting seemingly difficult tasks into UI automation.
• It allows users to record their workflows.
• It allows collaboration between users and workflows to increase efficiency and productivity.
• It helps developers make advanced, cross-platform automation.
• It can be used to test automation for desktop, web, and mobile apps.

Follow the steps below to install UiPath Studio:

• Go to the website https://www.uipath.com/developers/studio-download

• Fill in your details and click on Request trial

• The download will start

• Keep a note of the Activation Key provided to you on the download screen.

• Open the downloaded file. It will open the UiPath Studio Setup.

• You can choose the Quick or the Custom setup according to your requirements. Accept the terms in the License Agreement and click Install.

• The installation will start. It will take a few minutes.

• After the UiPath Studio is installed, you can click on Launch UiPath Studio

• Now you can add your activation key

• Fill in your Activation Key and click Continue

• Here you get to choose which version of UiPath Studio suits your needs. Choose UiPath Studio or UiPath StudioX

• Now you’re all set to use UiPath Studio!

Now that you’ve installed the tool, let’s talk about its User Interface.

The user interface of UiPath Studio has multiple panels for easier access to specific functionalities. It can be docked, function as floating windows, or the Auto-hide option can be enabled.

• The Ribbon – The ribbon is a simple window and can be minimized or expanded by clicking the Minimize / Expand. It consists of the following four tabs:
  • Start – to create new or open existing projects.
  • Design – to create or launch sequences, flowcharts, or state machine diagrams, access wizards, manage variables, and inspect user interface elements from third-party apps.
  • Execute – Used to run or stop projects, for starting a debug process and open logs.
  • Setup – To publish projects or create shortcuts. Scheduling tasks and installing extensions.
• The Quick Access Toolbar – Provides shortcuts for commands.
• The Universal Search Bar – To find activities, libraries, projects, etc.
• The Designer Panel in UiPath – It is the main dialog box that shows the current project
• The Context menu in UiPath – Enables to perform operations in a sequence or flowchart. There are some fields like open, view, collapse, cut, copy, paste, and so on.
• The Activities Panel in UiPath – Shows all the activities that can be used in the current project
• The Library Panel in UiPath – Enables to easily reuse automation.
• The Project Panel in UiPath – Used to view the contents of the current panel
• The Properties Panel in UiPath – To view and change the properties of any activity
• The Outline Panel in UiPath – Displays project hierarchy, all variables, and nodes
• The Output Panel in UiPath – Displays the output of the Log message
• The Locals Panel in UiPath – Displays all variables which are locally in the current scope.

When you start UiPath Studio, you’ll get a screen that looks like this:

• As you can see there is a menu bar on the left, an Open section, a New Project section, and a New from Templates
• You can go to the Open section to open any existing projects. In the New Project section, you can create a new workflow where you can automate your process.
• When you click on Process, it will take you to the New Blank Process window.

• In this window, you can name your process. You can choose the location where you want to store it and add a small description for the process. You also get to choose the compatibility option from Windows – Legacy, Windows and Cross-platform.

• Now, you just need to select the Language and click Create.

• UiPath Studio will now create your new process for you and restore some dependencies to the workflow.

• Once it’s done, your screen will look like this:

• The UiPath Studio has three main tabs – Home, Design, and Debug. This also depends on the version you’re using.

• There are seven main panels in UiPath Studio – Project, Activities, Snippets, Object Repository, Properties, Outline, and Test Explorer. These panels will come of use when you’re trying to automate your workflow.

• There are four more panels at the bottom of UiPath Studio – Output, Error List, Find References, and Breakpoints.

• After you’ve executed the process, you can see the output by clicking on Output. Error List shows you the errors that occurred in your workflow. Find References is useful for finding references. The Breakpoints panel shows you the breakpoints you have applied during the execution of the workflow.

The UiPath Studio Recording tool is the most powerful tool in the Studio. It transforms all the recorded workflow actions into flow charts. Automation in UiPath is done in three different recording types. They are –

• Basic Automation – generally for activity, not container. Suitable for a single activity.
• Desktop Automation – used in native internal applications such as Word, Excel, notepad
• Web Automation – used in web browsers, for web scraping, etc.
• Citrix Automation – used to automate in a virtual environment.

UiPath Studio Screen Scraping tool helps recognize and identify all the UI elements. When the user hovers the cursor over different elements, UiPath Studio highlights and zooms the element so the user can select the right UI element. The UiPath Studio then automatically creates a corresponding action in the flowchart. The user can label each of these activities. The screenshot of the target window is automatically added to the flowchart.

UiPath Studio Web Scraping tool is an advanced web scraping technique. It helps users launch a website, log in to it, extract all the data in all of the pages, and then transform it according to their needs. UiPath Web Scraping tool can also scrape information from web pages that require authentication. The tool works just like a user gaining access to a webpage.

UiPath Studio User Events are used when robots and humans are working together. When the user performs an action, the robot starts working on its own tasks. The robot carries on its own task without interfering with the user’s actions. For example, when the user clicks on a button, the robot will scrape all the data, process it, and send back the results.

A lot of top tier companies use UiPath and in turn, hire UiPath Developers, including:

• Infosys
• Tech Mahindra
• IBM
• Deloitte
• KPMG
• Tata

Let’s look at a hands-on example on UiPath Studio.

Task

Scrape data from a website.

Steps to Automate

• Use the Data Scraping tool to record the data you have to extract
• Extract all the correlated values accordingly
• Mention the path of the .csv file using Write CSV

Solution

1. Identify the website you want to extract the data from.
2. Click on Data Scraping and select the element you want. Then press Next in the Extract Wizard dialog box.
3. Hover the cursor over the data source field you want and then click on it.
4. After this another dialog box will pop up asking you to choose the next element so you can create a pattern. Click Next.
5. After you’ve chosen the second element, you’ll need to Configure Columns. A dialog box will open where you can rename the column and the extract URL. Click Next.
6. You will get some Preview Data. If you want to extract more data from the website you can click on Extract Correlated Data and repeat the steps above.
7. When you’re done extracting all the data you need, click Finish.
8. Another dialog box will open asking you if you want the data to span across multiple pages. You can select Yes or No accordingly.
9. After this you’ll come to your UiPath Studio Dashboard.
10. Now you can drag a Write CSV activity into the Do section to store all the extracted data as a .csv file.
11. Mention the path of the .csv file in the File Path Selection. You can then mention the ExtractDataTabe variable in the DataTable section.
12. Now you just have to execute the sequence by clicking on Run.

The data will now be stored in the .csv file you specified.

UiPath Studio is an efficient tool that enables you to visually design your automation with its simple drag and drop feature. It offers over a hundred predefined automation tools like Screen Scraping and Web Scraping. UiPath Recording allows users to record the steps of a manual task and turn it into a flowchart. You can also extract data from any application.