/r/rpa
This sub is dedicated to discussion of robotic process automation, rpa tools and the field in general.
/r/rpa
I just started learning RPA and I recently downloaded UiPath Studio 2023.10.4 version on a Windows 7. Whenever I try creating a sequence,flowchart, etc I get the error: "Unable to load DLL 'api-ms-win-eventing-provider-l1-1-0.dll or one of it's dependencies: The specified module could not be found.(0x8007007E). If I try to open one, it says 'The item <path to sequence> could not be opened: An exception was thrown while activating Ui.Path.Studio.Plugin.Workflow.WorkflowHandling.DesignerWrapper..' . Not sure if this is the right place to ask, but I already tried things like running System File Checker in cmd, Windows is up-to-date. Any other suggestions, please?
UiPath launched its IPO at 78$ which is a really decent price range, but it then dipped 46% over the next 6-8 months and currently its trading in the price range of 10-12$. Then on July they get a class action lawsuit for Securities Fraud.
I work as an RPA developer, and love working with UiPath since its a fantastic tool, but seeing this makes me worry about my career prospects. We aren't getting many projects in RPA either, and the ones that come these days usually in Power Automate. Most, if not all projects expect some level of "Artificial Intelligence" because every Tom, Dick and Harry thinks AI is some sort of a magic bullet that can solve any problem. We even lost a multi-year project because UiPath was NOT capable of delivering on what it promised with its Document Understanding module. We raised multiple tickets(premium support) and the experts were only experts at dodging the issue at hand. UiPath imo hasn't succeeded in their RPA -> AI transition, and this has misled not just customers, but the service providers as well.
I've worked with most of UiPath's modules, and can say that Insights, Data Service, Apps, TestSuite are modules that are severely underperforming - not to mention they are bloody expensive to acquire. TestSuite has the worst UX but please remember that this is just my opinion. If any of you have a good experience working with the above mentioned modules please share your experiences below.
The legal troubles just adds fuel to fire, so does this spell the doom for UiPath? Do you think they'd be able to compete with other vendors if they came up with effective pricing models?
With the RPA's starting to break through into big corps, has anyone been able to parlay their skills into contract work? Everyday I chat with colleagues in others industries i.e education and healthcare who have 101 business cases for RPA's. I assume others have experienced the same needs out there, but has anyone been able to create freelance work for themselves out there?
Hello, Next month I'm starting my new job in RPA it's process controller - supervising robots on production, implementing improvements, fixing incidents, leading communication between devs and temas on production and supervising documents flow.
Do you have any advises for begginer in this field? What to focus on? What is important to establish in first week in this position?
You’re a developer tasked with integrating a complex workflow into outdated software, like a legacy ERP or EHR system full of clunky buttons and forms that seem stuck in the 90s. After exploring options, you find that there’s no official external API and iPaaS solutions don’t support this application. RPA tools like UIPath, which automate website actions, struggle with workflows that need flexibility. Your only option is to build the integration in-house.
I’ve often been in this situation while contracting for startups, so I wrote this guide for developers in the same boat. It covers user-permissioned authentication, the trade-offs between RPA and reverse-engineering APIs, and how to deploy your integration to production.
If you’re running the integration for yourself, this step is pretty simple — store your login credentials in a secrets manager like Azure Key Vault, GCP Secret Manager, or AWS Secrets Manager.
If the integration runs on behalf of users, storing their credentials may raise privacy concerns. Instead, consider using a Plaid-like iframe to display the website’s login page. After the user logs in, capture their session token to run your automation. Note that you can’t directly capture requests in an iframe, so you’ll need to use a reverse proxy to host the login page and capture the session.
Once you have authentication figured out, the next thing to consider is the way you want to interface with the legacy website. You have two options:
Both options come with tradeoffs when it comes to ease of use, reliability, and error handling ability.
Ease of use
Both are time-consuming but RPA is easier to get started with. To automate form filling for example, you only need to identify input fields and their valid values for RPA. Reverse-engineering the API is more complex—you have to understand both the UI schema and the API schema, then map them, which can be tricky due to tech debt in legacy systems.
Reliability
The API approach wins this one hands down. APIs change less frequently than UIs and aren’t affected by factors like slow load times. With RPA, you may need to add wait times for dynamically loaded fields, risking automation failure if the fields don’t appear in time. Direct API calls avoid these issues.
Error handling
RPA generally detects errors better than a reverse-engineered API. Legacy APIs often don’t return errors for invalid inputs, saving them as if they were valid. The UI, however, must show errors to the user, whether through messages, popups, or red outlines. While error detection varies by platform, it’s usually more reliable in the UI than the API.
If you want to get started quickly, RPA is the way to go. For longer term reliability, combine RPA with reverse-engineering the API to leverage the strengths of both approaches.
After authenticating users and writing your integration script, it’s time to deploy it to the cloud.
For RPA-based integrations, which can be long-running, it’s better to run them in a cloud worker that consumes from a message queue to avoid server timeouts. Each cloud provider offers message queues: GCP has Pub/Sub, AWS has SQS, and Azure has Queue storage. Scale your workers up or down based on demand.
Ensure you have error handling and retry logic in place. For instance, if you hit an API rate limit, pause the runs and queue them for later. If your integration runs into errors, make sure to notify your end users so they can review the output of your workflow.
Hope this guide was helpful! If you’re getting started with some of these legacy integrations and need help, please don’t hesitate to reach out via DM or book a time on my Calendly.
I have an upcoming interview for an RPA position where they’ll be asking .NET/C# programming questions alongside Blue Prism. I could really use some guidance on potential questions that might come up, as well as any recommended resources to brush up on the .NET/C# part.
Thanks a bunch!
Started as a uipath development intern for approximately 8 months and was converted to full-time about 4 months ago. Current salary is 65k. My position is remote. I am located in Illinois. I feel like I am underpaid. Am I justified in this?
Files are uploaded to SharePoint, then we move them to a local drive. We run the files through a python program based on the name of the file.
So can power automate handle that or do I need to integrate an ai to read the file names and select which python program to use?
Any advice will be greatly appreciated.
Thanks
My company is looking to automate some business rule changes, we are leveraging the hype around generative AI to get some work we've wanted to do for awhile funded. We have a mix of web api's/ui's and vb.net fat clients for various tasks in the workflow. We have lots of engineers, but automating the VB.net is obviously not an engineering feat. The teams that own the VB apps are in the middle of a multi year modernization process and we were hoping to have the automation in place in the next 18 months, so dont want to bother them at this point. Our thought was to build VM's running power automate as an 'API' for the fat client portions of the flow. Does this seem like an ok usecase ? Our company doesn't do a lot of RPA in general, we used have PEGA and that is currently being sunset.
My general thought was to reference the VM automation processes using the URL based invocation method and pass in input variables on the string. I see in this subreddit there are other vendors that are generally preferred, but that isn't on the table unfortunately. Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated !
Any power automate desktop experienced developer in blr , If yes I have an opportunity. Dm.
Hi, Is there any build in logging functionality in AA to track the execution of a task.? In Uipath and other tools, there are logs in the console which shows what steps are executed and the decisions taken on a branch. I couldn't find any such feature in AA. So far, I am writing audit logs to a text file for each action I am taking, which is very counter productive.
Hi All, I'm new to the RPA industry, long story short, I got approached by some RPA companies looking at my work in AI agents. But, I've only worked in AI Research and I wasn't sure how to integrate AI in RPA solutions and workflows. Can you tell me how to get more info on common industry problems related to agents faced by RPA folks that so I can align my AI agents towards their problems.Thanks again.
RPA consultant here for 8 years. Due to expected downward demand of RPA in the future, i am considering to start learning other skills that will be more in demand in the coming years. But i am not sure where to start though.. Anyone from same field who shifted to another?
Hi guys do i need programming knowledge before becoming a RPA with uipath or AA?
So we are trying to migrate our bots in our company from AA to PA, one of my main questions in this is that we do not have Enviroment variables the same way that there are in AA. Is there a way to replicate this?
I have a proof-of-concept scenario where a bank needs to automate Level 1 (L1) suspicious or fraud detection for transactions or account holders based on the account holder's details and past transactions.
Is there an AI tool specifically designed for such tasks?
The focus is primarily on the bank's internal data, and they can't provide detailed information about the accounts from which funds are sent or received, such as the relationship to the current account holder—this is outside the bank's scope.
The bank has also suggested searching for information about account holders through search engines to find relevant data.
I understand that this is beyond the capability of static code, which is why I prefer a full AI/ML approach. However, I don't want to build or train a model from scratch. I'm looking for a ready-made solution with an API that I can integrate.
Please note, this is only for L1 level detection.
Hi guys, is it possible to get uipath certification without experience or working in RPA?
Studying from the academy
Hello everyone! I work in an audit firm that does a really niche and specific work, I don't think that the details of my job doesn't matter to this subject. I'm thinking that there are a lot of repetitive tasks that we do in my job that can use RPA to be optimized and a lot of cost can be reduced, so I began this life of trying to learn how to use this tools. This tasks are things like downloading lots of files from the client's website, organizing and filling documents etc. We do have a RPA company that does some of this work for us, but I wanted to learn so we could get something a little bit more customized.
I'm thinking of learning the free version of Power Automate, since it seems to be linked with other Microsoft Apps that we use, and it seems to be extremely intuitive to learn, do you think that this a good decision? Or is Power Automate a little bit "too simple", and I should trying to learn directly on Ui Path or another application.
I really am a newbie, hope a few comments can help, thank y'all!
My company is trying to find consultants with Hyperscience skills based in the US. This is a remote role - Job description is below and the client is in EST zone.
Overall IT experience of 5 years in related technologies such as Hyperscience, ABBYY etc Hands-on experience with model training and other techniques to refine Hyperscience’s document processing functionality Analyse, design, test, and evaluate systems integrating Hyperscience, upstream and downstream systems, integration with APIs Strong analytical skills knowledge of modern ML/DL technologies Strong experience with Python scripting Have exceptional verbal and written communication skills
I am available to talk to you if you are interested
Hello all,
So recently my job has picked up uiPath and our managers want the Engineers to use uiPath as a way to sort of get rid completely of having to do manual QA. We are currently in the process of building an entirely new application (uses Angular/NodeJs/Oracle) and the UI is of course changing as new requirements come in and build continues to progress. There is potential that even after the build is completely finished that the UI will have an overhaul cosmetically to be in line with a specific standard. Ideally, we've been told that we can use uiPath to test whenever code changes are made, whether it's backend or front-end changes, uiPath can detect if some code change potentially broke some other part of the application unknowingly.
We are trying to create about 200+ test cases that can run daily or anytime code changes are made. The test cases for uiPath would also be pretty complex as most of the decisions/functionality on the webpage are really business-decided decisions (like the decision to purchase software on a specific date for pricing reasons). The only problem I see here is that there are times when the UI changes is that it's pretty difficult to make uiPath run smoothly. Is this the right approach of using RPA/uiPath?
I'd value hearing anyone's experience with it.
RoboCorp seems like the most active and advanced open source RPA project, but since they merged with Sema4.ai ~5mo ago, many things now appear to be outdated/confusing/broken/etc. My impression is they took (what was) a great product and broke all the valuable bits pursuing some new AI direction.
Hopefully I'm wrong and there are some fanboy power users in this sub with recent experience
I've seen a lot of new age automation tools out there like Gradient AI and Multimodal dev - has anybody used these tools or are people still pretty skeptical? I'm open to hearing about other ones too
I've got an application which by default runs with elevevated rights in Admin mode. I am able to elevate the rights of Power Automate desktop and interact with the application normally, but when I trigger it from cloud the desktop flow is not identifying the Ui elements. It fails with an error 'window not found'. Anybody has faced similar issue? Any idea what to do here?
I suspect the PAD Runtime Robot and the Microsoft Flow RPA Agent when triggered from cloud are not running with elevated privileges that's why it's not able to see the application. Any way to tackle this situation?
Hi, I am the RPA lead of my company, I've received lots of request from people to join my team to learn and do RPA
But so far most of them just doesn't seem to have the passion to learn and conduct research themselves, kinda leeching from me and waiting for things to happen...
I realized many people wants to learn RPA as it's in the trend, kinda a good way to make themselves shine.. but blindly taking them into my team and just let them leech there, doesn't seems right..
What's your thought on this? How can I assess whether are they really having the passion or just want to hop onto the spotlight?
My organization was using ServiceNow integration with our platform, Automation Anywhere, to observe and notify us when our bots run longer than average estimates. We’re now moving away from it to reduce some software costs.
What methods are you guys using to observe a bot that’s hung up during runtime?
Hey people, I'm a Brazilian RPA intern trying to futurely work for the US.
Let's just say... things in Brazil are kinda looking ugly, and earning in dollars could really help my situation, so I figured I could ask some questions in here that could help me find a new job
Are RPA companies hiring foreigners frequently or do they instantly discriminate them? I also heard that people usually go for indians for their cheap work, but idk if that's true
Realistically, how are the odds of me being hired as a Junior Dev? I have good experience in Power Automate, Power BI, Power apps, Python and business process analysis.
AA and UiPath are manageable too, but I'm more experienced in power platform stuff
3)As you can see, my written english is not terrible, but I gotta work on my speech, if I show too much of an accent in a interview, are my chances lowered? I'm planning to hire a native to just chat to me via video call, just to get this out of the way...
Thank you for helping me out! Don't be afraid to be brutally honest.
I'm wondering if UIPath can do this. I'm planning to learn UIPath for this and other things:
I want it to do something like this program: https://www.pptools.com/merge/
It's like a MailMerge for powerpoint.
So you put fields in a text element in powerpoint. And then you have say an excel with many rows. Each row will have different words/phrases that you want to dynamically insert into the powerpoint fields.
And I want to create many, many powerpoints with words/phrases dynamically inserted from the rows in excel.
Is this something that's easy to do using UIPath? I'm assuming it's not that difficult, but I just want to confirm before learning UIPath - for this and other processes of course.
Thanks.
My project goes to C# but I find that in the Uipath certificate exam they use VB.NET script.
Although the syntax is quite similar, I find it a little bit annoying when preparing the exam. Is it also the case for other RPA software?
Looking into this for a PoC for my work, and part of what I want to find out is whether or not you can take in corrections from users on documents to improve your model?
Eg in Uipath or abbyy you have the validation station and in theory then ML models improve themselves, is there a way to get similar capabilities out of the power platform ai builder doc understanding - where the results of the initial read are passed to end user using power apps or similar