UiPath Tutorial for Beginners

UiPath Tutorial for Beginners

RPA UiPath world is amazing and exciting. This UiPath basic tutorial is aimed at absolute beginners and provides the basic concepts and the practical steps to create your first automation workflows. No matter if you want to get rid of repetitive tasks, improve your productivity or explore the world of automation as a career, this introduction will set the pace.

Would you like to get started already? Take a look through our complete UiPath course syllabus to get an idea of what you will learn on our structured online program.

Understanding RPA and UiPath

Robotic Process Automation (RPA) is a technique that uses software robots (bots) to automate repetitive, rule-based processes. Like people, bots can communicate with programs and systems by:

• Reading and writing data
• Clicking buttons and links
• Filling presentations
• Sending emails
• Extracting information from documents

UiPath is the leading RPA Platform that allows you to build, deploy and manage automation workflows in an incredibly easy-to-use interface. It is also provides a friendly environment for complete beginners, as it has all the best features of enterprise automation platforms, yet has a large database of activities that are useful to do complex automation scenarios.

Key Benefits of UiPath 

• Increased Efficiency: Automate time-consuming tasks, allowing a human employee to focus on more strategic work instead. 
• Improved Accuracy: Bots refresh tasks in the same manner, without errors. Therefore, you can reduce the chance of human error. 
• Cost Savings: The cost of performing certain tasks can be radically reduced by automating it.
• Improved Scalability: Increasing or decreasing your automation efforts will easily incapsulate your business needs. 
• Improved Employee Satisfaction: Employees are freed from tedious and repetitive work, yielding increased job satisfaction. 

Recommended: UiPath Course Online.

Installing UiPath Studio

UiPath Studio is the integrated development environment (IDE) in which you will design and build your automation workflows to implement or improve your business processes. Here is how the installation works: 

Step 1: Go to the UiPath Web site: https://www.uipath.com/.  

Step 2: Sign up for a free account if you do not already have one. 

Step 3: Download: After signing in, you will find an option to “Try UiPath Free” or “Download Studio” (the wording may change). You will typically be prompted with the Community Edition, which is free for personal and non-commercial use

Step 4: Run the Installer: You will then download and run the UiPathStudioSetup.exe executable after the download is complete.

Step 5: Follow the Installation Wizard: The installation wizard will lead you through the installation steps. You will need to agree to terms or conditions and make a note of the install location. I would recommend going with the default settings most of the time.

Step 6: Activate UiPath: After your installation is completed, you might need to activate UiPath Studio by using your email address.

After you finish installing and evolving your product, you will be able to run UiPath Studio.

UiPath Studio Interface Overview

Overall, the UiPath Studio interface is made up of a few sections:

Ribbon: The ribbon is at the top and has the tabs Home, Design, Debug, Output, Help, etc.. Each tab provides access to different functionalities.

• Home: You can create a new project, open an already saved project, or manage templates (I would recommend templates for future projects that might be similar).
• Design: You have access to Activities, Sequences, FlowCharts and so on.
• Debug: This is basically just a testing and troubleshooting section for your automation piece.
• Output: Displays logs, errors, and any output messages from your automation.
• Help: Documentation, tutorials, and other support options.

Project Panel: The Project Panel is on the left and will display all files/folders/dependencies for your automation project.

• Main.xaml: By default, the Main.xaml file will be your workflow file.
• Dependencies: The packages of activities that you used in your project.
• Project Settings: Every project has some configuration options.

Activities Panel: Usually found on the left (dockable and/or floatable), it is simply a library of activities that are pre-built. You drag and drop the activity into the workflow to complete particular actions (opening a browser, clicking a button, reading a file). You can search for activities by name, or you can browse activities by category. 

Workflow Designer Panel: This is the center of the screen where you visually create your automation workflow by adding activities and connecting them. You can create workflows in the forms of sequences (linear workflow of activities), flow charts (less linear with branching or complex logic), or state machines (for event-driven automation). 

Properties Panel: The properties panel, located on the right side, displays the attributes of the Workflow Designer activity you clicked on. You can modify these properties to qualify how the activity behaves (example: the URL opened in a browser, text typed into a field). 

Outline Panel: Typically on the right, the outline panel allows for a hierarchical view of your workflow. This is helpful for navigating and understanding the structure of developing complex automations.

Recommended: RPA Training Online.

Basic UiPath Activities

Activities are the fundamental building blocks of UiPath automation. The following are few of the main activities you will see frequently: 

Open Browser: It opens a web browser of a specified type and directs that browser to a web url. 

Properties: 

• BrowserType: It states which browser to open (Chrome, Firefox, IE, etc.)
• Url: The web page to go to. 

Type Into: It simulates typing text into a UI element (for example, a box). 

Properties: 

• Target.Selector: It defines which UI element to type into. This is important as a selector allows for accurate identification of items on the screen.
• Text: The text to be typed. 
• EmptyField: It is a boolean that asserts if we want to clear the field each time we type. 

Click: It simulates a mouse click on a UI element (for example, a button, a link). 

Properties: 

• Target.Selector: It defines which UI element to click.
• ClickType: It states if it is a single, double, or right-click. 

Read Text: It reads text from a UI element. 

Properties: 

• Target.Selector: It identifies which UI element is holding the text. 
• Text:  It is an output variable to store the text. 

Message Box: It displays a pop-up message box with specified text. Useful for debugging and displaying information. 

Properties: 

Caption: It is the title of the message box.

Text: It is text to display. 

Write Line: Writes a specified text value to the Output panel. Helpful for logging and debugging.

Properties:

• Text: The text to write

Building Your First Simple Automation

Let’s create a simple automation that opens Google.com, types “UiPath” into the text box, and clicks the “Google Search” button.

• Create Your New Project: In UiPath Studio navigate to the Home tab and click Process. Name your project (e.g. “FirstAutomation”), and identify a place to save your project. Click Create.
• Open Main Workflow: In the Project panel, double-click the Main.xaml file. The workflow designer will open. You should see a blank sequence, as expected.
• Add Open Browser Activity: Drag the Open Browser activity from the Activities panel into the Workflow Designer.
• Configure Open Browser: Configure the current activity in the Properties panel:
  • Set the BrowserType to Chrome (or your preferred browser).
  • Set the Url to https://www.google.com/.
• Add Type Into Activity: Drag the Type Into activity below the previous Open Browser activity in the Workflow Designer.
• Configure Type Into:
  • Click the “Indicate element inside browser” button from the Properties tab.
  • Google Chrome will open (if it wasn’t open already) Hover your mouse over the Google search bar until the search bar is highlighted and click it. UiPath will capture the application and automatically add a selector for this element.
  • In the Text property type “UiPath”.
  • Make sure the EmptyField property is set to “True” if you want to clear the search bar before typing (This is usually a good practice).

• Add Click Activity: Move the Click Activity under the Type Into Activity you just created.
• Set Up Click:
  • Click the “Indicate element inside browser” button again.
  • Hover your mouse over the “Google Search” button and click it. UiPath will generate a selector for this button.
• Run Your Automation: Click F5 or click the “Run” button in the “Debug” tab to run your automation.

You should see your default browser open Google, “UiPath” will populate the search bar, and the “Google Search” button will be clicked. Congratulations you have built your first UiPath automation!

Related: UiPath Interview Questions and Answers.

Working with Variables and Data Types

Variables are used to store and manipulate data throughout your automation workflows. Different types of data or specific data types are assigned to each variable to specify what kind of data can be held (text, numeric, dates, boolean).

Creating Variables

There are multiple ways that you can create variables in UiPath:

• Variables Panel: Located in the bottom left corner of UiPath Studio, the variables panel allows you to define a variable’s name, the scope of the variable (where in the workflow the variable can be used), and the variable’s data type.
• Output Properties of Activities: Many activities have output properties where output of the activity can be stored in a newly defined variable. Since you have previously defined a variable in your workflow, you may choose to store the output of the activity to this new variable using the output properties.
  • For Example: The Read Text activity has a Text output property where you can enter a name.  When enter the name you wish to give the output, UiPath will automatically create a string variable with the name you specified for the Text output property.
• Ctrl+K Shortcut: When defining an activity property that accepts a variable, you can create a new variable with Ctrl+K.
  • For Example: When entering a variable name for the Text property of a Type Into activity or a Text output property from a Read Text activity, you can press the Ctrl+K keys and enter a new name for the variable.  UiPath will automatically create this variable for you with the appropriate data type context.

Common Data Types in UiPath 

Here are the popularly used data types in UiPath:

• String: It represents text (examples: “Hello”, “UiPath”). 
• Int32: It represents whole numbers (examples: 10, -5, 1000). 
• Boolean: It represents true or false. 
• DateTime: It represents dates and datetime instances. 
• GenericValue: This is a general datatype that can take multiple datatypes. UiPath normally uses this when it is not aware of the datatype. 
• DataTable: It represents data in table format (rows/columns), and it would be used frequently when working in Excel or databases. 
• Array of [T]: It represents a collection of the same data type (example: an array of strings). 
• List: It is a collection of the same datatype that can grow in size dynamically. 

Example – Using a Variable

Let us modify our previous automation to include a variable for the search term. 

• Create Variable: In the Variables Panel, create a variable called: SearchTerm, set the Type to be “String”, and the Default value to: UiPath Advanced Tutorial. 
• Change Type Into Activity: Modify the “Type Into” activity: In the Properties panel instead of typing “UiPath” directly into the Text property, we would enter the variable name: SearchTerm. 

Now when you run the automation, it will type the value referencing by the SearchTerm variable into the Google search bar.

Related: Blue Prism Course Online.

Control Flow Activities in UiPath

Control flow activities help you determine how our automation workflow executes, allowing one to make decisions and loop.

Sequences

A sequence is the most basic control flow structure, and it represents a simple linear flow of activities being executed one after another. In previous examples, we were using sequences already.

Decisions (If Else)

The “If” activity allows you to execute different branches of activities based on a condition (boolean expression).

• Condition: The boolean expression to evaluate.
• Then: The sequence of activities to execute if the condition evaluates to be true.
• Else: (Optional) The sequence of activities to execute if the condition evaluates to be false.

Loops

UiPath has a number of looping activities for doing activities multiple times:

For Each: Loops through each item in a collection (list, array, DataTable etc.).

Properties:

• Values: The collection you want to loop through.
• Item: The name of the variable that will represent the current item in each iteration.
• TypeArgument: The entries in the collection’s data type.

While: Executes a set of activities repeatedly while the condition is true.

• Condition: The boolean expression to evaluate prior to each iteration.

Do While: This is the same as “While” but the condition is evaluated after the first execution of the activities in the loop which means the activities will get executed at least once. 

Data Manipulation in UiPath

UiPath has several activities for manipulating data of different types:

String Manipulation

Activities like “Assign” and text functions gives you the ability to manipulate text: 

Concatenation: String combined with the + operator or using the String.Concat() method.

• Substring: Section of string using the .Substring() method.
• Replace: Part of string replaced with another string using the .Replace() method.
• Split: Larger string split into an array of substrings using a delimiter using the string’s .Split() method.

Working with Numbers

You can combine the “Assign” activity with the following operators (+, -, *, /) to do arithmetic operations. Just remember to be sure that the variables that you are working with are numeric data types (Int32, Double, etc.).

Working with Dates and Times

Using the DateTime data type and DateTime functions can work with dates and times.

• DateTime.Now: It returns the current date and time.
• .AddDays(), .AddMonths(), .AddYears(): It adds time to a DateTime object.
• .ToString(“yyyy-MM-dd”): It formats a DateTime object into a string of that format.

Working with Collections (Arrays and Lists)

Creating Collections: Use the “Assign” activity with the New keyword to create new arrays or lists.

• Accessing Elements: Access elements of an array or a list using their index (starting at 0).
• Looping through Collections: The “For each” exercise is used to iterate through the elements of a collection.

Working with DataTables

DataTables are a very useful object for handling structured data, usually read from either excel files or databases.  UiPath provides activities, such as “Read Range” (excel) and “Execute Query” (database) that return data as DataTables. 

• Looping through the rows: To loop through a DataTable’s rows, use the “For each Row” activity.
• Accessing cell values: Use the index or the column name to view the values of each individual cell in the row.

Related: Automation Anywhere Course Online

Error Handling in UiPath

Robust automation should include error handling in order to deal with errors smoothly when they occur. UiPath provides a “Try Catch” activity for this purpose. 

• Try: It contains the activities most likely to throw an exception (an error).
• Catch: It contains one or more blocks to specify how errors (examples: System.Exception to catch any error or specific exceptions) should be handled.
• Finally: (Optional). Contains activities which will always run, regardless of whether an exception occurred or you caught an exception. It is often used for clean-up activities (e.g. closes the applications).

In this example, although the Open Browser activity failed because of an invalid URL, the System.Exception will be caught, the error message will be logged and presented in a message box, and the Finally block will run as expected.

Publishing and Running Your Automation with UiPath

When you’ve finished building and testing your automation workflow, you can publish it to UiPath Orchestrator (for central management and scheduling) or run it (locally) from UiPath Assistant.

Publishing

• Save Your Project: Ensure you save your project, including anything you’ve just created or modified.
• Click Publish: In UiPath Studio, click on the Publish tab and click on the Publish button.
• Configure Publish Options: You can publish to Orchestrator, local folder (or other options based on your unique environment). You will have options to set the package name, version, and other options as before.
• Click Publish: After you’ve made your options, click on the Publish button.

It will create a .nupkg file containing your automation in the location you specified.

Running from UiPath Assistant

UiPath Assistant is a desktop application used to view and run the published automation.

• Install UiPath Assistant: This is usually installed with UiPath Studio. You can find UiPath Assistant in your system tray.
• Connect to Orchestrator: Assuming that your automation is published to Orchestrator, the Assistant should be connected. 
• View Available Automations: The Assistant will show the processes that can be run.
• Run the Automation: Click the “Run” button next to the automation which you want to run.

Running from UiPath Orchestrator

Orchestrator can provide advanced capabilities for managing, scheduling, and monitoring robots and automation processes at a corporate level.

• Publish to Orchestrator: As described in the “Publishing” section.
• Create a Process: In UiPath Orchestrator, you will create a new process based on the published package.
• Allocate Robots: Allocate one or more robots (machines that will perform the automation) to the process.
• Run or Schedule: You can manually run the process on an available robot or schedule the execution of the process at specific times or intervals.

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Conclusion

Well done on completing this Ultimate UiPath tutorial for beginners! You’ve learned the basic concepts of RPA, have had some introduction to UiPath Studio, have built some basic automation workflows, handled variables and data, controlled the flow of execution, managed error handling, and run your automations. 

Are you ready to learn more about UiPath? Check out our complete UiPath course in Chennai and become a professional RPA developer!