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312 Topics
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Automation Anywhere TeamAutomation Anywhere Team
published in Pathfinder Blog
QuickTip: Using the JSON Object Manager Package

 In this session, we'll look at how to use the JSON Object Manager package available for download from Bot Store. This package can be used for retrieving data from the JSON response of a REST web service call, reading JSON config files, getting the length of an array object within a JSON, or for updating JSON values based on the value's key.Note: If you are using Automation Anywhere A2019 Community Edition, this package has already been installed for you.Reference Link: Please find the link to the JSON used in the video here. As is done in the video, you can use a REST Get action and use the provided GitHub URL to fetch the JSON.Video RecapInitialize the Session Using the package starts with initializing a session. This means using the initialize action in conjunction with the full JSON (either from the response body of a REST call or after read from a JSON file itself) The initialize action validates that the JSON is valid, and will set you up for being able to query the JSON's value

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Automation Anywhere TeamAutomation Anywhere Team
published in Pathfinder Blog
Automation 360 Tutorial: Working with Office 365 One Drive Package

In this tutorial, we will look at how to use Office 365 One Drive Package in Automation 360 platform. Pre-requisites:Active Office 365 subscription Office 365 Username Office 365 Password Office 365 Tenant Id Office 365 Client Id Office 365 Client SecretFirst lets set up the App and credentials in Azure (https://portal.azure.com/)Login to your Azure PortalClick ‘Azure Active Directory’ (if you don't see it on the home screen, search for Azure Active Directory in the search bar) Note the Tenant Id by clicking the Copy icon shown below. Then click on App RegistrationsClick ‘New Registrations’. Enter a name ‘Office_365_Permission, select ‘Accounts in any organizational directory (Any Azure AD directory - Multitenant)’ and Click 'Register’.Note down the Application id (i.e.,Client id) and then Click 'Certificates & Secrets'.Click ‘New Client Secret’, Enter the description, Click ‘Add’.Note the Client secret as it will not be visible later on.Once you have noted down the Client secret,

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Automation Anywhere TeamAutomation Anywhere Team
published in Pathfinder Blog
Automation 360 Tutorial: How to use Camunda DMN package from Bot Store

In this tutorial, we will learn about how to use Camunda DMN package available in Bot Store.First let's look at what DMN means and its background.As defined by OMG, DMN (Decision Model and Notation) is a modeling language and notation for the precise specification of business decisions and business rules. DMN is easily readable by the different types of people involved in decision management. These include: business people who specify the rules and monitor their application; business analysts.As referenced in Camunda website, DMN is not owned by a certain enterprise but by an institution (OMG), which is already established through other world-wide standards, e.g., BPMN and UML. The DMN standard is supported by several software products; you are less dependent on any particular vendor’s products. In DMN, decisions can be modeled and executed using the same language. Business analysts can model the rules that lead to a decision in easy to read tables, and those tables can be executed dir

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Automation Anywhere TeamAutomation Anywhere Team
published in Pathfinder Blog
Learning to Use the Error Handler Package

Goal number one for any automation being built is obviously to complete the task at hand - be it reconciling data between applications, sending off emails, doing web scraping, and/or some combination of all of the above. That’s why we’re using RPA in the first place right?If your goals stop there though, you may be putting your automation process, bot runner, and possibly other scheduled processes at risk. A clearly defined, and crucially important, goal number two must also be considered: keeping the bot from hard failing.Fortunately approaching this stability focused goal is easy to implement in Enterprise A2019 and should be fearlessly approached by both new and experienced bot builders. In this article, we’ll break down the actions of the Error Handling package to understand the appropriate use for each so your bots can safely exit (and log) should an error occur.Why Error Handling MattersYou may have heard of a phrase “happy path” in business process breakdowns or development disc

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Automation Anywhere TeamAutomation Anywhere Team
published in Pathfinder Blog
QuickTip: Advanced Error Handling

In this session, we’ll look at some advanced error handling techniques that can help keep your bots up and running even when dependent applications misbehave.Video RecapGlobal Debug/Log Flag Most bots that developers create ultimately end up running "headless" on a virtual machine. ("headless" meaning no one is sitting there watching them once in production). Unfortunately that means that when an error occurs, it's not always easy to know exactly what happened, what the machine state was like, or what was actually on screen. One helpful approach around that is to build your bot in a way that its looking for a global value to indicate its log/debug level. In this case, the bot can be set up to do more or less logging dependent on that global log level. This additional logging may include writing out info messages to an audit log (as opposed to only errors) and may also include capturing/saving additional screenshots of the bot execution. Retries Left Loop Concept When working with an

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Automation Anywhere TeamAutomation Anywhere Team
published in Pathfinder Blog
QuickTip: Building with Embedded Python

In this session, we'll look at how to embed custom Python in a bot to enhance our ability to quickly and easily extract data.Video Recap:Determine an Order of Operations When mentally thinking through how to solve problems, determine an order of operations for how you'll proceed. As a good practice: Try to solve problems using packages alone. Most of the time this can get you the data/solution you need. When packages leave you short, understand your options...you could use embedded Python, embedded JavaScript, embedded VBScript, write a DLL and use the DLL package, or consider writing your own package (Java). Python Script: Open Action Adding embedded Python to a bot starts with adding the Open Script action. Using this action, developers can choose to execute Python scripts located in their Control Room, on a desktop/share location, a location referenced by a variable, or by manually inputting the script directly into the Open Script action. In the example, we used the manual i

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Automation Anywhere TeamAutomation Anywhere Team
published in Pathfinder Blog
Control Room OverviewLearning Journey

Objective: Following a tutorial to build a bot is one thing - but it's important as a new bot developer to understand the Control Room, how the development interface is laid out, and the flow that bots typically follow from ideation to public check-in and deployment. The Control Room is the central interface for all things bot management, global value creation, user management, deployment, and testing. All that said, depending on your role within the organization - you may or may not see all of those capabilities from the Automation 360 Control Room interface. While most of your time as a bot builder will be spent in the Bot Editor interface, it's important to recognize what else can be done from the Control Room itself. Take a look at the tabs you most likely have access to as a developer (again, if you don't see all of these tabs in your interface, it’s ok - that’s controlled through your role…it’s most important just to understand what’s possible from this interface at this point): 

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Automation Anywhere TeamAutomation Anywhere Team
published in Pathfinder Blog
Bot Editor Deep DiveLearning Journey

Objective: As you come to understand the capabilities of robotic process automation and using bots to automate redundant, rule-based tasks, it’s important to also understand the capabilities available out-of-box to bot developers. In this learning experience, we’ll highlight the interface and some of the capabilities of the Bot Editor and establish a pattern for learning about how to better understand the use of the available packages. To progress in the use of any application requires an understanding of its capabilities as well as information related to their appropriate application. For bot building, that means diving head first into the capabilities of the Bot Editor. Through the Bot Editor, developers can create, test, and review bot builds. As a bot builder, it’s important you’re familiar with the Bot Editor interface so that you know what packages are available and a general idea of the actions they contain, how to create and modify variables, and how to test (and debug) your bo

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Automation Anywhere TeamAutomation Anywhere Team
published in Pathfinder Blog
Where to Get HelpLearning Journey

Overview: Learning a new skill is challenging - especially when you’re learning on your own - and especially when you’re stuck on something. Thankfully, Automation Anywhere provides some excellent resources to help you get unstuck when you find yourself unsure how to solve a particular problem or deal with an issue you’re seeing. In this learning experience, we’ll break down some of the best available resources to get all your issues straightened out. When learning a new technical skill, there’s this challenging jump that learners must make: leaping from the comfort of doing well laid out tutorials with explicit instruction, to starting to solve problems where the steps to get to that final solution aren't so clear. Welcome to the life of being a problem solver! All joking aside, it can be intimidating when you get stuck on something, especially when you don't feel like you know where to turn to get the problem straightened out. Let’s take a look at some resources made available by Aut

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Automation Anywhere TeamAutomation Anywhere Team
published in Pathfinder Blog
What Can Bots Actually Do?Learning Journey

Objective: With a foundation of what RPA actually is, it’s important to start thinking about how RPA can be applied. In this learning experience, we’ll take a look at what bots can do and how they can be utilized in different areas of an organization. Bots are RPA: specialized software robots that automate high-volume, repetitive, rule-based tasks in an auditable and reliable way…but what do bots actually do? And how can that help save my organization time, money, reduction in errors, etc? The answer to both of these questions really depends on the manual efforts that take place in different areas within your organization. Take, for example, processing sales orders. Regardless of the size of your organization, there is some place that your company is tracking customer relationship data (in a CRM, xls, some other system of record) where data needs to be updated in the case of a sale. Additionally, most organizations also leverage an enterprise resource planning application as part of th

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Automation Anywhere TeamAutomation Anywhere Team
published in Pathfinder Blog
Exploring Capabilities in Bot Store

Overview: Identifying some of the most valuable automation opportunities in an organization requires critical thinking and a creative mindset. Those skills come from experience, as well as an exploration in the ‘Art of the Possible’. In this learning experience, we’ll take a look at how Bot Store can be used to explore pre-built bots and packages to enable developers to accelerate bot builds and branch out on bot capabilities.  As new developers start to find their groove in developing RPA bots, a trap that many developers fall into is thinking that the automations they build in the future have to be similar to the automations they’ve built in the past. Said another way - it’s important that as you’re learning to build bots, you continue to think “outside the box” as far creatively approaching solutions to automation opportunities. One way to encourage such creative thought is to regularly explore the bots and pre-built packages available in Automation Anywhere’s Bot Store. Bot Store i

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Automation Anywhere TeamAutomation Anywhere Team
published in Pathfinder Blog
Getting Started - Citizen developer JourneyLearning Journey

Overview Welcome to the start of building great intelligent automation! This journey is focused on helping process analysts, business analysts, and process improvement specialists gets started in learning the capabilities of robotic process automation and learning to build their own bots on Automation 360. Users for this track will tend to have the following profile: Familiar with understanding and documenting of business processes. Comfortable with general problem-solving approaches and creative thinking. May or may not be familiar with creating process flows in a software application. Interested in learning the capabilities and use of robotic process automation to automate manual tasks.  If the above describes you, then let's get things going! This journey is organized into learning experiences that continue to build on each other: What is RPA?:   We’ll give you a quick overview of RPA and Enterprise Automation 360, our web-based RPA platform, and the basics for building on it.

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Automation Anywhere TeamAutomation Anywhere Team
published in Pathfinder Blog
My Bot Failed, Now What?

With the rise of Robotic Process Automation (RPA) as an antidote to dealing with the increasing workloads and inefficiency in helping humans complete their digitally-based tasks, there will inevitably be the case where a bot fails. If your bot is simply handling pulling data from other sources, and the bot is well-written—e.g. supports appropriate exception handling—then the user will simply get a notification that the bot did not complete its task and it can be re-run.But what about scenarios in which the bot was updating systems and the bot stalls or fails in the middle of the updates? This is a tricky scenario. RPA is essentially non-transactional, which means that it cannot roll-back changes that have already been made in the middle of a bot execution if the bot cannot complete its tasks. We see this scenario growing not only around RPA but also in the rise of microservices design that calls a sequence of application programming interfaces (API) to update multiple services as part

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Automation Anywhere TeamAutomation Anywhere Team
published in Pathfinder Blog
Full Bot Build: Shopping List Bot

 In this #AAillustrates episode, we'll dive into creating a bot that will download a CSV, read from the CSV, and enter items from the CSV into a mock shopping list application. While the exact use case may not be applicable directly to what your organization is looking to automate, pay attention to how browser automation is done, loops are handled, and the different ways that data can be read from a CSV/Excel file.ResourcesLink to Exercise Page: https://pathfinder.automationanywhere.com/challenges/AutomationAnywhereLabs-ShoppingList.htmlPackages UsedRecorder Package, Loop Package, File Package, Excel Basic Package     

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Automation Anywhere TeamAutomation Anywhere Team
published in Pathfinder Blog
Intro To Control Room API with Postman

In this episode of #AAillustrates, we'll discuss what an Application Programming Interface (API) is, have a brief intro to the Automation Anywhere Control Room API, then dive in to setting up and using an Automation Anywhere Control Room API Postman Collection to test different API endpoints. For some additional background, Postman is an API testing/creation collaboration tool that allows developers to test different API endpoints. It's extremely useful for RPA developers to test with so they can understand the proper format for calling APIs, correctly formatting the body of a REST Web Service call, and understand the returned responses from an API endpoint. If you haven't tried it out, you can download the Postman application at Postman.com Full Automation 360 Postman CollectionKeep LearningGot the basics of the Automation Anywhere Control Room API down? Great, check out the tutorial on Triggering Bots Using the Control Room API to take the concept even further. In this session, Micah

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Automation Anywhere TeamAutomation Anywhere Team
published in Pathfinder Blog
Full Bot Build: RSS Feed Reader

In this session, we'll walk through creating a bot from start to finish that can read an RSS feed from wired.com, parse the RSS feed using some commands from the XML Package and Loops Package, and create an HTML page from a template in the referenced GitHub link below.While creating this exact bot build may not be something you have an immediate need for - think about other use cases when your bot may need to parse XML (possibly to read bot settings files, or pass data between bot/sub-task) or create an HTML (building an html based email, creating an html page breaking down the bot run results, or a bot that creates a dashboard based on the logs of other bots).Packages UsedStep Package, XML Package, Loop Package, Log To File Package, REST Web Services Package, Datetime Package, Step PackageHelpful LinksRSS Feed URL: https://www.wired.com/feed/rssGitHub Code: https://github.com/AutomationAnywhere/AAillustrates_RSS_FeedReader Keep LearningKeep the momentum going! If you enjoyed building

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Automation Anywhere TeamAutomation Anywhere Team
published in Pathfinder Blog
Quick Tip: Headless Web Scraping

In this session, we’ll look at 2 approaches for extracting text from a web application - including a unique application of the REST Web Services package to perform browser-less web scraping.Video Recap:Recorder Use the recorder in conjunction with the Automation Anywhere Chrome Extension to highlight object on a webpage and extract them. The recorder action does require an established browser session to interact with. Recorder can be a great option for use cases where some navigation through multiple pages is needed or objects on the page are being dynamically loaded at runtime. REST Get Use the REST Get method to read the full page's HTML without the need for a browser - returned as a dictionary - where the Body is the dictionary key to the full HTML text. The String Package can be subsequently used for extracting specific text from the REST response. Bonus TipWhen using the REST Get method to return the full HTML of a page or when using the Recorder Capture action to return the i

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Automation Anywhere TeamAutomation Anywhere Team
published in Pathfinder Blog
Quick Tip: Advanced String Manipulation

In this session, we’ll look at the String Package and discuss approaches for extracting a sub-string. When extracting data from web applications, OCR'd text from images, or even an Excel file - data unfortunately doesn't always come in the perfect format we need it in - which is why its important to understand how best to extract out the text you need.Video Recap:Extract Text Use the before, before and/or after, or the after settings to extract a sub-string from a body of text. Before: You provide the text that precedes the text you're interested in extracting, and the action will return everything that comes after. Before and After: You provide the text that precedes the text you're interested in as well as the text which comes after the text you're interested in. The action will return all the text that comes between the two. Before or After: You provide the text that may precede the text you're interested in as well as the text which may come after the text you're interested in

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Automation Anywhere TeamAutomation Anywhere Team
published in Pathfinder Blog
QuickTip: Error Handling Basics

In this session, we'll look at the basics of Error Handling in A2019 using the Try, Catch, and Finally Blocks. Remember: Beyond executing the task at hand, your bot's #1 responsibility is to not hard fail leaving a bot runner in a bad state; error handling is the best approach to always being in control of your bots.Video Recap:Try The Try block is for the core code you want to execute. Should everything run smoothly here, the finally block would run next. Should things not run as expected, the catch block would run next. Catch The Catch block is for code that should handle exceptions. This might include logging to a file, saving off a screenshot of the machine's current state, or even sending an email off to a support team. After the Catch block runs, the Finally block will execute. Finally The Finally block is for code that should execute whether an error occurred in this bot execution or not. This block might include things like writing out to an audit log, closing applicati

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Automation Anywhere TeamAutomation Anywhere Team
published in Pathfinder Blog
QuickTip: Optimize Your Screen for Bot Building

  In this session, we'll look at how best to to set up your bot-building interface to maximize your developer space. Video Recap: Minimize Tabs Minimize those sections that you don't need open - especially menus that aren't relevant to the task you're currently focusing on Zoom Control Zoom in/out as needed - some developers specifically build at one-click-out-zoom as it allows them to still read everything while seeing more of their bot at once Maximize Your Screen In Google Chrome, you can press F11 to maximize the screen (pressing F11 again exits the maximization). Great for making the most of your screen real estate, as well as avoiding distractions during development. Bonus Tip Use Steps! They are a great way to minimize your code blocks and only show the specific logic you need to focus on.  Be sure to stay tuned to our Community for more Quick Tips!

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Automation Anywhere TeamAutomation Anywhere Team
published in Pathfinder Blog
Modernization: Automate, Re-Platform, or Both?

According to Everest Group, “roughly 35% percent of business applications, which run on mainframes or similar systems, force users to access applications through what is known as 3270 or 5250 emulations, sometimes known as “green screen”. In some industries with higher technical debt, this share is higher. For instance, when we examined the record-keeping systems for the leading ten firms in the US, we found 8 of the 10 firms running these applications on mainframe systems.”Maintenance of these applications can be complex as many are fragile and few businesses want to extend their capabilities with Application Programming Interfaces (API) even though advancements in the operating systems on these platforms now facilitate this using high-level programming languages, such as Java. This results in one of three options for business: automate the interaction with these systems through the use of keyboard and mouse emulation via robotic process automation (RPA) tools, refactor/re-platform/re

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Automation Anywhere TeamAutomation Anywhere Team
published in Pathfinder Blog
Intro To v11 Bot Development Part II

PrerequisitesYou’ll need to have Automation Anywhere Enterprise v11 workbench installed and licensed with a bot creator license to follow along with this lab.BackgroundThis lab is the same back story as our last. Review the details below to re-familiarize yourself with the scenario. Most all web applications have some sort of login process. The primary focus of this first bot is to enter a username and password into a log in form, and successfully log in to a web application.PseudocodeThink of pseudocode as the human readable steps that our program/bot will need to accomplish. When creating a bot, it can be helpful to lay out the steps that the bot will need to take to accomplish a task. In this way, the process of translating into Automation Anywhere commands becomes more straightforward, and we can know we did everything needed.Step 1: Launch Website – We'll have to have the website open to start entering any username/password info.Step 2: Enter Email Address – The email address is a

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Automation Anywhere TeamAutomation Anywhere Team
published in Pathfinder Blog
Intro To v11 Bot Development Part I

PrerequisitesYou’ll need to have Automation Anywhere Enterprise v11 workbench installed and licensed with a bot creator license to follow along with this lab.BackgroundMost all web applications have some sort of login process. The primary focus of this first exercise is to create a bot that will enter a username and password into a log-in page, and successfully log-in to a web application.PseudocodeThink of pseudocode as the human readable steps that our program/bot will need to accomplish. When creating a bot, it can be helpful to lay out the steps that the bot will need to take to accomplish a task. In this way, the process of translating into Automation Anywhere commands becomes more straightforward, and we can know we did everything needed.    Step 1: Launch Website – We’ll have to have the website open to start entering any username/password info.Step 2: Enter Email Address – The email address is a required field, and will be needed for us to properly log in.Step 3: Enter Password

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Automation Anywhere TeamAutomation Anywhere Team
published in Pathfinder Blog
Understanding the Enterprise Control Room

The Automation Anywhere Robotic Process Automation (RPA) platform enables users to automate common or repetitive tasks quickly and almost effortlessly. Users design automations by creating bots, then deploy those bots to the machine where the automation must run. As you can imagine, there are several elements of bot creation that form the moving parts to this process. The first ones you'll encounter are the Control Room, where you'll create and manage bots,  and the bot agent, which runs completed bots. In this article, you'll get a tour of these tools and components required to create your automation successfully. The Control RoomThink of the Automation Anywhere Enterprise Control Room as mission control for all your bots. It’s based in the cloud and accessed through your browser. You use the Control Room to create bots in the bot workbench, to deploy them to your local machines running the bot agent, and to monitor those deployed bots.The Control Room home screen looks like this:Let’

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Automation Anywhere TeamAutomation Anywhere Team
published in Pathfinder Blog
Getting StartedLearning Journey

Overview Welcome to the start of building great intelligent automation! We focused this journey on helping IT engineers and other experienced developers learn to build advanced bots and action packages on Automation 360. Developers for this track often: Handle integrating or building software to meet business users’ needs. Are comfortable with writing and integrating software using APIs. May not be familiar with RPA, or are just getting familiar. Are interested in learning how to build and operationalize automation.  If the above describes you, then let’s get things going! We organized the learning experiences of this journey to become progressively more challenging. Explore:  What an RPA is: We’ll give you a quick overview of RPA and Automation 360, our web-based RPA-as-a-service platform, and the basics for building on it. Additionally, we’ll get your machine set up with the Bot Agent to enable RPA development and testing.   How to Use Bots to Solve Problems: Learn to approach

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