With an increase in the number of organizations deploying RPA solutions, Robotic Process Automation (RPA) is quickly becoming the most desired skill set for both developers starting their career and seasoned professionals. This book will show you how to use Automation Anywhere A2019, one of the leading platforms used widely for RPA.
Starting with an introduction to RPA and Automation Anywhere, the book will guide you through the registration, installation, and configuration of the Bot agent and Control Room. With the help of easy-to-follow instructions, you'll build your first bot and discover how you can automate tasks with Excel, Word, emails, XML, and PDF files. You'll learn from practical examples based on real-world business scenarios, and gain insights into building more robust and resilient bots, executing external scripts such as VBScripts and Python, and adding error handling routines.
By the end of this RPA book, you'll have developed the skills required to install and configure an RPA platform confidently and have a solid understanding of how to build complex and robust, yet performant, bots.
Author(s): Husan Mahey
Publisher: Packt Publishing
Year: 2020
Language: English
Pages: 554
Cover
Copyright
About PACKT
Contributors
Table of Contents
Preface
Chapter 1: About Automation Anywhere
Technical requirements
What is robotic process automation?
Overview of Automation Anywhere
The Digital Workforce
IQ Bot
Bot Insight
Bot Store
Mobile Bot
Automation Anywhere University
Automation Anywhere versions
Community Edition A2019
Summary
Chapter 2: Installing Automation Anywhere
Technical requirements
Connecting to Control Room
Launching and logging into Control Room
Updating your profile and password
Preparing your device
Installing a Bot agent
Enabling the extension
Configuring profile and device credentials
Summary
Chapter 3: Overview of Automation Anywhere Control Room
Technical requirements
Exploring the home screen
Understanding the dashboard
Viewing RPA activity
Managing bots
My bots
Credentials
Global values
Packages
Managing your devices
Managing user administration
Summary
Chapter 4: Overview of the Automation Anywhere Development Interface
Technical requirements
Bot development interface
Creating a new bot
What can a bot do?
Programming techniques using Automation Anywhere
List view
Flow view
Dual view
Variables and triggers
Debugging and dependencies
Summary
Chapter 5: Building Your First Bot
Technical requirements
Downloading sample data from GitHub
Understanding your automation task
Creating your first bot
Creating bot variables
Creating and reading a CSV file
Opening and closing a CSV file
Looping through rows in a CSV file
Reading record values
Performing basic arithmetic calculations
Appending records to a CSV file
Summary
Chapter 6: Introducing Variables in A2019
Technical requirements
Working with different variable types
Using the String variable type
Using the Datetime variable type
Using the Boolean variable type
Using the Number variable type
Using message boxes and prompts
Converting data types
Summary
Chapter 7: Interacting with Applications
Technical requirements
Automating web applications
Automating desktop applications
Working with Notepad
Simulating keystrokes
Summary
Chapter 8: String Manipulation and List Variables
Technical requirements
Manipulating strings
Section 1 – Initializing lists and loops
Looping through lists
Section 2 – Getting full names
Section 3 – Getting forenames
Section 4 – Getting surnames
Section 5 – Getting middle names
Applying a simple logical condition
Implementing a nested loop
Section 6 – Outputting the results
Summary
Chapter 9: Working with Conditional Logic, Loops, and the Filesystem
Technical requirements
Applying different types of loops
Section 1 – Opening the source file
Section 2 – Looping through each row
Section 3 – Getting the surname initial and identifying the group
Applying logical conditions
Section 4 – Checking or creating a subfolder
Section 5 – Updating the output file
Section 6 – Closing the source file
Working with the filesystem
Section 1 – Looping through subfolders
Section 2 – Renaming the output file
Section 3 – Copying the output file
Section 4 – Deleting the output file
Section 5 – Deleting the subfolder
Summary
Chapter 10: Working with XML Files
Technical requirements
Starting, validating, and ending XML sessions
Reading XML nodes
Reading a single node
Reading multiple nodes
Updating XML nodes
Updating a single node
Updating multiple nodes
Inserting XML nodes
Deleting XML nodes
Executing XPath functions
Summary
Chapter 11: Automating Excel
Technical requirements
Opening, closing, and saving Excel workbooks
Reading and writing data within Excel worksheets
Reading from Excel worksheets
Writing to Excel worksheets
Working with data in Excel
Inserting a column
Setting a cell formula
Sorting data
Finding empty cells
Saving and closing the workbook
Running macros
Summary
Chapter 12: Automation Using Word
Technical requirements
Understanding the manual process
Reading the source data
Creating an output letter
Updating the output letter
Summary
Chapter 13: Working with Emails
Technical requirements
Connecting to mailboxes
Connecting to Outlook
Connecting to a POP3/IMAP mailbox
Connecting to an EWS mailbox
Reading emails and attachments
Looping through emails from a folder
Applying filters and specifying folders
Updating the email status
Saving attachments
Sending emails and attachments
Sending an email
Forwarding an email
Replying to an email
Summary
Chapter 14: Working with PDF files
Technical requirements
Extracting text and images
Extracting text from a PDF file
Extracting an image from a PDF file
Splitting and merging documents
Splitting a PDF file
Merging multiple PDF files
Encrypting and decrypting documents
Encrypting a PDF file
Decrypting PDF files
Using the PDF dictionary
Summary
Chapter 15: Working with Databases
Technical requirements
Connecting to, and disconnecting from, databases
Connecting to a SQL/Oracle database
Connecting to a SQLite database
Connecting to an Access database
Connecting using a connection string
Reading data from databases
Updating databases
Inserting data
Updating data
Deleting data
Summary
Chapter 16: Building Modular Bots and Sub-Tasks
Technical requirements
Designing modular task bots
Running sub-task bots
Passing variables between main and sub-task-bots
Sub-task 1 – Create a new Excel workbook
Sub-task 2 – Get the non-system table names from a SQLite database
Sub-task 3 – Copy the table data to Excel
Main task – Export the SQLite database tables to Excel
Working example walk-through
Building a bot – Chapter16_Sub_CreateNewExcel
Building a bot – Chapter16_Sub_GetSqLiteTableNames
Building a bot – Chapter16_Sub_CopySqLiteTableToExcel
Building a bot – Chapter16_Main_SqLiteToExcel
Summary
Chapter 17: Running External Scripts
Technical requirements
Running VBScripts
Importing a script file
Writing inline scripts
Passing parameters
Returning values from functions
Running Python scripts
Summary
Chapter 18: Managing Errors
Technical requirements
Error handling with A2019
Understanding Try, Catch, Finally, and Throw actions
Building an error-handling routine
Modifying the input file and introducing an error
Summary
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Index
