Robotic Process Automation syllabus

Foundations of RPA: Emergence and definition of Robotic Process Automation (RPA), Benefits, Types of Bots (attended, unattended, hybrid), Application areas of RPA (finance, healthcare, HR, customer service), RPA development methodology and key considerations (process selection, security, governance), Overview of RPA tools (UiPath, Blue Prism, Automation Anywhere, Power Automate). Bot Development Fundamentals: Activities, Flowcharts and Sequences, Sequencing the workflow, Log Message (information, warning, error), Variables, Control flow, Various types of loops (For Each, While, Do While), Decision making with conditions, Best practices for Bot Development, Step-by-step example using Sequence and Flowchart, Step-by-step example using Sequence and Control flow.

Data Handling Techniques: Data table usage in RPA (build, add row, filter, sort, loop through rows), Clipboard management (copy to clipboard, get clipboard text), File operations (copy, move, delete, read, write text file), Data transfer between CSV/Excel and data table (read CSV, write CSV, read range, write range, append range). UI Control Automation: Finding the control (selectors, UI explorer), Techniques for waiting for a control (wait for ready, element exists, attribute equals), Act on controls – Mouse and keyboard activities (click, type into, hover, hotkeys), Handling events (click trigger, key trigger), Recording and scraping (basic recording, desktop recording, web recording, data scraping).

Assistant Bots and Event Monitoring: Assistant bots (concept, use cases, attended automation scenarios), Monitoring system event triggers (system idle, process started, window opened), Monitoring image and element triggers (image appears, element disappears, attribute changes). Keyboard Event Automation: Launching an assistant bot on a keyboard event (global hotkeys, shortcut keys), Practical examples (opening bot on Ctrl+Shift+B, triggering automation on function keys), Managing multiple keyboard triggers without conflicts.

Exception Handling Strategies: Common exceptions in RPA (selector not found, timeout, application not responding, argument null), Strategies for exception handling (try-catch, throw, retry scope, continue on error), Using finally block for cleanup activities. Logging and Debugging Mechanisms: Logging mechanisms – Client logging (local log files, debug output), Server logging (Orchestrator logs, cloud logging), Taking screenshots for error debugging (capture screenshot on exception, save to log), Best practices for logging (log levels, message formatting, avoiding sensitive data).

Code Organization and Maintenance: Project organization best practices (folders for workflows, libraries, and data files), Choosing between Flowcharts, State Machines, or Sequences, Maintaining and scaling RPA code (modular design, reusable libraries, version control). Current Trends and Future Directions: Security, Governance and compliance in RPA (role-based access, audit trails), Attended vs. unattended automation (differences and use cases), AI integration with RPA (Intelligent Process Automation, OCR), Future trends in industrial process automation using RPA (hyperautomation, cloud RPA).