Macros and Robot

Hello,
Can anyone explain me about the differences in using Macros and Robot for automation? What major advantages robot have over Macros.
It would be great if you can explain by example?

Thanks,

Hi,

In a way, Macros are robots in terms of application automation. And, it also depends on what you mean by Macros (are you talking about .VBAs, AutoHotkey/MacroSuite-like software, .VBS/.cmd/Powershell? They all have some differences too)

Advantages of Robot Automation would include:
- Quicker knowledge transfer and training, maintainability, easier element automation, image recognition, show business process design, and scheduling platform provided
Disadvantages would be: sometimes slow completion times, poor user-friendliness at times, limiting capabilities (but growing)

Advantages of Scripting languages outside of RPA:
- Super fast completion time, user-friendly to edit code, ability to work directly with application features, very little keystroke automation needed, can create intuitive GUIs to interact with, and pretty reliable
Disadvantages: harder to find web elements, requires more programming experience, more knowledge transfer and more documentation needed, need to create your own schedule tool or use Task Scheduler

Those are just my opinions.
And, with that being said, I find that it’s better to try and implement most Processes solely through the RPA to keep the structure simplistic and easier to understand. However, there might be cases where RPA’s execution time just doesn’t cut it and maybe a .vbscript or Excel Macro is needed.

Thanks.

Clayton.

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Hi @ashusinha,

I would say the major advantage that robots have over macros is the ease of integration with other applications, programs, etc. In UiPath for example, if you want to interact with a webpage you have dedicated activities like Open Browser that make it really easy to do it, while in Excel you will need to actually write code to accomplish the same purpose.

The major advantage that macros have over robots is the integration and ease of automation using Microsoft Excel and Microsoft Office applications in general. I believe this is the reason why UiPath does not contain too many activities to interact with Excel files (remove columns, duplicate values, etc) since it is easier to create a macro and then run it using the Execute Macro activity.

Hope this helps.

Regards.

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Thanks ! :slight_smile:

Thanks :slight_smile: