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Automation Anywhere Team
Automation Anywhere TeamAutomation Anywhere Team
published in Pathfinder Blog
Build Your First Package Livestream

 The developer community asked for it, so here it comes! On April 15th at 12pm EDT/9am PDT/930pm IST we'll be doing a livestream of package development, where Developer Evangelist Micah Smith will be taking viewers through the process of creating their first package.This tutorial will be a comprehensive guide to package development including:Starting with the Automation 360 Package SDK Customizing the build.gradle and package.template files and their impact on your package Using the locales JSON files for setting package, action, and configuration level values Understanding the different labels, names, icons, and descriptions that can be set for actions and their configuration files Writing a test class to validate your package code before compiling Compiling the package directly in the IntelliJ IDE Installing the custom package Validating the package in a botYou won't want to miss this session. So that you can hit the ground running with Micah when the session starts, be sure to go th

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Automation Anywhere Team
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Automation Anywhere Team
Automation Anywhere TeamAutomation Anywhere Team
published in Pathfinder Blog
How to use the 'Download CR File' action

‘Download CR file’ action is part of the ‘File’ package. Using this action, you can download a file from the Control Room to the bot runner machine. This action is very useful when you want a specific file to be downloaded to the bot runner before executing the bot.For Ex:- A config file is bundled as part of the bot downloaded from the Bot Store, and the file needs to be in the local device, as the bot updates the file during the execution.- A template file needs to be downloaded from the Control room and then generate a letter for each customer with his information.This action consists of 3 parameters to be configured. Select a Control Room file: Here, you will specify the file in the Control Room which needs to be downloaded.In the ‘Find a File’ modal:- Select ‘Search’ tab, if you want to search for a specific file by typing the file name- Select ‘Browser’ to navigate to a specific file through the folder structure- Select 'Upload', if you want to upload a file to a specific folder

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Automation Anywhere Team
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Automation Anywhere Team
Automation Anywhere TeamAutomation Anywhere Team
published in Pathfinder Blog
Defining SuccessLearning Journey

Objective Those who fail to plan, plan to fail. Clearly defining objectives and performance indicators sets your CoE up for success. As a Center of Excellence, it’s your responsibility to define what RPA metrics are being captured, plan how and where to record them, and report savings across all business units consistently. Defining standards for key performance indicators early in your RPA practice will set the organization up for accurate, trusted metrics later on. Consistency is Key If you expect to have 3-4 different business groups building bots on the Automation 360 platform in the first year, expect to have about 12 different methods of reporting savings. Why? Because without guidance from the CoE on capturing, storing, and reporting savings, everyone will come up with their own methods. As early as possible, work with representatives from the federated teams (or within your team) to identify a standard way to capture and report RPA savings. Seek to answer questions like:  How a

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Automation Anywhere Team
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Automation Anywhere Team
Automation Anywhere TeamAutomation Anywhere Team
published in Pathfinder Blog
What is a CoE?Learning Journey

Objective Define what a Center of Excellence (CoE) is and identify its core objectives. When large supply ships navigate ice-filled waters, they often follow smaller ships called icebreakers, which are designed to break up ice so that the larger, less nimble supply ship can follow safely. How’s that for an icebreaker to start this conversation? Terrible puns aside, the role of a Center of Excellence (CoE) is similar to that of the icebreaker ship. Let’s talk about the three core competencies of a CoE to successfully champion and scale Robotic Process Automation: Thought Leadership, Execution Guidance, and Bot Builder Enablement. Thought Leadership A successful CoE provides thought leadership about RPA to executives, business unit leaders, and other teams that the CoE relies on. As you establish RPA team processes, you will need to work with other operational groups, such as the IT helpdesk and release management teams, who will need help learning to support new requests from your team.

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Automation Anywhere Team
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Automation Anywhere Team
Automation Anywhere TeamAutomation Anywhere Team
published in Pathfinder Blog
Executive SupportLearning Journey

Objective Without executive support, RPA initiatives that have been successful in one department may never expand beyond that functional area. In this learning experience, we’ll look at why executive support is so important and how you can get executive buy-in if you don’t have it already. Executive support is crucial to an RPA program’s ability to influence other functional areas and contribute to your digital transformation goals. If your RPA practice currently has executive support – excellent! Be sure to foster those executive relationships so they consistently promote RPA initiatives with others. We’ll walk through some things you can do to recruit and invest in leaders to champion RPA initiatives. If your CoE practice currently does not have executive support, that’s OK. This learning experience will help you get leaders excited about robotic process automation and the return on investment RPA can achieve. Why Does Executive Support Matter? Unlike most enterprise software, which

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Automation Anywhere Team
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Automation Anywhere Team
Automation Anywhere TeamAutomation Anywhere Team
published in Pathfinder Blog
Getting Started - COE Lead JourneyLearning Journey

Overview Welcome to a learning journey about establishing and growing an RPA Center of Excellence (CoE). This journey looks at the best practices followed by some of Automation Anywhere’s most productive customers. The goal of the journey is to help CoE leaders understand what a CoE is, the benefits that a CoE can provide, and the actionable steps that an organization can take to establish and grow a Center of Excellence that thrives. This journey is designed for people who are: Tasked with leading RPA thinking throughout their organization. Interested in establishing themselves or their team as internal subject matter experts in RPA. Interested in scaling Robotic Process Automation initiatives beyond a single business or technology group. Familiar with their organization’s policies and best practices around release management, access controls, and any existing reporting platforms. Familiar with Automation 360. (If you aren’t yet, we recommend reviewing the Citizen Developer jo

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Automation Anywhere Team
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Automation Anywhere Team
Automation Anywhere TeamAutomation Anywhere Team
published in Pathfinder Blog
Intro To Package Development: Machine Setup

 Before you can start developing your own custom Automation 360 packages though, you'll need to make sure your machine is set up with the required pre-requisites for development. Don't worry, even if you dont have extensive (any) experience in Java, we'll walk through the process of getting the Java JDK (Java Developer Kit) installed, an IDE (Integrated Development Environment) setup, and all the required files to validate your setup is working properly. All of this is pre-work for next's weeks post where we'll go through the process of building our first package. Each item below is a requirement for package development. For each requirement, links will be provided as well as some commentary on getting the item set up  Java Developer Kit (JDK 11) The Java JDK is a software package that is installed in order to create Java-based applications. Because Automation 360 packages are created in Java - you are creating a Java-based application when creating a package. As required by the Autom

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Automation Anywhere Team
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Automation Anywhere Team
Automation Anywhere TeamAutomation Anywhere Team
published in Pathfinder Blog
Establishing Development StandardsLearning Journey

Objective In this learning experience, we’ll talk about how to establish consistent development standards for all teams involved in RPA. Developing and defining best practices for developers is one of the core responsibilities of the Center of Excellence. These best practices should reduce bot development times, standardize logging and reporting for RPA key performance indicators, and pave the way for scaled development. This is an immense responsibility for a CoE, especially when just getting started, but make sure you don’t skip this one! We’ll dig into how to operationalize these standards within your organization. We’ll look at what a CoE should focus on when establishing a consistent, auditable, and supportable bot environment, as well as learn what “Establish Development Standards” actaully means. Start doing this when your CoE is centralized and see how much easier it is to roll out the same practices to all teams when you expand to a federated model. Bot Shells What is a Bot Sh

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Automation Anywhere Team
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Automation Anywhere Team
Automation Anywhere TeamAutomation Anywhere Team
published in Pathfinder Blog
Automation 360 Migration: Migrate, Rebuild, or Both?

This article is part of a series of articles authored by Zeth Baker previously from Republic Airways documenting their experience and decision to migrate to Automation 360 On-Premise.Special Note: In the time between publishing the first article in this series and publishing this article, Automation Anywhere Enterprise A2019 has been re-branded to be Automation 360. As such, this article will refer to Automation 360 exclusively, but the language refers to the platform that was previously known as Enterprise A2019. With the introduction of the Automation 360 bot scanner and migration package, we have seen several major improvements with each new version.This was a very encouraging data point in our decision to move forward with our upgrade because it re-enforced the desire of Automation Anywhere to keep improving the migration utility and to make the migration experience as automated as possible in support a smooth transition from previous platform versions. Even as I am writing this to

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Automation Anywhere Team
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Automation Anywhere Team
Automation Anywhere TeamAutomation Anywhere Team
published in Pathfinder Blog
RPA for Newbies: Bot "Grammar"

 Welcome to RPA Tips for Newbies - where Automation Anywhere experts offer advice for those just starting to learn RPA. Micah Smith, resident Developer Evangelist, and Jon Stueve, manager of Automation Anywhere University, chat about some of the advice they wish they had gotten when they were first learning to become RPA developers. In this video, they discuss the importance of grammar in coding your bots.  Is This Case-Sensitive? Everything is case-sensitive...even when it's not. Put another way, if you always make sure to create and reference your variables and bot references as if they are case sensitive, you can never be wrong. Technically is everything case sensitive? No, but if you're always paying close attention to the way you name and reference things - and always end up using the same case-approach, you can never be wrong. Actionable Tip: Establish a standard pattern for the way you will name and reference all of your variables. A common approach in the Automation Anywhere

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Automation Anywhere Team
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Automation Anywhere Team
Automation Anywhere TeamAutomation Anywhere Team
published in Pathfinder Blog
Merge all the PDFs within a folder into a single PDF

In this tutorial, we will learn how to use ‘Automation 360 - PDF Utilities Package’ from Bot Store to build a bot to merge all the PDFs within a folder into a single PDF. Data setup: To try out this exercise, you can download sample PDFs (5 PDFs) from here (Unzip the folder and place the PDFs in the input PDF directory). Navigate to the page https://botstore.automationanywhere.com/bot/a2019-pdf-utilities-package Click on ‘Get Package’. This will take you to the login page for your Bot Store Account. Enter your credentials and click on ‘Get Package’ again. You will see a modal with the text ‘This download is governed by the package’s EULA and the Bot Store Terms you agreed to when you created your account.’. Click on 'Ok, Get Package'You will now see the next modal with a Success message and asking you to select the Control Room URL or Enter the Control Room URL based on whether you have previously entered the Control Room URL from this account. In my case, I will select ‘New URL’ and e

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Automation Anywhere Team
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Automation Anywhere Team
Automation Anywhere TeamAutomation Anywhere Team
published in Pathfinder Blog
Is it a Number!?!

 With so many numbers that show up within the data bots that use (SSN's, phone numbers, loop counters, etc.), it can be tough at times to know which should be stored as a Number variable and which should be a String. Let's break that down by playing Is It a Number! For each of the examples below, think about how you would store such a value within your own bots, then read through our thoughts on how such data should typically be stored Age Answer: It Depends! Age can be a bit tricky to consider how best to store it - mainly because it really depends on how the data is intended to be used. If it's going to be used with conditional statements (i.e. to determine if someone is > a certain age) - then it should definitely be stored as a Number variable. If it's going to be used only to grab data from one application/repository/database and move it to another with no arithmetic operations (i.e. I'm not adding anything to it or checking if it's > <), then it can be stored as a Str

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Automation Anywhere Team
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Automation Anywhere Team
Automation Anywhere TeamAutomation Anywhere Team
published in Pathfinder Blog
Get to Know Your Datatypes: Number Variable

Get to Know Your Datatypes: Number VariableBeyond clicking their way through applications and making calls to application programming interfaces (APIs), bots use the data gathered from applications to make decisions and perform calculations. In support of these efforts, there is a dedicated variable type to hold numerical values: the Number variable. The number variable can store numeric values (including integers and decimals) from -9,223,372,036,854,775,808 to 9,223,372,036,854,775,807, and up to 15 decimal digits. Let's take a look at a couple of common ways that Number variables are used within bots. Number Package The first and most obvious place that Number variables are used is within the Number package. The Number package allows for basic operations in dealing with Number variable types: Assign: Assign a specific number to a new variable. This also includes taking arithmetic operations on other Number variables (or by hard-coding numbers) to include addition, subtraction, mul

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Automation Anywhere Team
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Automation Anywhere Team
Automation Anywhere TeamAutomation Anywhere Team
published in Pathfinder Blog
Automation 360 Migration: Analysis and Planning

This article is part of a series authored by Zeth Baker previously from Republic Airways documenting their experience and decision to migrate from Automation Anywhere v11 to Automation 360 On-Premise.   With the introduction of Automation 360, the web-based building/testing capabilities, and the ability to create and use custom packages - we began thinking about when the best time would be for us to migrate from Automation Anywhere v11 to Automation 360. We’ve been happy with the stability of v11, and while we didn’t want to be the first to migrate, we wanted to be a fast follower in being able to take advantage of all the newly introduced functionality that Automation 360 has to offer. To be very honest, it can be a difficult decision to take the plunge on a platform migration – especially when you’re the individual who will primarily be responsible for upgrading the bots and handling the migration. When the Bot Scanner Utility was released, we started utilizing it immediately - findi

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Automation Anywhere Team
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Automation Anywhere Team
Automation Anywhere TeamAutomation Anywhere Team
published in Pathfinder Blog
Mastering Excel Advanced Package - Episode 1: Build a Profit Calculation Bot

In this series, we will guide you to use different actions available in Excel advanced package.Before we get into the details about the bot, let's understand the basics of the Excel advanced package.The Excel advanced package contains actions that enable you to automate many of the repetitive tasks when working with Microsoft Excel spreadsheets.You can automate tasks related to the workbook, worksheet, rows, columns, and cell operations. You can use these actions when Microsoft Excel is installed on the device that you want to use to automate the Microsoft Excel-related tasks.Actions in the Excel advanced package support Microsoft Office 2016 through Microsoft Office 2019 and .xls, .xlsx, .xlsb, and .xlsm formats. You can also use some of the actions with the .csv format.To use the actions in Excel advanced package, use the following sequenceOpen the Microsoft Excel spreadsheet that you want to use to automate the Microsoft Excel-related tasks. Use the Open action to open the spreadshe

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Automation Anywhere Team
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Automation Anywhere Team
Automation Anywhere TeamAutomation Anywhere Team
published in Pathfinder Blog
Package Development: Writing a Test Class

  In a previous post on package development, we took a look at returning a Dictionary as a part of the package's action. In this post, we'll take a look at the breakdown of a test class from that same project - which allows developers to simulate the process of a user mapping data to fields in the Control Room UI, and see the resulting data from the Java IDE before going through the build/install process that would otherwise be required. To be very clear - the use of a test class is one way to validate the functionality of a custom package, but in and of itself is not the full extent of testing that should be performed. While a test class can be great for validating basic functionality, it's still important for developers to test their custom package with an actual bot to validate that field labels, descriptions, icons, etc. show up as expected - and that the actions of the package work as they should. If you want to download the sample code and follow along with the rest of this blog

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Automation Anywhere Team
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Automation Anywhere Team
Automation Anywhere TeamAutomation Anywhere Team
published in Pathfinder Blog
Package Development: Returning a Dictionary

  One of the best ways to build reusable components to share with other developers in your organization (or with developers of other organizations through Bot Store) is through the creation of custom packages in Enterprise A2019. Custom packages look and operate just like the standard package set available from Automation Anywhere - but with the flexibility to be customized to meet the specific needs of your organization or your customers. Be it automating service calls to an internal application to validate customers by ID, or integration with cognitive services to make machine learning and AI capabilities available to other bot builders within your organization - custom packages have the power to greatly extend the out-of-box capabilities of Enterprise A2019. That capability paired with the new data types available for use in Enterprise A2019 means that there are LOTS of available options for package creation. Some of those return datatypes can be a bit tricky to work with though - s

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Automation Anywhere Team
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Automation Anywhere Team
Automation Anywhere TeamAutomation Anywhere Team
published in Pathfinder Blog
What's Your Bot Type?

 Organizations across the world are using Automation Anywhere Enterprise A2019 to drive some of their digital transformation efforts...but what different types of bots are they creating? Let's examine 4 different types of bots to understand what types your organization may already be working on, as well as some types that you may look to create in the future.  Stuff We're Doing Today Bots This bot type is the most common type of bot that organizations are creating - the bots that automate the heavily manual, mundane, and "robotic" tasks that humans are being asked to do. This category of bot includes automating the repetitive, high-volume, rule-based tasks where humans are often tasked with playing the bridge between applications that don't otherwise have automated methods of interfacing with one another. Of note - these types of tasks have lower job satisfaction with employees as the tasks require no real human input (reasoning, decision making, emotional intelligence, etc)

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Automation Anywhere Team
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Automation Anywhere Team
Automation Anywhere TeamAutomation Anywhere Team
published in Pathfinder Blog
Automation Anywhere 2021 A-Lister Program

Automation Anywhere 2021 A-Lister ProgramThe A-Lister program at Automation Anywhere is for developers and advocates who have demonstrated exceptional expertise and engagement on the Automation Anywhere platform and with RPA developer communities. This program is not just about who has the most development experience. It's about identifying and recognizing passionate thought leaders who love building automations, want to share their stories with others, and engage with the Automation Anywhere developer/customer community.In this post, we'll break down what it means to be an A-Lister, the benefits of the A-Lister program, and how you can apply to become a 2021 Automation Anywhere A-Lister!Program DescriptionThe A-Lister program exists to recognize individuals who are technical customer advocates and influencers in the Automation Anywhere RPA community. Applicants can apply to be an A-Lister via the form at the bottom of this page - which lets the Automation Anywhere community management

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Automation Anywhere Team
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Automation Anywhere Team
Automation Anywhere TeamAutomation Anywhere Team
published in Pathfinder Blog
Top 5 New Features in Enterprise A2019.18

 Top 5 New Features in Enterprise A2019.18The product and development teams at Automation Anywhere have been on a roll with new features and updates coming out with each release. In this post, we'll dive into some of the most popular and most requested features that were newly added with .18 (build 7560). Discovery Bot With the .18 release, Discovery Bot enables developers to make smarter and faster decisions when reviewing bot recordings Users also have the ability to hide sensitive screenshots from the created recordings - opting instead to write detailed descriptions as to not accidentally display PII or other sensitive data Recorder layout updates mean bigger screenshots and easier to read/review processes Biggest news of all - Discover Bot is now available as a part of Automation Anywhere Community Edition and the Automation Anywhere Enterprise Free Trial Enterprise A2019 Platform Citizen Developer licensing entitlement empowers citizen developers to create and run their own

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Automation Anywhere Team
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Automation Anywhere Team
Automation Anywhere TeamAutomation Anywhere Team
published in Pathfinder Blog
Quick Tip: Using JavaScript within a Bot

 Automation Anywhere Enterprise A2019 enables developers to leverage lots of different technologies from within their bots - optical character recognition, file manipulation, and even different programming languages. One programming language that developers frequently find useful to leverage in their bots is JavaScript. Not to be confused with Java, JavaScript is a well-supported programming language that powers a good majority of the front and back end web applications that we use every day. Fortunately, that power is also available from directly within an Enterprise A2019 bot. Establish a JavaScript Session Using the Open action of the JavaScript package, bot builders can establish a session that can be called using the Run JavaScript action. The JavaScript session can be established off of a .js file that is stored in a local/network directory, stored on the Control Room, or stored in a variable. Additionally, the action supports manual JavaScript input (which is shown in the exam

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Automation Anywhere Team
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Automation Anywhere Team
Automation Anywhere TeamAutomation Anywhere Team
published in Pathfinder Blog
Tech Talks: What is AARI?

Tech Talks: What is AARI? If you haven't heard, Automation Anywhere has a new digital assistant product: AARI. AARI stands for Automation Anywhere Robotic Interface. Think of AARI as an application that provides new interfaces for humans and bots to collaborate on work. Gone are the days of having to provision Control Room access for everyone in the organization, or having to set up schedules for certain bots that would regularly execute only to sit and wait for input files from humans. AARI provides 3 distinct interfaces for interacting with bots: AARI Apps Built-in plugins for applications that enable users to engage with bots directly from the applications they are already working in. The applications currently supported include Microsoft Excel, Salesforce, and Google Sheets. Bots executed through AARI Apps are run on unattended bot runners - so they would not execute directly on the triggering-user's workstation. AARI Desktop Customizable forms that enable users t

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Automation Anywhere Team
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Automation Anywhere Team
Automation Anywhere TeamAutomation Anywhere Team
published in Pathfinder Blog
Bot Store Breakdown: Salesforce Package

   In this session, we'll look at how to test the Enterprise A2019 Salesforce Package available from Bot Store. The Salesforce Package enables developers to quickly and easily perform insert operations, make updates, fetch Salesforce object details, and delete existing objects (standard and custom). We'll walk through setting up the package and understand how each of its actions work by directing the sample bot included with the Bot Store package. Included Actions:Authenticate Securely connect to Salesforce using insecure string (though not recommended), variables, or values stored in your Credential Vault This authentication returns a token. This token doesn't need to be used by a developer, but the return will "Error" or "Exception" (dependent on the error) should the authentication not work properly.  Execute SOQL (Query) Leveraging the Salesforce Object Query Language (SOQL), developers can query for Salesforce objects - reading back specific object attributes based on the query p

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Automation Anywhere Team
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Automation Anywhere Team
Automation Anywhere TeamAutomation Anywhere Team
published in Pathfinder Blog
How to Publish Bots and Packages from Automation 360 to Bot Store

 In this Automation Anywhere tutorial, we'll learn how to publish Automation 360 bots and packages to Bot Store. Bot Store is directly integrated with the Automation 360 Control Room to allow you to easily publish bots to Bot Store from within the Control Room.

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Automation Anywhere Team
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Automation Anywhere Team
Automation Anywhere TeamAutomation Anywhere Team
published in Pathfinder Blog
Building Secure and Auditable Bots in Automation 360

 As Robotic Process Automation activities expand within businesses, not all bot developers are well versed in best practices for developing secure and auditable bots. While enabling federated development to many business groups within the organization has its benefits – namely increased productivity and speed of execution for redundant processes – it can come at the potential risk for data loss and an overall decrease in the confidentiality of business data. Many businesses attempt to overcome these challenges through the use of a Center of Excellence (CoE) that reviews bots and may run code scanning analyzers in an attempt to increase adherence to corporate and IT standards. This helps to minimize the risk. However, more can and should be done in the design of a bot to help ensure businesses can continue to receive the value from RPA while mitigating as many risks as possible. The following are some additional guidelines that can be followed to mitigate risks: Don’t use external files

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Automation Anywhere Team
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