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282 Topics

kate-resslerPathfinder Community Team

Meet Pathfinder Mission Control: The Game-Changing Companion for Automation LeadersPathfinder Mission Control

Intelligent automation is a team sport. While thriving automation programs across industries are comprised of both lean and large teams, the non-negotiable role essential for a successful program is the Automation Leader—the job function dedicated to leading strategic alignment to business goals, implementation, executive relationship-building, organizational evangelism of intelligent automation, and more.If you are an automation leader, we want you to know we see you. We understand the responsibilities on your plate and the pressure from senior management to deliver and scale. As your team’s leader, there are many ways to approach building and nurturing a successful automation program, as well as many ways you might find your efforts stalled. That’s precisely why we developed Pathfinder Mission Control.Pathfinder Mission Control is your trusted companion for automation success. It is a game-changer for automation leaders by providing expert tools and guidance to build resilient, scala

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7 months ago

Micah.SmithPathfinder Community Team

published in Pathfinder Blog

Building a Case for Gen AI: Unleash Your Automation InnovationGenerative AI

Automation leaders across the globe are tuned into the developing power and potential applications of generative AI. But trepidation around the unknowns of this rapidly evolving technology is stopping them from putting this tool to work for themselves, particularly regarding security and compliance. Does that sound like you, too? We’re here to address these concerns and offer guidance to approaching your first generative AI business use case with confidence and success. In this blog we’ll discuss:Approaching challenges with generative AI adoption Use case possibilities Preparing to build your first generative AI business use case Adoption is the challenge8 years ago an unfamiliar tech was growing in prominence. There was uncertainty around how it worked, whether it was safe and secure, and whether it threatened existing jobs. That tech was intelligent automation. Fast forward to present-day, we’re observing the same unfamiliarity and uncertainty with generative AI. When speaking to our

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7 months ago

arjun.medaPathfinder Community Team

published in Pathfinder Blog

The Unsung Hero: The Importance of SDD Template Organization in AutomationAutomation Pathfinder Program

Solution Design Documents, otherwise known as SDD templates, lay the groundwork for success for your automation program. The way you design, store, and manage SDD templates can be a game-changer — improving efficiency, minimizing opportunities for error, and streamlining processes.Whether you’re getting ready to create an SDD template for your first automation program or your hundredth, you’ve come to the right place. In this article we’ll explore considerations and best practices in SDD templates — their creation, storage, and management — at every phase of your automation program, from Start to Accelerate to Scale. Introduction to SDD TemplatesBefore we dive into specific phases, let’s first establish what an SDD template is. A Solution Design Document (SDD) outlines your end result, or what the process will look like once it’s automated. It serves as a technical guide for the developer, and contains important details like key process steps and how they will be automated, the applica

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7 months ago

Automation Anywhere TeamAutomation Anywhere Team

published in Pathfinder Blog

Developing a Compelling Vision and GoalsAutomation Pathfinder Program

It’s not an uncommon scenario. Sometimes, during Automation Pathfinder Program sessions we hear: “We’ve been having trouble with our leadership understanding our vision for automation.” We immediately ask “What has your program accomplished so far, where do you plan to go from here, and how have you communicated these things with your leadership team?”. Sometimes we’ll get a response like, “Well, we created 15 bots last year and plan to launch another 20 this year. We told our executives about it, but they didn’t seem to care that much. They didn’t really understand the work it takes to build a bot or the benefit that it brings to the organization.” This is how we know a team has missed several steps in developing a clearly defined vision, tracking the metrics that matter, and effectively communicating the value the automation program is bringing to the organization. Here’s where we go from here: Developing a Compelling Vision Have you ever known someone who had a killer idea but cou

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7 months ago

kate-resslerPathfinder Community Team

published in Pathfinder Blog

Everything You Need To Know About Renewing Your Automation Anywhere Professional RPA CertificationAAU Update

Your Automation Anywhere RPA Certification validates your expertise level within your organization and to prospective employers, so keeping it current is imperative to safeguard your personal career investment. Certification renewal is easy and we’re here to walk you through the process and answer frequent questions we get about certification renewal. Plus—We currently have a special offer to renew your certification for free! Keep reading below to learn more.Here are the questions this blog will answer:Why should I renew my Automation Anywhere Certification? Why is it important to maintain my Automation Anywhere Certification? Am I eligible to take the Automation Anywhere Renewal Certifications? How do I access Renewal Certifications? What is the format of the Renewal Certifications? What is the cost of renewing my certification?Why should I renew my Automation Anywhere Certification?Automation Anywhere professional RPA certifications remain active for two years. Once your certificati

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7 months ago

Automation Anywhere TeamAutomation Anywhere Team

published in Pathfinder Blog

Bot Store Spotlight: File Conversion Package

File Conversion package enables bot builders to quickly and easily convert files from one file format to another to simplify the process of making file adjustments. It consists of 11 actions and supports file formats such as JPEG, JPG, GIF, PNG, TIFF, PDF, DOCX, XLSX, PPTX, CSV, and HTML.Here are a couple of use cases for which you can use this package:Emailing files to customers in a non-editable format for the purposes of a professional-looking output (Microsoft Word to PDF Conversion) Converting large, color images to their grayscale alternatives as color images can often be 10x the size of a grayscale image. (Image to Image conversion) Saving out presentations to be shared with customers or partners (Microsoft Powerpoint to PDF) Converting a file to make modifications more easily (CSV to Microsoft Excel) Breaking up multipage files into single-page files for processing in document recognition or storage solutions (PDF to Image, Image to Image)NOTE: Converting files (especially com

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7 months ago

Micah.SmithPathfinder Community Team

published in Pathfinder Blog

Human In-The-Loop (Co-Pilot)Automation Pathfinder Program

Human In-The-Loop means that user involvement is expected during the automation's invocation - and possibly during its execution. Click the link below matching the Solution Pattern Model for your use case for additional details and assets for each Solution Pattern. How will your automation be executed?Desktop AutomationThere are 4 Solution Patterns for running Desktop Automation. These Solution Patterns are generally executed locally on the user’s machine/desktop (optionally including ‘Picture in Picture’ mode) and use a Process to join together Task Bots and human-readable forms.Co-Pilot Desktop - Standalone - Run on Demand User invokes automation when required, via Control Room, or Copilot Desktop Assistant. Stand alone’ = not embedded in any application (no application/screen/transactional context) Can be used with “Picture in Picture” Automation renders in a ‘picture in picture’ screen (using Microsoft’s Child Sessions built into Windows), allowing the user to continue to use

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8 months ago

jimfrostMost Valuable Pathfinder

published in Pathfinder Blog

Key Considerations when Building an Automation Team for Long Term Scale & Growth – Part II: Growing Your TeamMVP | Automation Pathfinder Program

IntroductionHello again, and welcome to Part II of my blog series on how to build an automation team for long term scale and growth. Part I focused on establishing the foundation of your team by asking some key questions about your organization's strategy, culture, structure, and project management approach. I emphasized the importance of having clear roles, responsibilities, expectations, vision, and communication for the team members. I also provided some examples of different types of teams based on different organizational models and suggested some best practices for creating a successful automation team.In this post, I will be moving on to the next stage which covers how and when to grow your team. I will cover the key indicators you need to monitor, the questions you need to address as you begin discussing your team's growth, what roles should you consider expanding or creating, and what the impact will be on your organization during and after this growth period. One thing to kee

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8 months ago

kate-resslerPathfinder Community Team

published in Pathfinder Blog

5 Must-See Sessions for Automation Leaders at Imagine 2023Imagine 2023

Imagine 2023 in Austin, TX is rapidly approaching and, per the usual, we’ve meticulously curated a schedule brimming with informative, inspiring, and interactive sessions that will engage every person in every role and stage of automation. (If you haven’t purchased tickets yet, what are you waiting for? Book your spot today!) But with only two days to spend at our annual event, we don’t want you feeling like it’s the first day of secondary school—frantic to figure out your class schedule, where you need to be, and when. Nobody’s got time for that!With that in mind, we’ve curated a list of the top sessions from Automation Anywhere’s Community Team for automation leaders and/or business analysts that will benefit you the most. We want to maximize our impact on YOU at Imagine 2023, and these five sessions are where we bet you’ll gain big insights and bigger takeaways (everything is bigger in Texas, after all). 5 Habits of Highly Effective Automation ProgramsScale Your Program for Success:

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8 months ago

kate-resslerPathfinder Community Team

published in Pathfinder Blog

4 Must-See Sessions for Automation Developers at Imagine 2023Imagine

Hey Developers! Imagine 2023 in Austin, TX is rapidly approaching. We’re going to see you there, right? We’ve diligently curated two full days of informative, inspiring, and interactive sessions that will engage every person in every role and stage of automation. And you can bet that we have sessions planned to specifically benefit our developer community. So trust us when we say, you don’t want to miss out! if you haven’t purchased tickets yet, book your spot today by clicking here.We know your time at Imagine is precious and we want to help you maximize what you are able to take away from just two days. With that in mind, we’ve taken the guesswork out of your plans by putting together this helpful list of the key sessions from the Pathfinder Community team that will have the biggest impact for developers! Introducing Pathfinder Academy Career Quests and Skill BoostersBe the first to get hands on with newly developed role-based and skill-focused training We're revealing our completely

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8 months ago

Automation Anywhere TeamAutomation Anywhere Team

published in Pathfinder Blog

JavaScript Injection: Using Browser Run JavaScript

Browser: Run JavaScript For some background, the Browser package is most commonly used for opening a web-browser session to be used in conjunction with the Recorder package....but did you know it can also be used to inject JavaScript into a page for execution? In this tutorial, we'll look at how to use a Self-Executing Anonymous Function to inject a CDN-hosted JavaScript source to the head of the DOM and then execute it. Sound confusing? Don't worry, let's break it down together.Oh, and while this is a serious topic - the bot we'll be building shows a confetti explosion on the page...a fun way to add some pizazz to your next automation demo. Having a Window to Practice With We first need to have a browser session for our Browser: Run JavaScript to interact with. If you have a window open already, that's fine, but the first action we'll add here for the tutorial is a Browser: Open action to launch Google Chrome and open Google.com Adding a Delay For our JavaScript Injection to work co

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8 months ago

Lee MatthewsAutomation Anywhere Team

published in Pathfinder Blog

Automation Lifecycle and DevOps

Please note that this document is part of The automation Success Framework and is referenced by the following parent document. This specific article discusses different approaches to configuring the platform for DevOps to ensure a secure and practical development methodology.DevOps refers to the tools and practices that guide a software development team and ensure solutions are developed securely and effectively. Automation Anywhere can be configured in various ways to suit different approaches to DevOps. In this article I discuss best practice approaches, which you can adapt to the specific needs of your organisation.The structure of your CoE will have a significant impact on your DevOps approach, as will the number of control rooms you have licenced. Two Control Rooms With two control rooms it is still possible to implement a methodology which implements a clear separation between Development, Testing and Production automations. The diagram below outlines the suggested approach. In

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9 months ago

Lee MatthewsAutomation Anywhere Team

published in Pathfinder Blog

Best Practice Automation Reporting

Please note that this document is part of The automation Success Framework and is referenced by the following parent document. This specific article discusses the importance of effective automation reporting and proposes a best practice approach. Building effective reporting into your automations is very important for many reasons. Some examples are:Having a dashboard / reporting to supervise operation of the automation allows business users to monitor what their digital workers are doing. Without some form of oversight of the process, business users may not take proper “ownership”, and may place undue expectations on the Automation CoE to manage the outcomes. It is important to monitor what is triggering exceptions to the process and how many there are. This allows for proper planning of enhancements to the logic. There should be a way to track the notional benefits being delivered by the automation, so the Automation CoE can track ROI of the investment in and maintenance of the au

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9 months ago

Lee MatthewsAutomation Anywhere Team

published in Pathfinder Blog

Lee MatthewsAutomation Anywhere Team

published in Pathfinder Blog

The Automation LifecycleAutomation Anywhere SME

This article is part of a broader series that forms the Automation Success Framework. Please click on the link to view all topics. Note that there is a considerable amount of interdependency between each of these topics. For example, your choice of model for the automation CoE will influence how you need to configure the Control Room, and will also influence the roles involved in the Automation Lifecycle. In this article we will discuss the process of managing automations through the various stages of the automation pipeline or lifecycle. Note that a separate article deals with the configuration of the control room to support different DevOps practices and to manage separation of duties. That article is available here.. Introduction The stages through which automations will move should be considered as more of a lifecycle that a straight pipeline. This is because automations tend to evolve continuously as the operations of the business change. There are four key stages to the automat

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9 months ago

Lee MatthewsAutomation Anywhere Team

published in Pathfinder Blog

Establishing your Automation Centre of Excellence (CoE)Automation Anywhere SME

This article is part of a broader series that forms the Automation Success Framework. Please click on the link to view all topics. Note that there is a considerable amount of interdependency between each of these topics. For example, your choice of model for the automation CoE will influence how you need to configure the Control Room, and will also influence the roles involved in the Automation Lifecycle. In this article we will discuss the role of the Automation Centre of Excellence (CoE), the different CoE structures that are possible, and the benefits and disadvantages of each structure. Introduction The Automation Centre of Excellence (CoE) is an organisational unit dedicated to ensuring that the automation program is as successful as possible. All activities of the CoE should ideally be directed toward achieving this goal. To ensure that the CoE is fulfilling this goal it is important for an organisation to first define what a successful automation program looks like. The followin

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9 months ago

Tamil Arasu10Most Valuable Pathfinder

published in Pathfinder Blog

How to Use OAuth 2.0 with REST API

This is a guest post written by Tamil Arasu, Automation Anywhere MVP and RPA Developer with Fugro Netherlands. In this article, you will learn how to use OAuth2.0 in the REST API package with the Bearer token. Modern authentication is used to integrate/communicate between applications. As the Automation Success Platform does not currently support OAuth2.0 on the REST API package directly, let’s see how we can connect or integrate the application via OAuth2.0 using A360. By following this method, you can establish communication between various applications via OAuth2.0 using A360 REST API Package. OAuth 2.0OAuth 2.0 is the industry-standard protocol for authorization. OAuth 2.0 focuses on client developer simplicity while providing specific authorization flows for web applications, desktop applications, mobile phones, and living room devices. OAuth 2.0 Bearer Token UsageA Bearer Token is an opaque string, not intended to have any meaning to clients using it. Some servers will issue tok

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9 months ago

Lee MatthewsAutomation Anywhere Team

published in Pathfinder Blog

The Automation Success Framework (ASF)Automation Anywhere SME

The Automation Success Framework I have been maintaining a series of best practice documents on setting up and managing an automation practice using Automation 360. It occurred to me that Community is probably the best place to host and maintain this content. As a result, I am posting all the content on “The Automation Success Framework” here. The Automation Success Framework is broken down into four separate topics. Please click on each of the links below to explore that particular topic.(Note that I am currently migrating the content to community, so not all links are enabled right now).Setting up and configuring your Control Room Establishing your Automation Centre of Excellence (CoE) The Automation LifecycleNote that there is a considerable amount of interdependency between each of these topics. For example, your choice of model for the automation Centre of Excellence (CoE) will influence how you need to configure the Control Room, and will also influence the roles involved in the

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10 months ago

Adamf103490Most Valuable Pathfinder

published in Pathfinder Blog

A Careful Migration Isn’t Glamorous, But NecessaryMost Valuable Pathfinder

Migration isn’t glamorous. Stakeholders and leadership teams don’t see us driving more value to the business—whether it’s in the form of headcount, cost, or time savings—when our only focus is moving old code to a new system. However, this doesn’t mean we should rush through the development cycle in order to push through migration and getting back to creating new automations. For each process we migrate, we should be going through the full development lifecycle, with a heavy emphasis on testing, to ensure a successful overall migration.At BSC, we’ve been leveraging Automation Anywhere since 2018 and have hundreds of automations within our ecosystem that needed to be migrated from V11 to A360. We started migration in mid-2022 with a goal to complete migration by mid-2023. Even though it was a big task, we focused on taking the time needed to migrate each automation thoughtfully and successfully. Here are steps we took and how I recommend proceeding should you have the large task of migr

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10 months ago

Automation Anywhere TeamAutomation Anywhere Team

published in Pathfinder Blog

Meetup Recap: Working with DLLs in Automation 360

In this session, we discussed about how to create DLLs, how to use them in Automation 360 and their real world applications. Building a DLL To build a DLL, you will need access to an IDE such as Visual Studio , knowledge of C# language and the supported data types in DLL functions within the Automation 360 platform.While creating a DLL in Visual Studio, select the project type Class Library (.Net framework) and the preferred language to build a DLL is C#. Dipendra showed us how to build a simple DLL that can find the minimum and maximum among the 2 input numbers and also from a list of numbers. You can download the DLL code (see attachment) to try it out. Also, you can see the code from the screenshots below. Conclusion: If you already have existing DLLs built on .NET framework or if you have a team of .NET developers in your team, then you can build powerful DLLs and use them in the Automation Anywhere platform. However, the preferred method to extend Automation 360 platform capabil

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10 months ago

Automation Anywhere TeamAutomation Anywhere Team

published in Pathfinder Blog

Plugging in to the Automation Anywhere Pathfinder Community as Your Program AcceleratesAutomation Pathfinder Program

Maybe you’ve been at the automation game for awhile now. You may have hit some bumps along the way, but you’ve also had some wins. You know that nothing feels quite like being able to hit some of your established program goals.Recognized your first $500K in savings? Delivered an automation that’s been a game changer for your organization? Expanded your automation program out to a new functional area? Overcome a key challenge in an area that has been a struggle for your automation program?All of these accomplishments (among others) represent meaningful milestones in your automation journey - and one of the best ways to celebrate these goals is to share your success story with others. What Are User Groups? The Automation Anywhere User Groups are dedicated virtual small group meetings for our customers to connect and share strategies and best practices. Each of these interactive and engaging sessions are centered on a customer presentation. We know what you’re thinking: a User Group’s no

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11 months ago

arjun.medaPathfinder Community Team

published in Pathfinder Blog

Bot Games Season 4 Generative AI Edition Solution Tutorial Challenge #3

Automation Resiliency Challenge Solution Tutorial The grand finale is here! After three weeks of groundbreaking challenges, Bot Games Season 4 comes to an epic conclusion. What an unbelievable ride this has been. Did you solve every challenge? We hope you pushed the limits of your skills and imagination with each challenge. The challenges were meant to inspire the very best in automation innovation, and from what we've seen you far surpassed our wildest expectations!This week - we’re focused in on the Automation Resiliency Challenge though. How can we keep an automation running even in spite of application UI changes? If you didn’t get a chance to check out our intro/explanation of this weeks challenge, we have that here...but our goal for this post is to dive into exactly how we think about solving this challenge and adding resiliency and stability to our automations.The video above walks through the entire build end to end - so you can build along with us, but we wanted to call out

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11 months ago

arjun.medaPathfinder Community Team

published in Pathfinder Blog

Bot Games Season 4 Generative AI Edition Announcement & Details - Challenge #2

Challenge #2: Shipment Processing Welcome to the second challenge of Bot Games Season 4! Our objective this time is to showcase how a Generative AI model can enhance and improve existing data in the Manufacturing industry. It's important to note that Generative AI isn't limited to solving complex problems, but can also handle simple and routine tasks with ease.Note: If you’ve never used ChatGPT before, you may want to create an account here. The OpenAI platform provides a trial version to test it out for a limited period. You can get the API for your OpenAI account here.Please note that you are not restricted to using only OpenAI's ChatGPT to solve these challenges. You can use any number of Generative AI model providers to complete the tasks. We have chosen ChatGPT as our primary tool for most of our testing, but feel free to use any provider that suits your needs.Like experimenting with any emerging technology, you may encounter a few things that feel wonky in these Generative AI ch

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11 months ago

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Blog

Meet Pathfinder Mission Control: The Game-Changing Companion for Automation LeadersPathfinder Mission Control

Building a Case for Gen AI: Unleash Your Automation InnovationGenerative AI

The Unsung Hero: The Importance of SDD Template Organization in AutomationAutomation Pathfinder Program

Developing a Compelling Vision and GoalsAutomation Pathfinder Program

Everything You Need To Know About Renewing Your Automation Anywhere Professional RPA CertificationAAU Update

Human In-The-Loop (Co-Pilot)Automation Pathfinder Program

Key Considerations when Building an Automation Team for Long Term Scale & Growth – Part II: Growing Your TeamMVP | Automation Pathfinder Program

5 Must-See Sessions for Automation Leaders at Imagine 2023Imagine 2023

4 Must-See Sessions for Automation Developers at Imagine 2023Imagine

Setting up and configuring your Control RoomAutomation Anywhere SME

The Automation LifecycleAutomation Anywhere SME

Establishing your Automation Centre of Excellence (CoE)Automation Anywhere SME

The Automation Success Framework (ASF)Automation Anywhere SME

A Careful Migration Isn’t Glamorous, But NecessaryMost Valuable Pathfinder

Plugging in to the Automation Anywhere Pathfinder Community as Your Program AcceleratesAutomation Pathfinder Program

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