RPA which to choose?
RPA stands for Robotic Process Automation. It is using a software to automate the day to day processes which we are doing on the computer. But how do you choose which RPA to learn? In order to know how to choose, I have decided to compare 3 of the more popular RPA programs and using a use case to find out which is a better system to get started on learning RPA.
This use case example would be to get the daily foreign currency exchange rates from the web and download the rates into an excel spreadsheet. After all, there are many similar use cases. Whether it is competitor pricings on online products, property listings or even travel deals in different portals, it would be better if we can automate the data into a spreadsheet which we can monitor and analyse.
There are a few factors to consider before we get started. Firstly, it is the learning guides provided by each of the RPA programs. The more comprehensive the guides, the easier for us to learn.
Looking at each of the RPA programs, Automation Anywhere and UiPath have the most trainings provided in their portals. There are tons of tutorials and even certifications for competing the course. Power automate has less tutorials, but the ease of use of the software does help, since Power Automate also belongs to microsoft.
Secondly, it is the interface in the software. How do you manoeuvre and find what you need to work on. Is the interface easy to use and how do we pull each of the components to automate the process. For all three RPAs, their interface allows users’ to search for what they need. There are certain requirements, for example in UiPath, you have to drag excel process flow into the automation to enable excel to work. However, in Power Automate and Automation Anywhere there is no need to specify that extra excel process step.
Thirdly, it is the installation and running the software. For all three RPAs, you can download the free versions (i.e community edition) or in power automate case, it comes free with office 365. The running of UiPath and Power Automate can be done from the users’ computers, while Automation Anywhere runs from the cloud, but users still have to download the software in their computers in order to run the program. Do note, if there are company IT restrictions on using these softwares, please check with your company IT administrators.
Now, we shall look at the use case and see what we need to do to get the job done.
Use case: Requirement to automate the daily forex rates of different currencies, for example euro/usd into microsoft excel.
The user has to go to the X rates website(see above), click the exchange rate drop down on the left menu to choose eur and usd respectively. Then, he has to copy the rates 1.084356 USD (current rate on 29 Jan) over to excel. The user would like this to be automated, as he has many other currencies to download and copy over to excel on a daily basis.
We shall look at the different RPAs to solve this
- Automation Anywhere
The user has to create a bot to start the automation from the landing page above. There are other functions in the landing page that allows the user to check on their automations, but it is not in the scope of this article. Once the user created the bot, he has to drag the various process to get the automation to work. See below for the summary of the process flow.
As seen in the above image, the process flow is using the recorder function to copy the mouse clicks. Then you drag the excel module into the process flow to open excel and to insert the rates into the spreadsheet. Since the rates needs to be updated daily, every day the new rates are appended below the previous day rates. For those who code, you know that to specify the next row to paste the new data requires a few lines of coding. However, in Automation Anywhere, there is no need to code. The interface allows the user to specify the next row to update. In fact, it also allows the user to specify the next column to update from the current active cell. This process is not that obvious, if you are using UiPath or Power Automate.
2) Power Automate
There is a guided tour for new users on the landing page for Power Automate. For the automation job, we will be using the desktop flow to do the automation. In Power Automate, new automation bots are known as flows.
Using the recorder function in Power Automate, we recorded the same process of mouse clicks to get the data from the X rates website. Then we open excel and paste the data in the next row. Because we cannot just hard code the cell row on the new empty row, we have to find the first empty row for the column. Luckily, Power Automate has a function to find this empty row. See below.
The variable created for the first free row allows the data to be dynamically updated with new data daily. The interface is clean and easy to understand. New variables created are placed at the right side panel for easy reference. This is especially useful, if you have created several variables and need to reference what are these variables used for.
3) UiPath
UiPath landing page has a pop up menu for tutorials, videos and academy. These are resources for new users to get started. Once you have familiarise yourself with the interface and creating automation, its time to do our automation project.
UiPath interface is very easy to move around. For those who have used microsoft office, you can see the same ribbon formating at the top of the screen. This ribbon contains many frequently used functions and their buttons are big for ease of use.
We can specify what browser to use and launched it in UiPath. In our example here, I have used chrome and specify the website address in it. Once the website is up, we will use the recorder function to record the clicks to get our data. The cool thing about UiPath, is that it has computer vision to pick up text or image with the anchor function to lock in their values. This allows more accurate pulling of data when we relaunch the website on another day to do the automation.
In order to get the daily updated data into excel, we have to find the last row of the current column that contains the previous day rates. In UiPath, it provides a function to get the last populated row (see above screenshot). Once we have the last row, we just need to add 1 to get the first empty row. Then, input the new data into the first empty row of the column. This process does requires some basic knowledge of excel formulas and understanding of how coding works. However, the process is not as difficult as writing the code itself.
Finally, we have gone through the 3 RPAs and how they are used to complete the use case. Which is better?
I recalled my own progress in learning RPA. I have started with UiPath, because I was drawn by its function of computer vision and it was also taught in polytechnic. Then, I have read about Power Automate which my company allows us to install in our company’s laptop. I found it easy to use and I can passed on the automated processes to my colleagues which they can run when I am on leave. Then its automation anywhere which I saw as part of a job description in a job application. This make me curious how good it is and so I went on the pick it up, in order to know how to use it.
All 3 RPAs has their merits. Learning one RPA means you can transfer what you learnt into the other RPAs as seen in this article. UiPath appears to be RPA market leader with 36% market share according to this article UiPath Dominates the RPA Space, Dwarfs Microsoft’s Market Share By 10x — CX Today
Hence, if you need to pick up one RPA, it would be UiPath. Hope this article helped those who are looking to learn RPA. Feel free to share this article and connect with me on more content like this. See my linkedin linkedin.com/in/chewlinkiat
