Activities that cannot be automated with UiPath

uiautomation
#1

Hi There,

I’m a beginner here & have been exploring different activities that actually cannot be automated with UiPath (or RPA in general). Been looking at few use-cases to implement so was wondering what can’t be achieved(in terms of atomic activities).
Maybe activities like Barcode reading? or data automation through Presentations?(don’t know if this is possible, didn’t find any resources). Maybe making an automated call? API integration

So, I would really appreciate if someone here can help me get onboard with few list of activities which aren’t possible to implement.

P.S. - Need these at the activity level like for example Pivots in Excel, Or Scraping from PPTs.

Thanks in Advance :smile:

#2

Hello! Welcome to Uipath World! hahaha :slight_smile:

When we talk about RPA, In my opinion, there’s nothing that can’t be automated (since it has patterns and are digital). I have faced millions of challenge during my experience with Uipath (3.5 years) and until now none of them was impossible to complete. Of course there are exceptions. For example: It’s impossible to automate a process that uses a physical invoice document (just the part of reading the content from it, but all the rest can be automated.).

1st Tip: First of all, consider a Digital Transformation to the process beeing automated. And then you’ll have the answer if it’s possible to automate or not :slight_smile:

2nd Tip: It’s possible to create Custom Activities for Uipath along your development. So if you doesn’t find anything on the Activities Package, you can create yourself a Custom Package which will do what you need (A barcode reading, for example). Just don’t forget to post on Uipath Gallery to help us too hahaha

3rd Tip: There are systems that is best to automate than others. Example: Local Desktop is easier than Citrix Environment (VDI). But it’s not impossible. A .NET application is easier to automate than a Java Application. But it can be done as well.

4th Tip: Always check the Uipath Community. We are here to help if you have any doubts!

I think that’s it. I’m not the best developer in the world. But I think these tips can help you start this journey. In my opinion, Uipath is the best RPA market. You are in the right path :wink:

Hope it Helps!

Regards,

#3

Hey There,

Well sure, if I come across anything I shall definitely mention here :stuck_out_tongue: but I’m a newbie (just a month or two old with UiPath). So, I’ve done few examples for automation example being retrieving mails - downloading attachments - loop through them(PDFs) – scrape – worked with desktop app – then with excel – and then mailed back. So while working, I came across few links which mentions Barcode Reading isn’t possible. Also, I’ve not seen activities for handling Presentations(I wonder altogether if someone would need it). Similarly, How API Integration can be done…
Need this detail for now, so that I can implement something for my team :star_struck:

#4

Check it out this:

:slight_smile:

#5

Hi Lucas! I love your tips, but must disagree with your example.

The components for reading of the content from documents (esp. scanned documents) made a lot of progress especially lately thanks to new AI research, there’s a couple to check out.

Rossum Elis (imho the furthest in terms of accuracy though I can be biased :slight_smile: ; integrates very smoothly with UIPath: https://rossum.ai/blog/2018/07/30/automating-data-extraction-from-invoices-using-rossum-api-and-uipath/), SMACC, infrrd.ai, even Abbyy Flexicapture for Invoices.

A lot of those services are invoice-specific, but out of this list at least Rossum and Abbyy have a roadmap stretching to other documents including completely custom documents too.

#6

Hello PetrBaudis,

I respect your opinion :slight_smile: But for me it’s much easier to do Digital Transformation instead of using AI and OCR to read scanned documents. Also I never saw a 100% accurate OCR. It is crazy to trust 100% on an AI / OCR to input information directly, especially if you use money values (as the example of invoice documents).

I believe we’ll reach (using AI) perfection someday. But Digital Transformation still best approach to reach it until then. We can not forget about the Planet too hahaha. We must extinguish physical documents and use only digital ones.

Regards,

#7

Oh, I absolutely agree - as I said, I support your tips and digital transformation is always the better idea.

But the moment we even think about RPA is when digital transformation (A) either isn’t easy (talk to all your suppliers about EDI), or (B) isn’t complete (all your suppliers email you invoices digitally, but they are not machine readable) still.

The AI solutions are definitely not 100% accurate, and there will be always corner cases or genuine ambiguities which will make it hard for them to ever reach this goal. But with accuracy often much higher than 90%, it’s actually relatively painless to keep humans in the loop to verify any ambiguities manually. E.g. Rossum offers a verification user interface exactly for streamlining this process. And with the level of automation you are reaching, suddenly it’s feasible e.g. directly for the accountants to verify the information since it’s so fast, instead of just thinking in terms of separate assistant vs. data entry clerk vs. accountant roles as in a traditional setting.

So, Digital Transformation can mean a lot of different things, and rarely is 100% complete in a single step. But it can still be hugely effective, and AI can cover many gaps. :slight_smile:

#8

I agree with you in this point :slight_smile:

I’ll learn more about AI solutions and will try to do a PoC. Maybe I can change my mind. haha

I appreciate if you can send to me some materials about it.

Thank you :slight_smile:

Regards,

#9

For sure! I’d recommend to start with the whitepapers at https://rossum.ai/data-capture regarding business impact. You might also like the explanation of what actually is the difference in new AI-based OCR vs. traditional approaches at https://rossum.ai/blog/2018/06/22/the-future-of-data-capture-systems-imitating-human-behavior/

#10

@Lucas.Pimenta @PetrBaudis

Well, thanks for your replies & discussion :slight_smile: Was helpful. But i think i was looking for things on a little atomic level. Let’s say, UiPath cant be used with MongoDB – but in a way i was able to tweak it to use “StartProcess” use Screen Scraping, use “Get Text” etc to somehow make it work.
So, what i do know is - Mongo Connectivity is unstable. Similarly, activities of word processing aren’t detailed as well.
And, what I’m looking for is, if there are more things that RPA(UiPath) in specific doesn’t work with. Be it barcode scanning, analysing images, range of databases to be supported, etc.