Knowing Semantic activities

[Diya_Jain]

How do the new Semantic activities in UiPath simplify form automation, and what are the key functionalities of the Extract Form Data, Fill Form, and Set Value activities?

[ashokkarale]

@Diya_Jain,

UiPath has introduced new Semantic activities that simplify form automation by utilizing AI and semantic understanding. The key activities that enhance this functionality include Extract Form Data, Fill Form, and Set Value.

Simplification through Semantic Activities
Semantic activities leverage an AI-powered DOM Extraction Engine, Semantic Matching Engine, and Semantic Targeting and Execution Engine. These components ensure flexibility, resilience, and ease of use by eliminating the need for traditional selector-based methods, which are often complex and brittle.

AI-powered DOM Extraction Engine: Automatically extracts usable UI elements within a form.
Semantic Matching Engine: Enhances resilience by semantically matching text labels, ensuring stability against changes in the UI.
Semantic Targeting and Execution Engine: Enables precise targeting and execution of actions on UI elements without the need for explicit selectors.
Key Functionalities of the Activities

Extract Form Data
The Extract Form Data activity is designed to extract data from forms efficiently. It can process various form elements and structure the extracted data in a user-defined format.

Fill Form
The Fill Form activity uses AI to automatically populate forms with data from a specified source, taking care of mappings and validations behind the scenes. Some key configurations include:

Data Source: Supported types are DocumentData, Dictionary, DataEntity, DataRow, DataTable, or JSON files, among others. For DataTable, only the first row is utilized to fill the form.
Enable validation: An option to enable validation of values during runtime, which can throw exceptions for invalid values.
Additional timing configurations like delays before and after execution, and error handling settings (e.g., timeout, continue on error) provide flexibility in managing the form filling process.

Set Value
The Set Value activity works similar to Fill Form but on an element level. It can:

Set values in various input fields like text boxes, drop-downs, check boxes, radio buttons, and date pickers.
Be used across browsers like Chrome, Edge, Firefox, and Safari.
Handle validations and configuration options similar to Fill Form, including delay settings, timeout, and error handling.
Utilizing these activities streamlines tasks, reduces the complexity inherent in selector-based automation, and enhances the robustness of automation processes against UI changes.

LLM helped me to write this but it’s validated by me.

[KalyanM (Kalyan)]

The new Semantic activities in UiPath make form automation much easier:

Extract Form Data lets you pull data from forms and create custom objects that can be used throughout your automation.

Fill Form automatically matches and fills in form fields using various data sources like tables, JSON files, or custom types. It works seamlessly with the form detected by the Use Application/Browser activity.

Set Value simplifies entering data into a single form element, whether it’s a text box, drop-down, checkbox, or date picker, adapting to any type of field.

These activities make working with forms faster and more efficient.