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Robotic Process Automation with Blue Prism Quick Start Guide
Robotic Process Automation with Blue Prism Quick Start Guide

Robotic Process Automation with Blue Prism Quick Start Guide: Create software robots and automate business processes

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Robotic Process Automation with Blue Prism Quick Start Guide

Building the First Blue Prism Process

With the increased popularity of RPA comes a multitude of products that offer robotic process automation solutions. The tool used in this book is Blue Prism. Blue Prism was founded on July 16, 2001 by a group of process automation experts, and has its headquarters in the United Kingdom. It has been well received, with hundreds of companies (a number that is growing rapidly) around the world adopting Blue Prism as their robotic software of choice.

In this chapter, we will take a look at Blue Prism and use it to build our very first process. Here's what we will be doing:

  • Learning how to launch the Blue Prism interactive client
  • Using Studio to create our very first process
  • Editing the process by giving the robot instructions to follow
  • Renaming and saving the process
  • And finally, running the process for the first time
...

Inside a Blue Prism system

In its simplest form, the Blue Prism software is made up of three components:

  • The Application Server that runs the Blue Prism services. It serves as the brain of the entire setup, performing functions such as connecting to the backend databases, scheduling, and storing logs.
  • The Runtime Resource, which are more commonly known as the robots. They can be either physical or virtual computers.
  • The Interactive Client installed on your desktop that allows humans to interact with the robots by developing processes, scheduling tasks, or monitoring the robot logs.

The three components pass information to each other on a constant basis in order to make the entire system work as shown in following diagram:

In this book, we will assume that the application server, runtime resources, and the interactive clients have been configured correctly by a system administrator...

Launching the Blue Prism interactive client

Once you have successfully installed the Blue Prism interactive client, you can launch it in any of the following ways:

  • From the Start Menu, click Start | Blue Prism.
  • Alternatively, you may choose Run | Blue Prism

The Blue Prism application is represented by a blue triangle. Double-click on the icon to open it.

A sign-in screen appears. Follow these steps to sign in:

  1. Choose the connection that your Blue Prism administrator has configured for you.
  2. If you see a User Name and Password field, enter your Blue Prism credentials. This is an account that has been issued to you by your Blue Prism administrator. It is not your Windows username and password.
  3. When done, click the Sign In button.
You won't always see the User Name and Password fields. These only appear if single sign-on has not been turned on in your environment. If your...

Creating the first process

As developers, we will be spending most of our time with Studio. This is the place where we work with processes/objects.

Let's dive right in and create our first process:

  1. Click on the Studio button. The screen shows a tree on the left-hand side. The tree contains two leaf nodes at the top: Processes and Objects.
  2. Right-click on Processes and choose Create Process.
  3. The New Process dialog appears. Give the new process a name. Call it My First Process. Click Next.

  1. Enter an optional description for the process. It's always a good idea to write a bit about what we are going to build so that others will know what the process is doing. For now, just provide a token description, for example: This is my first Blue Prism process. When you are ready, click Finish.
  2. The process shows up in the tree on the left, inside a folder named Default.

Look...

Getting to know the Blue Prism Process Studio

Most RPA programs today are code-free (or at least low code), and Blue Prism is no different. It provides a Visio-like canvas to sequence each step in the process. You design a flowchart that contains a sequence of steps. You can choose from a suite of ready-made actions what each step is supposed to do (for example, click a link or press a button). Finally, the steps are linked together with a definite start and endpoint.

Let's take a quick tour of what it's comprised of:

  • Top menu has all the commands and tasks that we will need to create our processes.
  • Toolbar gives us quick access to commonly used commands and tasks.
  • Toolbox contains the ready-to-use actions that you can drag and drop onto the canvas.
  • Canvas is where we will draw the process flow diagram. Also notice that the first and only page that we have opened is...

Join the Blue Prism community

Blue Prism has a portal that contains a wealth of knowledge about the product. Visit the site https://portal.blueprism.com. If you do not already have an account, simply click the Sign Up here link to get one.

The site is chock full of useful articles to solve almost every Blue Prism puzzle. There is also a community where you can post questions and get expert help from both the online community and the Blue Prism team. It is also the place to download the latest Blue Prism release and any VBO library files or add-ons. Throughout the book, we will reference material that is available on the website. So do sign up for an account if you have not already done so.

Summary

We covered the basics of building processes using Blue Prism. In this chapter, we rolled up our sleeves and created our very first process, complete with pages. We also took it for a test run to see the robot in action.

In the next chapter, we will flesh out the process and replace the stubs with the tasks that we actually want to execute.

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Key benefits

  • Develop robots with Blue Prism
  • Automate your work processes with Blue Prism
  • Learn basic skills required to train a robot for process automation

Description

Robotic process automation is a form of business process automation where user-configured robots can emulate the actions of users. Blue Prism is a pioneer of robotic process automation software, and this book gives you a solid foundation to programming robots with Blue Prism. If you've been tasked with automating work processes, but don't know where to start, this is the book for you! You begin with the business case for robotic process automation, and then move to implementation techniques with the leading software for enterprise automation, Blue Prism. You will become familiar with the Blue Prism Studio by creating your first process. You will build upon this by adding pages, data items, blocks, collections, and loops. You will build more complex processes by learning about actions, decisions, choices, and calculations. You will move on to teach your robot to interact with applications such as Internet Explorer. This can be used for spying elements that identify what your robot needs to interact with on the screen. You will build the logic behind a business objects by using read, write, and wait stages. You will then enable your robot to read and write to Excel and CSV files. This will finally lead you to train your robot to read and send emails in Outlook. You will learn about the Control Room, where you will practice adding items to a queue, processing the items and updating the work status. Towards the end of this book you will also teach your robot to handle errors and deal with exceptions. The book concludes with tips and coding best practices for Blue Prism.

Who is this book for?

The book is aimed at end users such as citizen developers who create business processes, but may not have the basic programming skills required to train a robot. No experience of BluePrism is required.

What you will learn

  • Learn why and when to introduce robotic automation into your business processes
  • Work with Blue Prism Studio
  • Create automation processes in Blue Prism
  • Make use of decisions and choices in your robots
  • Use UI Automation mode, HTML mode, Region mode, and spying
  • Learn how to raise exceptions
  • Get the robot to deal with errors
  • Learn Blue Prism coding best practices

Product Details

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Publication date, Length, Edition, Language, ISBN-13
Publication date : Nov 30, 2018
Length: 232 pages
Edition : 1st
Language : English
ISBN-13 : 9781789610444
Languages :
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Product Details

Publication date : Nov 30, 2018
Length: 232 pages
Edition : 1st
Language : English
ISBN-13 : 9781789610444
Languages :
Tools :

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Table of Contents

12 Chapters
The Case for Robotic Process Automation Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Building the First Blue Prism Process Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Pages, Data Items, Blocks, Collections, and Loops Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Actions, Decisions, Choices, and Calculations Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Implementing Business Objects Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Spying Elements Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Write, Wait, and Read Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Working with Excel Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Sending and Receiving Emails Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Control Room and Work Queues Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Exception Handling Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Other Books You May Enjoy Chevron down icon Chevron up icon

Customer reviews

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Rating distribution
Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Half star icon 4.2
(6 Ratings)
5 star 66.7%
4 star 0%
3 star 16.7%
2 star 16.7%
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Didi Apr 05, 2019
Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon 5
I am completely new to Blue Prism and used this book to begin self-teaching. It was very simple and easy to follow the examples step by step and complete the first robotic automation process without any issues!I would recommend this book when starting to use Blue Prism by yourself.
Amazon Verified review Amazon
Al Jul 19, 2022
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Great book. New in learning the program and this really helped enforce what I learned on a course. Would recommend.
Amazon Verified review Amazon
M. D. Jan 29, 2020
Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon 5
Der Leser wird anhand von einem konkreten Beispiel Stück für Stück durch BluePrism geführt. Dabei iterieren immer kurze Theorie- und Praxisblöcke. Ein sehr angenehmes Lernen, so dass man schnell Fortschritte macht. Das Buch ist definitiv ein Lehrbuch, keine Referenz.
Amazon Verified review Amazon
Priscilla Burt Oct 05, 2020
Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon 5
Great start for those who never really used Blue Prism before and seek to understand the basics of the software structure. Very little issues with some words but overall is an easy and pleasant reading, I highly recommend it for beginners!!!
Amazon Verified review Amazon
Jeanine McDonald Dec 19, 2019
Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Empty star icon Empty star icon 3
The author and proof readers need glasses. Screen shots don't match the text preceding them. Early on the book calls for a spreadsheet, but does not tell you where to get it. The author was unresponsive when Packt publishing contacted to get clarification. It turns out much later in the book, the file details are mentioned. Not well done and no support from the author. Packt was great though. If you buy this, be prepared to be confused and do some troubleshooting.
Amazon Verified review Amazon
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