Blue Prism Training in Hyderabad

Robotic Process Automation with Blue Prism

• Doing more with software is the essence of digital transformation. An important part of this transformation is automating business processes, using software rather than people wherever possible. Robotic process automation
• (RPA) is an increasingly popular approach to doing this.
• RPA can have a transformative impact on organizations, bringing lower costs, increased reliability, and faster process execution.
• Done well, it can also let IT and business people work together to implement and change automated processes quickly. This paper introduces RPA, then describes how it’s provided by Blue Prism, a leading vendor in this market.
• The goal is to explain what RPA is and how Blue Prism support.

A Blue Prism Scenario

• Imagine a simple business process carried out by a call center worker to determine a customer’s shipping cost and place an order. This process requires the worker to interact with three different applications, entering information into each one and getting information in return.
• The process first requires the worker to enter the customer’s name into a Windows application, then get back a code indicating how much business the firm gets from this customer.
• The process next requires the worker to enter the customer’s name into a mainframe application, retrieving the customer’s mailing address.
• Next, the process requires the worker to validate this address, making sure that it contains all required fields .
• Finally, the worker enters all of this—the customer name, code, and mailing address—into a Web-based application that determines the shipping cost and places the customer’s order
• To automate this process with Blue Prism, a developer or business analyst uses Object Studio to create a business object for each of the three applications.
• Each business object implements the same actions that a call center worker performs on this application. For example, the business object that interacts with the Windows application might contain a login action, an action that enters the customer’s name, another action that retrieves the customer code, and a logout action.
• Once these objects have been created, a developer or business analyst uses Process Studio to graphically define the steps in the process. Each step can invoke actions in one or more business object. In this example, the process has four main parts: entering data into the Windows application and getting a result, entering data into the mainframe application and getting that result, validating the mailing address (which can be done by a business object), and entering all of this data into the Web-based application.
• Once the business objects and the process have been created, the robot can be executed. (Note that with Blue Prism, robots run on servers in the organization’s datacenter rather than on user desktops.)
• An IT or business person can use Blue Prism’s management tool to schedule when robots run, then monitor their execution. And to help create applications safely, Blue Prism defines a methodology for designing, building, and deploying a new automated process.
• This methodology includes typical software development practices such as using distinct environments for development and production, with a business sign-off to move a new robot into production.
• If the business process needs to change, a business analyst or developer uses Process Studio to modify it.
• If the user interface to one of the applications changes significantly, or if supporting the changed business process requires implementing a new action on one of the applications, the analyst or developer uses Object Studio to change the application’s business object as needed.
• The main thing to understand is that a robot built using objects and processes can execute the same steps as a person.
• This includes not only the interactions with applications, but also steps the person might perform manually, such as validating the address.
• This is what makes it possible for Blue Prism robots to take the place of people in automating a business process.

The Technology of Blue Prism

• Having a big-picture view of how Blue Prism works is a good place to start. But really understanding the product requires more. This section takes a deeper look at the Blue Prism technology, describing each of its main components.
• As just described, a Blue Prism robot relies on business objects to interact with applications. Understanding what a business object is first requires understanding the components each one contains, then seeing how the Blue Prism development tools are used to create those components. This section looks at both.
• A business object acts as an adapter to the user interface of a specific application. To accomplish this, each object has two main parts.
• An application model that exposes the elements of this application’s user interface.
• One or more actions, each of which implements all or part of an operation that the business object can perform.
• How these two parts relate to one other and to the world outside the business object.
• Understanding business objects requires looking at both of these components. What follows walks through each one.H
• aving a big-picture view of how Blue Prism works is a good place to start.
• But really understanding the product requires more.
• This section takes a deeper look at the Blue Prism technology, describing each of its main components.

Creating Blue Prism Applications: Business Objects

• As just described, a Blue Prism robot relies on business objects to interact with applications.
• Understanding what a business object is first requires understanding the components each one contains, then seeing how the Blue Prism development tools are used to create those components. This section looks at both.

Creating an Application Model

• To interact with an application, a robot needs to know about that application’s user interface.
• An application model represents this knowledge, describing how the business object connects to the application.
• Since application interfaces use a variety of technologies, Blue Prism provides standard libraries that support various approaches, called modes, for doing A Windows mode, allowing access to Windows applications built using the .NET Framework, the Microsoft Foundation Class (MFC) library, Visual Basic 6, PowerBuilder, and other Windows-based user interface technologies.
• A Java mode for working with user interfaces created using Swing, Java applets, Oracle Forms, and other technologies based on the Java Virtual Machine.
• A mainframe mode, which allows access to mainframe applications through terminal emulators from various vendors, including Attachmate, Micro Focus, IBM, and others.
• A Citrix mode, allowing access to applications that provide their user interfaces via technologies such as Citrix XenApp and Microsoft Remote Desktop Services.
• To select a particular mode for a newly created business object, a developer or business analyst uses a wizard that’s part of Object Studio.
• It’s also possible to use more than one mode in a single business object.
• If an HTML page contains a Java applet, for example, both the HTML mode and the Java mode can be used.
• Whatever modes a business object uses, Blue Prism models each screen in an application’s user interface as a set of elements.
• Each element represents some aspect of what’s on this screen.
• For example, the elements in a screen accessed via the HTML interface might include a field for entering data, a button to click, and a hyperlink.
• The application model defines the elements of each screen for a particular application, then makes them available to the actions in this business object. Just as a traditional API can expose an application’s business logic to other code, an application model exposes an application’s user interface to the logic contained in actions.
• To create application models, a business analyst or a developer uses the Application Modeler, part of Object Studio.
• The screen shot in Figure 5 gives a sense of how this tool is used.