Robotic Process Automation with Automation Anywhere

Robotic Process Automation with Automation Anywhere

by Husan Mahey
Released November 2020
Publisher(s): Packt Publishing
ISBN: 9781839215650

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Book description

Discover Automation Anywhere best practices and strategies for building scalable automation solutions for your organization

Key Features

  • Build RPA robots using the latest features of cloud-based Automation Anywhere A2019
  • Explore real-world scenarios with AA A2019 to understand the wide range of capabilities available for your RPA projects
  • Build complete software robots to automate business processes with the help of step-by-step walkthroughs

Book Description

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.

What you will learn

  • Explore effective techniques for installing and configuring an Automation Anywhere A2019 platform
  • Build software robots to automate tasks and simplify complex business processes
  • Design resilient bots that are modular and reusable
  • Understand how to add error handling functionality and discover troubleshooting techniques
  • Design bots to automate tasks in Excel, Word, emails, XML, and PDF files
  • Implement effective automation strategies using RPA best practices

Who this book is for

This Automation Anywhere RPA book is for automation engineers, RPA professionals, and automation consultants who are looking to explore the capabilities of Automation Anywhere for building intelligent automation strategy for enterprises. A solid understanding of programming concepts and exposure to the Automation Anywhere platform is necessary to get started with this book.

Table of contents

  1. Robotic Process Automation with Automation Anywhere
  2. Why subscribe?
  3. Contributors
  4. About the authors
  5. About the reviewer
  6. Packt is searching for authors like you
  7. Preface
    1. Who this book is for
    2. What this book covers
    3. To get the most out of this book
    4. Download the example code files
    5. Conventions used
    6. Get in touch
    7. Reviews
  8. Chapter 1: About Automation Anywhere
    1. Technical requirements
    2. What is robotic process automation?
    3. Overview of Automation Anywhere
      1. The Digital Workforce
      2. IQ Bot
      3. Bot Insight
      4. Bot Store
      5. Mobile Bot
      6. Automation Anywhere University
    4. Automation Anywhere versions
      1. Community Edition A2019
    5. Summary
  9. Chapter 2: Installing Automation Anywhere
    1. Technical requirements
    2. Connecting to Control Room
      1. Launching and logging into Control Room
      2. Updating your profile and password
    3. Preparing your device
      1. Installing a Bot agent
      2. Enabling the extension
    4. Configuring profile and device credentials
    5. Summary
  10. Chapter 3: Overview of Automation Anywhere Control Room
    1. Technical requirements
    2. Exploring the home screen
    3. Understanding the dashboard
    4. Viewing RPA activity
    5. Managing bots
      1. My bots
      2. Credentials
      3. Global values
      4. Packages
    6. Managing your devices
    7. Managing user administration
    8. Summary
  11. Chapter 4: Overview of the Automation Anywhere Development Interface
    1. Technical requirements
    2. Bot development interface
      1. Creating a new bot
    3. What can a bot do?
    4. Programming techniques using Automation Anywhere
      1. List view
      2. Flow view
      3. Dual view
    5. Variables and triggers
    6. Debugging and dependencies
    7. Summary
  12. Chapter 5: Building Your First Bot
    1. Technical requirements
    2. Downloading sample data from GitHub
    3. Understanding your automation task
    4. Creating your first bot
      1. Creating bot variables
      2. Creating and reading a CSV file
      3. Opening and closing a CSV file
      4. Looping through rows in a CSV file
      5. Reading record values
    5. Performing basic arithmetic calculations
    6. Appending records to a CSV file
    7. Summary
  13. Chapter 6: Introducing Variables in A2019
    1. Technical requirements
    2. Working with different variable types
      1. Using the String variable type
      2. Using the Datetime variable type
      3. Using the Boolean variable type
      4. Using the Number variable type
    3. Using message boxes and prompts
    4. Converting data types
    5. Summary
  14. Chapter 7: Interacting with Applications
    1. Technical requirements
    2. Automating web applications
    3. Automating desktop applications
      1. Working with Notepad
    4. Simulating keystrokes
    5. Summary
  15. Chapter 8: String Manipulation and List Variables
    1. Technical requirements
    2. Manipulating strings
      1. Section 1 – Initializing lists and loops
    3. Looping through lists
      1. Section 2 – Getting full names
      2. Section 3 – Getting forenames
      3. Section 4 – Getting surnames
      4. Section 5 – Getting middle names
    4. Applying a simple logical condition
      1. Implementing a nested loop
      2. Section 6 – Outputting the results
    5. Summary
  16. Chapter 9: Working with Conditional Logic, Loops, and the Filesystem
    1. Technical requirements
    2. Applying different types of loops
      1. Section 1 – Opening the source file
      2. Section 2 – Looping through each row
      3. Section 3 – Getting the surname initial and identifying the group
    3. Applying logical conditions
      1. Section 4 – Checking or creating a subfolder
      2. Section 5 – Updating the output file
      3. Section 6 – Closing the source file
    4. Working with the filesystem
      1. Section 1 – Looping through subfolders
      2. Section 2 – Renaming the output file
      3. Section 3 – Copying the output file
      4. Section 4 – Deleting the output file
      5. Section 5 – Deleting the subfolder
    5. Summary
  17. Chapter 10: Working with XML Files
    1. Technical requirements
    2. Starting, validating, and ending XML sessions
    3. Reading XML nodes
      1. Reading a single node
      2. Reading multiple nodes
    4. Updating XML nodes
      1. Updating a single node
      2. Updating multiple nodes
    5. Inserting XML nodes
    6. Deleting XML nodes
    7. Executing XPath functions
    8. Summary
  18. Chapter 11: Automating Excel
    1. Technical requirements
    2. Opening, closing, and saving Excel workbooks
    3. Reading and writing data within Excel worksheets
      1. Reading from Excel worksheets
      2. Writing to Excel worksheets
    4. Working with data in Excel
      1. Inserting a column
      2. Setting a cell formula
      3. Sorting data
      4. Finding empty cells
      5. Saving and closing the workbook
    5. Running macros
    6. Summary
  19. Chapter 12: Automation Using Word
    1. Technical requirements
    2. Understanding the manual process
      1. Reading the source data
      2. Creating an output letter
      3. Updating the output letter
    3. Summary
  20. Chapter 13: Working with Emails
    1. Technical requirements
    2. Connecting to mailboxes
      1. Connecting to Outlook
      2. Connecting to a POP3/IMAP mailbox
      3. Connecting to an EWS mailbox
    3. Reading emails and attachments
      1. Looping through emails from a folder
      2. Applying filters and specifying folders
      3. Updating the email status
      4. Saving attachments
    4. Sending emails and attachments
      1. Sending an email
      2. Forwarding an email
      3. Replying to an email
    5. Summary
  21. Chapter 14: Working with PDF Files
    1. Technical requirements
    2. Extracting text and images
      1. Extracting text from a PDF file
      2. Extracting an image from a PDF file
    3. Splitting and merging documents
      1. Splitting a PDF file
      2. Merging multiple PDF files
    4. Encrypting and decrypting documents
      1. Encrypting a PDF file
      2. Decrypting PDF files
    5. Using the PDF dictionary
    6. Summary
  22. Chapter 15: Working with Databases
    1. Technical requirements
    2. Connecting to, and disconnecting from, databases
      1. Connecting to a SQL/Oracle database
      2. Connecting to a SQLite database
      3. Connecting to an Access database
      4. Connecting using a connection string
    3. Reading data from databases
    4. Updating databases
      1. Inserting data
      2. Updating data
      3. Deleting data
    5. Summary
  23. Chapter 16: Building Modular Bots and Sub-Tasks
    1. Technical requirements
    2. Designing modular task bots
    3. Running sub-task bots
    4. Passing variables between main and sub-task-bots
      1. Sub-task 1 – Create a new Excel workbook
      2. Sub-task 2 – Get the non-system table names from a SQLite database
      3. Sub-task 3 – Copy the table data to Excel
      4. Main task – Export the SQLite database tables to Excel
    5. Working example walk-through
      1. Building a bot – Chapter16_Sub_CreateNewExcel
      2. Building a bot – Chapter16_Sub_GetSqLiteTableNames
      3. Building a bot – Chapter16_Sub_CopySqLiteTableToExcel
      4. Building a bot – Chapter16_Main_SqLiteToExcel
    6. Summary
  24. Chapter 17: Running External Scripts
    1. Technical requirements
    2. Running VBScripts
      1. Importing a script file
      2. Writing inline scripts
      3. Passing parameters
      4. Returning values from functions
    3. Running Python scripts
    4. Summary
  25. Chapter 18: Managing Errors
    1. Technical requirements
    2. Error handling with A2019
    3. Understanding Try, Catch, Finally, and Throw actions
    4. Building an error-handling routine
      1. Modifying the input file and introducing an error
    5. Summary
  26. Other Books You May Enjoy
    1. Leave a review - let other readers know what you think

Product information

  • Title: Robotic Process Automation with Automation Anywhere
  • Author(s): Husan Mahey
  • Release date: November 2020
  • Publisher(s): Packt Publishing
  • ISBN: 9781839215650