Hi all, I’m working through the UiPath Academy StudioX Word Automation training and noticed some peculiar behavior.
I modified the use case to loop through an Excel file and create a filled-out Word template for each row. If I try to execute the automation with my Excel input file and Word template open, the automation will execute and “hang” with the Word template open. No error is thrown.
Cue me stopping the automation and I close the Word template and Excel file and try to execute again. When the Word template is opened on the 2nd execution, it says it is locked. I have to restart my computer to overcome this (closing the process from Windows Task Manager doesn’t help).
If I have the Excel input file and Word template closed upon execution, the automation works flawlessly.
It seems like when you stop an automation mid-process and it’s using a resource, that resource becomes locked and subsequent attempts to utilize the file are futile.
Is there a way to “reset” the Word process so that a user doesn’t need to restart their computer? The reason I’m asking is because we run trainings and there’s a high chance users will forget to close the Word template before running the automation. Restarting takes a while and they will fall behind in the training.
Secondly, I have the “Save changes” property unchecked in the Word resource activity and I’ve included a Save Document as PDF activity in the resource container. The PDF is generated, but the Word template is also saved with updates that were made (replace text, images). I would have expected the Word template to remain unchanged. This is an issue because on the 2nd iteration, the placeholders are gone. Obviously I can overcome this by 1) creating a copy of the template beforehand and using that or 2) using a Save Document As activity to save the filled Word template as a new file (this seems to retain the original template), but I would expect an unchecked Save changes property to retain the original Word file. On closer inspection, I think this is a bug when you use the Save Document as PDF by itself.
Thanks in advance!