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Process Automation Tools. Low Code and No Code, BPMS (Business Process Automation), Personal Automation, Robotic Process Automation, RPA Services. SESSION 3: OPPORTUNITIES IN RPA AND AUTOMATION. Getting Started in Automation.
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Process Automation Tools Low Code and No Code, BPMS (Business Process Automation), Personal Automation, Robotic Process Automation, RPA Services SESSION 3: OPPORTUNITIES IN RPA AND AUTOMATION Getting Started in Automation General introduction to the minimum math, computer science, and software engineering you need to know to succeed Getting Started in RPA with UIPath Acquiring specific RPA skills using UI Path tools and tutorials RPA and Automation Careers Business Analyst, Project & Program Management, Architect, Developer, Tester Powering your Business General automation case study
Microsoft OfficeMacros and VBA (automate reports, analysis, emails)(might be dead) PhotoshopActions (automate resizing, image processing, color correction) (you can sell them!) LOW-CODE AND NO-CODE PLATFORMS Appsheet(auto-magically creates mobile apps from spreadsheet data)(Limited Free Tier) AirTable(create hybrid database spreadsheets--which is what everyone does poorly with Excel)(Limited Free Tier)
SELF-AUTOMATION • Automator (macOS): Free app on your Mac that automates tasks with Apple apps • IFTTT (iOS, Android): Free app on your phone that automates IoT devices, like smart light bulbs, with Internet services, like Twitter and Dropbox • Python (Programming Language): The automation jack of all trades (Windows, macOS, Linux)
SELF-AUTOMATION • Programmable Web (Internet): Free directory of APIs that provide access to Google, Twitter, Facebook, Amazon, Zillow, etc., with tutorials, explainers, and news • Selenium (QA automation) https://github.com/SeleniumHQ/selenium • Stories of Automation: FiletOFish1066, Etherable, Ibrahim Diallo, Chris Buetti (more on each later)
ROBOTIC PROCESS AUTOMATION • Multiple billion dollar global industry with plenty of growth ahead • The Story: Office productivity is falling, not rising, because employees are inefficiently using computers (because we’re treating people like robots) • Technology Stack: Screen scraping, macro recording, machine vision, conditional logic, scheduling, parallel execution
ROBOTIC PROCESS AUTOMATION • Microsoft .NET technology, deep enterprise integration • Lower cost (1/6th), higher reliability, scale on demand • a lifeline for budget starved IT departments
Pioneering: Coined the term robotic process automation BLUE PRISM Enterprise IT department friendly RPA Platform (The safe choice) Started in the UK by process automation experts (David Moss)
IT department friendly RPA Platform with options for small businesses Community Edition and free online training AUTOMATION EVERYWHERE Windows bot client, cloud management Started in Silicon Valley by a shareware macro recorder company
Rebel RPA platform and fastest growing Community Edition and free online training UIPATH Windows bot client, cloud management Officially a unicorn with a $1.1B valuation Started in Romanian by two plucky entrepreneurs
BPMS(BUSINESS PROCESS MANAGEMENT SYSTEM)AUTOMATION • Automation of tasks, business rules, enterprise app integration, monitoring, scheduling • Main difference between BPMS and RPA? • RPA is mostly about screen scraping! • RPA has less overhead, looser integration, requires specialized skills • BPMS enables a domain expert to create the automation
BPMS(BUSINESS PROCESS MANAGEMENT SYSTEM)AUTOMATION • Process Maker: Drag and drop (open source, surviver of the dot com crash) • Kissflow: Point and click (OrangeScape, Chennai, India)
RPA AS SERVICE BLUE PRISM, AUTOMATION EVERYWHERE, UIPATH ALL OFFER RPA AS A SERVICE HIRE A DEVELOPER!
GETTING STARTED IN AUTOMATION I’M GOING TO PRETEND “YOU KNOW NOTHING JON SNOW” I DON’T WANT TO TALK DOWN TO ANYONE BUT DEEPLY LEARNING SOMETHING NEW IS HARD
THE HERO’S JOURNEY Call to action (Help!) Crossing the Threshold (Jump or pushed) The Abyss (The is hard!) Transformation (You got this!) The Boon (You have a new super power)
RPA and Automation is software development (sorry) THE HARD TRUTH You might not have to write (a lot of) code but you will have to understand coding Software is eating our world so even a small amount of automation knowledge is power
Organizing and analyzing information Models: Equations that describe and predict and situation from data FINITE MATH Matrices: Tables of numbers that represent “systems of equations” Optimization: Finding the best fit to a fit yield question Probability: Count all the outcomes and the calculate the chance of any particular outcome Statistics: Making informed decisions
Algorithms: Breaking work into repeatable steps, breaking steps into smaller steps Efficiency: Measuring and Testing Open Loop: no feedback, scheduled, action independent of output COMPUTATIONAL THINKING Closed Loop: active feedback, signals and data, actions dependent on output Feedback Control System: automated relationship between system variables Paradox of Automation: “The more efficient the automated system, more critical human involvement becomes”
Functions: Input, Transformation, Output State: Variables & Constants, Local & Global COMPUTATIONAL FOUNDATION Types: Values & References, Boolean, Numeric (Integer & Floating Point), String, Collections, Objects Logic (Flow of Control): Sub-routines, Conditionals, Loops Quality: errors, repeatability, stability, performance, monitoring
RPA TUTORIALS AND CERTIFICATIONS • UiPath official documentation https://www.uipath.com/blog/learning-robotic-process-automation-through-video-tutorials
YOUTUBE VIDEOS • UiPath DevCon 2019, Demo of Machine Vision, inspirational pep talk by co-founder/CEO Daniel Dines https://youtu.be/rmYfDePlDPM • UiPath Video Tutorials https://www.uipath.com/developers/video-tutorials • Screen Scraping with UiPath https://youtu.be/sSiWS8IFea0 • Data Scraping with UiPath https://youtu.be/Rn1sdc3VcIU
UIPATH RPA BASIC CONCEPTS • Activities (automate applications by recording clicks and key presses) • Properties (change an activity’s parameters and settings) • Flowcharts (conditional logic, loops) and sequences (list of actions)
UIPATH RPA BASIC CONCEPTS • Data Manipulation and Variables • Scalars (characters, booleans, integers, floating point numbers) • Collections (arrays, lists, strings) • Tables (data in rows and columns) • Generic (any type of data like text, dates, numbers) • Variables are scoped to a flowchart or sequence
UIPATH RPA BASIC CONCEPTS • Screen Scraping (User Interface Automation/Recording) • Basic (general, no container) • Desktop (knows about windows, fast and robust) • Web (knows about HTML, fast and robust) • Citrix (knows about virtual environments, sensitive to position)
UIPATH RPA APPLICATION RECORDING • Screen and Key Scraping • Excel Automation (workbooks, read range, write range, append range, sort table. read cell, write cell, for each row, output data table, get row item, add data row, build data table)
UIPATH RPA APPLICATION RECORDING • PDF (Uses OCR to recognize text in PDF documents) • Email (understands the parts of an email, attachments, and how to send and receive emails)
Debugging and exception handling UIPATH RPA ADVANCED CONCEPTS Orchestration and scheduling bots Sharing data between bots (assets, queues) Auditing, logging, alerting, monitoring
Business Analyst (figures out requirements, maps out RPA features to make automation happen) ROLES Project & Program Management (creates and manages a schedule, list of work, the people to do it) Architect (creates and consultants on the logical design for complicated automation projects) Developer (trains the RPA bots on how to do the tasks) Tester (makes sure the bots, flowcharts, sequences, and orchestration are all working properly)
HOW BIG IS THE OPPORTUNITY? • 3,000 RPA jobs (general RPA) • 141,000 automation jobs (specific apps) • 25,000 process automation (specialized skills) • Source LinkedIn Jobs Spring 2019
WHO IS HIRING • All the major tech and business consultancies (PwC, US Tech, Accenture, Cognizant, Apex, …) • Lot of smaller consultant firms all over the USA • $8.75B global business by 2024 (so that’s a lot of jobs) (source Grand View Research)
DOES IT PAY WELL ORWHAT IS IT GOING TO COST YOU • RPA Developer: $47K - $154K • RPA Project Manager: $38K - $138K • RPA Architect: $78K - $172K • RPA Business Analyst: $55K - $175K • UI Path Salaries: $66K - $286K • Source Google Jobs Spring 2019
HOW LONG WILL IT LAST • We’re on the start of RPA/Automation curve • The job of software developer is changing from writing apps to developing bots • Eventually bots will create bots • RPA and automation is stepping stone to a career in tech • It’s going to last as long as we do!
CASE STUDY“HOW I EAT FOR FREE IN NYC USING PYTHON, AUTOMATION, ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE, AND INSTAGRAM” Chris Buetti
PYTHON SCRIPTS, USED THE INSTAGRAM API, AND THE FREE TIER OF AWS • Chris Buetti wrote a set of scripts to earn free meals at NYC restaurants • https://medium.com/@chrisbuetti/how-i-eat-for-free-in-nyc-using-python-automation-artificial-intelligence-and-instagram-a5ed8a1e2a10
Find photos (or videos) of life in NYC Create captions and add hashtags for each photo Add credits for each photo so he doesn’t make enemies Weeds out bad (ads, poor quality) photos “COMPLETE SELF-SUSTAINING ROBOTIC INSTAGRAM” Posts the photos to Instagram without him lifting a finger Follows and un-follows users according to the little know rules of Instagram Likes other Instagram user’s posts Monitors his Instagram inbox Sends DMs and emails to restaurants asking for food in exchange for re-posts
Works for almost any internet connected business THE “CHRISS BUETTI” PROCESS There are a huge number API you can access https://www.programmableweb.com/apis/directory Start small, iterate, build up