Want to learn Robotic Process Automation(RPA) as a beginner, but not sure where to start?
It’s hard to know the best way to learn RPA because there are a ton of resources out there which is very confusing. But right now, all you need is the basics of RPA – a general explanation with some direction on where to go next.
In this article, I'm going to focus on the RPA UiPath tool, as I believe it's the best RPA tool in the market for beginners and experts alike. it has a free community edition that anyone can use and it's really easy to get started with. Also, UiPath has its own academy where they provide complete tutorials on every topic you can imagine for absolutely FREE OF COST. Plus, the UiPath community forum, where you can post your doubts and get answers from experts who are always there to help.
Prerequisites to learn UiPath
Many people have this confusion if they need to be good at coding in order to learn Uipath?
The answer to that is NO, You don't need to be a pro coder to learn Uipath.
But YES, You need to have a good grip on the OOPs concepts with a basic understanding of any kind of programming language. :)
Here are the steps that you’ll need to follow as a beginner RPA UiPath developer.
Steps to learn RPA UiPath as a beginner:
Learn the basics of what RPA is, how it works, different roles & what suits you the best
Learn basics of main components of the UiPath Platform - UiPath Studio, Assistant, and Orchestrator
Learn basic programming & OOPs concepts
Learn basic automation modules: UI/Excel/Email/PDF Automation, Selectors, Screen Scraping, Data Scraping & Data Manipulation
Learn Project organization, Logging, Exception Handling, Debugging
Version Control with UiPath
UiPath Studio Re-Framework
I recommend signing up at the UiPath Academy for free and enrolling for the RPA Starter course followed by the RPA Developer Foundation course. These two courses will cover most of the steps from 1 through 5. By end of these two courses, you will be able to develop low to medium complexity RPA bots on your own already. YUP, It's that simple to start with.
I personally think it’s a good idea to do some pet projects from the beginning, Try to figure out small processes in your daily life at home or at your office that you think are a simple rule-based repetitive task. It can be a task like searching for jobs on LinkedIn and mailing recruiters or looking for cheap flights or stays on Goibibo /Airbnb or some more complex task at your current job. Look closely, there are plenty of processes in our day-to-day life that can be a great use case for practicing what you learn in the beginning🙂.
Once you are done with the basics, You should enroll in the RPA Developer Advanced course to get in-depth knowledge on UiPath Reframework, Different kinds of RPA documentations & complex project organization.
Then, You should go through some more complex topics like APIs, object repository, Data service, document understanding, Uipath Apps, etc.
Roadmap to learn RPA development with UiPath
Here’s a helpful infographic showing you all the steps in the roadmap to learn RPA development with UiPath as a beginner!
Now, let’s jump right into the first step!
1. What is RPA development?
Before we get into the actual development part, let’s first take a look at some general information on what RPA is: how does it work, the different RPA roles and responsibilities, and using UiPath as a development workspace.
What is RPA & how does it work?
Robotic process automation or RPA is a technology that facilitates automation of repeatable rule-based tedious business processes using software robots. This technology helps organizations to automate repetitive tasks efficiently across various applications and systems, Like Web-based, Desktop-based, SAP-based, Java-based, Oracle-based, or Mainframe-based tools. The Robots are programmed to perform a sequence of steps under a set of predefined business rules leading to a meaningful task, without or lesser human intervention.
For Example, Let’s say you are in charge of the attendance register in XYZ Ltd. Every day, you need to collect the attendance details from some web-based tool, import them to an excel or some database. Then, you need to sort these according to different departments/projects, and finally, you send these to the respective supervisors of each department/project.
Now let’s break this task into steps to have a clearer idea, here we go:
log in to the online attendance system.
Navigate to today’s attendance page and import the data to excel.
Filter & Sort the data according to different departments like; IT, HR, Finance, PM, etc., and put them in different files. Save these files with today’s date as the file name.
Finally, send an email to each department head with this data file as an attachment.
You see, the task here seems pretty simple & straightforward with a set of predefined rules in place, right?
but as you need to do this on a daily basis, it takes a lot of your valuable time and effort. What if this task can be automated end-to-end and can be handled by a robot efficiently, without any human interventions?
That would be awesome, right!
With Robotic Process Automation or RPA, processes like this can be automated in no time. This is what RPA does - It automates your repetitive, rule-based tasks like this one freeing your valuable time which can be used in a more productive and intelligent way.
So in simple words, RPA is a platform, where one can create a software program(robot) that can perform basic rule-based, repetitive tasks ultimately saving time and cost for organizations.
These RPA bots can do a lot of tasks from Login/Logout to a system, moving files and folders, Data Entry, Data Manipulation, Data Extraction, sending emails, opening emails/attachments, filling forms, Basic & Complex calculations, Reading/writing to databases and much more of repeatable tasks.
With RPA, we get the advantage of Better Speed & Increased Productivity, Easy Monitoring, and Auditing, plus it frees up time for the workers, enabling them to work on more productive and creative tasks than mundane things. It's best to use RPA bots for processes when there is a stable pre-defined decision tree (steps) with Fixed Input/output points and it's a high volume, highly repetitive process.
RPA Roles -
There are a number of RPA roles that vary with different companies, but there are some main roles that are in almost all companies: RPA Business Analyst, RPA Solution Architect, RPA Developer. Let's cover these roles briefly:
RPA Business Analyst - The RPA Business Analysts will be the Process Subject Matter experts located in business operations. They will be in charge of creating the process definitions and process maps used for automation.
RPA Solution Architect - They are the ones who define the architecture of the RPA solution and oversee it end-to-end, assisting both in the development and in the implementation phases. They select the appropriate set of technological tools and features and ensure the alignment of the solution with enterprise guidelines.
RPA Developer - They are in charge of designing, developing, testing the automation workflows, and supporting the implementation of the RPA solution. The Developer works side by side with the Business Analyst for documenting process details and assists the engagement team in implementing & testing the solution as well as during maintenance. You can read more about these roles and other RPA roles on the official Uipath website here.
2. UiPath Platform
Uipath is one of the leading RPA tools in the market, the interface is beautiful and easy to understand and it’s pretty easy to learn as it needs no to little knowledge of coding, I must tell you that you will need to do some coding at some point, but you can just learn some basic VB.net for that on the go, that’s what I did.
Here are some things you might consider on why you should choose UiPath as your RPA tool:
Free community version
It’s easy to use.
Has free learning platform – Uipath academy.
No to little knowledge of coding.
Great community of people at UiPath Forum.
Also, UiPath has been recognized as the leading RPA tool in 2021 according to the Forrester Wave.
In Addition to that, For the third consecutive year, Gartner has recognized UiPath as a Leaders’ quadrant with the highest placement for the ability to execute.
According to the peer-to-peer review company G2, UiPath has been rated as the leader in RPA once again. There are more than 5000 positive user reviews about the UiPath platform, which you can check out here on their official website, Which proves UiPath's credibility even more.
Components of the UiPath Platform
The UiPath platform provides an end-to-end solution for enterprise automation; from discovering the business processes for automation to building, deploying, and managing the RPA bots to measuring and governing your automation operations, everything is possible with UiPath. They have a number of tools for your every need in an automation cycle. To start with, let me introduce you to the 3 main components that you are going to converse with a lot as an RPA developer:
I. UiPath Studio - The studio is the starting point of any automation project in the UiPath tool. UiPath Studio is an advanced visual tool that enables you to design automation processes in the UiPath Platform. This is the workspace where the actual development is done. As a developer, this is going to be your Go-to-place, here you can create automation projects that will power the robots to carry out any task. This is a complete solution for app integration, automating third-party applications and business processes. You can download the free community version of UiPath Studio Here. When you open a project in the studio, This is how it looks like:
For the most part, there are predefined activities that you are going to use for the bot development. At times, you will have to use some chunk of coding(VB/C#), but you do not have to worry about that, for now. you can learn it on the go, that's how I learned :).
II. UiPath Robots - Robots are the real workforce, who execute the processes that are built in the Uipath studio. these are the actual workforce that carries out the instructions given in the RPA workflow designed in UiPath Studio.
From the point of view of human intervention, UiPath offers 2 types of Robots:
Attended robots - Attended robots work side by side with the human agents via UiPath Assistant, requiring some human intervention. In business scenarios that require input or decision making from the human user, or when a well-defined schedule cannot be applied due to the volatility of the process.
Unattended robots - Unattended robots work on their own independent of any kind of human interaction. In manual, repetitive, highly rule-based back-office activities, which do not require any human intervention.
Test Robots - Test Robots are unattended robots programmed to run automated test cases against applications or RPA workflows.
III. UiPath Orchestrator - Orchestrator is a web-based application. It is the heart of your automation management, that enables you to deploy, schedule, monitor and manage Robots and processes. The Orchestrator controls, manages & monitors the entire virtual robot workforce securely in one place. It has a web-based interface that enables the orchestration and the management of multiple robots with a click or via schedules and triggers.
3. Basic Programming
Variables are containers for storing data values. they are one of the most fundamental concepts in programming, they exist in pretty much every programming language out there and UiPath uses the same logic.
We use variables to temporarily store data & The data stored within a variable is called a value. For example, let's say you want to store the price of chocolate in a variable. so, we will say "ChocolatePrice = 10" - where "ChocolatePrice" is a variable that stores a temporary value - in this case, the price of the chocolate. Here, 10 is of type integer, so our variable "ChocolatePrice" is of the type integer.
This was just to give you a basic idea on Variables, You must have a good grasp on the concepts of Variables, Arguments, If/Else statements, While/Do While loops and some basic OOPs concepts before diving into the complex bot development stuff.
Remember this: All the concepts in any kind of programming have some logical reasoning & explanation backing them up, all you need to do is understand that logic and build a strong foundation on the basics, This will come really handy particularly when you start doing complex projects. The good news is: all of this is already covered in great detail in the RPA foundation training at Uipath academy. so, Head over to Uipath Academy now to learn these concepts with practical examples, by actually doing some hands-on practice in the UiPath studio.
4. Basic Automations
UI automation refers to the automation of desktop applications and web browsers. It can replicate clicking and typing in various user interface elements such as buttons, checkboxes, text boxes, or drop-down lists, etc, and can interact with the applications with ease and speed.
UI automation is best utilized when Robots and applications run on the same machine because UiPath can integrate directly with the technology behind the application to identify elements, trigger events and get data behind the scenes.
You will need to learn about Input methods, selectors, containers, etc. to start with UI automation. Once you get the hang of it, it's really cool. It's amazing how you can replicate the whole login process on Web or Desktop based applications.
Then, You will need to learn Excel automation, Email automation, PDF automation, Image automation, and tons of other things. I know it sounds like a lot of work, but don't worry, UiPath studio already has tons of pre-defined ready-made activities for all of these, you just need to learn the concepts, and then, it's as simple as dragging and dropping some activities, fine-tuning some selectors, for the most part, :D. You will have to do a little bit of coding once in a while, but don't be intimidated, You can learn as you go! For now, one step at a time!
All these topics mentioned above are also covered in great detail in the RPA foundation training at Uipath academy. so, get over there and start learning.
5. Project Organisation
If you have completed the steps above and have actually completed all the lessons with all the quizzes and exercises diligently enough, by this point, you should be able to develop small to medium-sized bots on your own. Now comes the most important part to any bot you develop - "Project Organisation". Understanding the Project Organization concept is crucial in bot development as it helps you learn all about organizing your workflows in UiPath. You are taught how to choose suitable workflow layouts in your projects and the standards and best practices to follow in large UiPath projects.
To work in real-time enterprise-level projects, you need to understand the concepts of choosing a suitable workflow layout, Splitting complex automation projects into functional workflows, Developing reusable components, using exception handling techniques, logging, and debugging in UiPath studio.
6. Version Control
Version control is a system that keeps track of every code change that you make in your project XAML files. You can even revert to a previous change if you make a mistake. It’s almost like having infinite save points for your project, and let me tell you, it can be a huge lifesaver.
One of the awesome features of UiPath is the versioning capabilities to keep the development effort trackable and reliable. In most companies, multiple developers work on a single project when it's a complex large-scale project, and Version control comes really handy in those cases. so, you must learn about all the different types of repositories like GIT/TFS/SVN, that can be integrated with UiPath.
The most popular version control system is an open-source system called Git. Using Git, you can store all your files and their change history in collections called repositories.
To learn Git, GitHub.com has some online guides that explain how to get up and running. Traversy Media also has a YouTube video explaining how Git works.
7. Robotic Enterprise Framework
Robotic Enterprise Framework or ReFramework a transaction business process template readily provided by UiPath that follows best practices for large-scale deployments. As an Uipath developer, most of the time, you are going to develop processes using the ReFramework template and Orchestrator queues. You will need to learn about the setups, packages, assets, queues, schedules, and triggers in the orchestrator and how the Reframework works so well with the orchestrator as a whole. At this stage, You will also need to learn about how to work with the config file according to business requirements, you will have to learn about the Process design document and the solution design document in detail as you are going to use them on a daily basis. You will also learn about how to test run your projects and how the Test Suite can help you check your projects.
UiPath Academy has a course called "RPA Developer Advanced" which covers ReFramework in detail with amazing hands-on projects.
Where to learn UiPath?
When people ask me where to learn RPA UiPath development, I will usually recommend they check out one of the following resources:
My favorite place to recommend is of course UiPath Academy (by now, I have mentioned it like a zillions time :D). It’s the official learning platform by UiPath and is completely free! I love this option because if you’re a beginner and not completely sure if RPA is for you, it’s a low-pressure, risk-free, practical way to see if you like it. I love their easy-to-understand video format paired with some written concepts and quizzes. It's very interactive.
Enroll in the "RPA starter", "RPA Developer Foundation" and "RPA Developer Advanced" Training in that order, You should do as many hands-on projects as you could to actually get some real-time experience.
I always get to hear this from beginners just starting their RPA journey that they are really struggling with getting some real exposure, they wanna do some hands-on projects, but they don't know where to look!
My advice?? Look around!
Look into your daily life, Look closer at manual processes at your current job, we are completely surrounded by so many repetitive rule-based manual processes in our day-to-day life that could be great use cases. It sounds hard, but it really isn't! Just be mindful and look for those processes.
And if you really stuck, Here's something that will definitely help!
Check out the UiPath forum's use cases repository, It's filled with all kinds of use cases submitted by some of the best RPA developers/ solution architects from all over the world!
Just go through the list of use cases, try and understand the requirements of those use cases - If they feel very difficult to start with, don't worry, you don't have to begin with a complex project right away. Take it slow - look at those use cases as inspirations. when you go through the detailed requirements & process steps carefully, at the very least, you will be able to think of similar processes that can be automated in your current job. You can start with some simple single app automations - just some simple desktop/web automation, and then build up a full-fledged process from there.
And when in doubt, head over to UiPath Forum and search for your questions, Chances are someone has already answered it there. And if you really can't find any existing solution, post your question there! It's totally FREE and there are hundreds if not thousands of experienced RPA developers to help you out :), Which is beyond awesome!
Once you are done with a few simple projects, try to upgrade their complexity. I would also suggest that you prepare the TO-BE process, the solution design, and SDD, Build an exception handling framework, even do the deployment as an attended/unattended bot - the whole nine yards. Try to go through the whole RPA lifecycle, because, as a developer, THIS IS GOING TO BE A PART OF YOUR JOB and you will be ready for a real job when you actually learn by doing.
And trust me on this, once you start learning by doing those hands-on projects, you will learn much faster!!
Once you are fluent with some medium complexity projects, you should move on to the "RPA Developer Continuous Learning" where you will learn advanced topics like object repository, Data service, document understanding, Uipath Apps, chatbots etc.
Then, when you are ready, you should complete the certifications provided by UiPath which would add value to your credentials as an RPA developer.
One downside to UiPath academy is that while they do have an incredible curriculum with some awesome videos and exercises, most of the courses are using a bit older version of Uipath, it's totally understandable though - because the Uipath platform is upgraded on a regular basis, it's difficult to update the courses that frequently. Also, the basic interface remains more or less similar with the upgrades, so this should not be that big of an issue. Also, please note that UiPath academy is really thorough with its curriculum which means the courses are a bit long.
So, if you want to start a bit faster with a shorter video tutorial before starting the full-fletched courses at Uipath academy, then I would definitely recommend you check out Anders Jensen, it's created by Anders Jensen, one of the highest-rated RPA instructors on Youtube. Anders has some UiPath beginner courses on his channel which covers all the basic concepts you will need to learn to get started. He also has his own website with courses covering awesome RPA development courses which are perfect for beginners as well as intermediates alike. Anders is excellent at explaining complex topics in simple language, and I highly recommend checking out his Uipath beginner course that takes you through all the beginner topics in UiPath.
You can also ping me on LinkedIn with your doubts and I promise I will try and get as soon as I can :). Also, ping me with your progress update on your RPA journey, I would love to hear from you :).
Additional learning resources and book recommendations
The coding language of UiPath is based on .NET, and you have the option to choose between VB.NET or C#. I would suggest you go with VB.NET. It’s the original language of UiPath, and most of the documentation, support, and forum posts are based on VB.NET. also, VB.NET is easier to learn compared to C#. Again, it's not a prerequisite to learn UiPath, but if you know .Net that will make learning UiPath much more easier.
As an RPA Developer, you are definitely going to work on Excel applications (VBA/macros) & SQL. So, here are my recommendations to start with:
For VB.NET, Here are some websites to consider:
You can also consider taking up a cheap course at Udemy or Coursera on VB.NET. If you’re more of a reading person, I would highly recommend Visual Basic .NET All-In-One Desk Reference For Dummies by Richard Mansfield.
To learn SQL, I would just go for:
I will also suggest you get the book SQL The Complete Reference by James Groff and Paul Weinberg.
To get a broad insight into RPA Technology, I would suggest you read The Robotic Process Automation Handbook, Robotic Process Automation Projects, and Intelligent Automation. I got these recommendations from Anders Jensen's blog and I totally love these.
I also am working on some premium hands-on courses here on Project RPA , if you’re looking for a more in-depth hands-on tutorials to be an efficient RPA developer, Please consider subscribing to my newsletters to be in the loop!
Finally, Some tips to leave you with…
Thanks for reading! I sincerely hope that this guide helps you get started learning RPA development with UiPath.
A few tips that I have if you are going the self-taught route:
Don’t try to learn everything at once. Pick one or two modules to learn at a time.
Don’t jump around from tutorial to tutorial. As you’re learning, it’s ok to check out different resources to see which one you like best. But again, pick one and try to go all the way through it.
Know that learning RPA development is a long-term journey. Despite the stories you may have read of people going from zero to landing an RPA dev job in 2 months, I would aim more at 6 months to 1 year to become job-ready, if you’re starting from scratch.
Just watching a video course or reading a book won’t automatically make you an expert. Learning the material is just the first step. Building actual bots and projects (even just demo ones for yourself) will help you to really cement your learning.
Learn multiple RPA tools. It's very important to upgrade your skillsets on a regular basis, and as there are multiple RPA tools available in the market, each with its own advantages, so learn at least one more RPA tool to keep yourself relevant in the market. As of now, my recommendations for either Power automate, Automation anywhere, Blue prism, or Robocorp.
Best of luck as you start learning RPA development!