In this session we will learn all about Ui automation, Excel automation, data tables and data manipulation with UiPath Studio. Agenda: - Intro to Ui Automation - What is Ui Automation, Web automation - How to use the recording tool - Handling selectors in Studio - Data scraping - Screen scraping - Introduction to Excel automation - Data tables and data manipulation - Launch browser, attach browser - Demo - follow-along Your trainers: Priyadarshini Estevez, UiPath MVP 2022, RPA Solution Architect Rahul Goyal, UiPath MVP 2022, Senior Director, ERP Systems @Ellucian

1. UiPath Studio Session 3
Introduction to UI Automation

2. 2
▪ Intro to UI Automation
▪ How to use the recording tool
▪ Handling selectors in Studio
▪ Data scraping
▪ Introduction to Excel automation
▪ Data tables and data manipulation
▪ Demo
▪ Wrap up and give an overview of upcoming session
Agenda

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• A User Interface (UI) is a series of screens, pages, and visual elements - like buttons and
input fields - that enable you to interact with an application
• User interface(UI) Automation is the process of interacting with visual elements on the
Desktop. This is done through simulating mouse movement; mouse click and keyboard inputs.
What is UI Automation?
Mouse movements
and clicks
Keyboard inputs Reading computer
screen

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Input Output
Click
Type Into
Select Item
Check/Uncheck
Get Text
Get URL
Get Active Window
Extract Table Data
StudioActivities
All interactions with the UI can be split into
• Input (sending or adding something to the application) and
• Output (getting something from the application)
Use Application/Browser to connect with the target application.

5. The Recording Tool

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Recording tool
With the recording you can save a lot of time when creating an automation.
You can record Click, Text typing, Checkboxes, Drop-downs, Mouse Hover and
Keyboard Shortcuts.

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Web Recording
• Used for recording in web apps and browsers
• Generates containers and uses Simulate Type/Click input method by
default
Desktop Recording
• Used when multiple actions are performed in many windows
• Suitable for all types of desktop apps
• Generates a container (with the selector of the top level) in which
activities are enclosed and partial selectors for each activity
• Faster than Basic recording
Basic Recording
• Used when multiple actions are performed in a single window and
generates a full selector for each activity
• Slow than the one that uses containers and is suitable for single
activities.
• Slower compared to Desktop recording
Basic, Desktop & Web Recording

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Computer Vision Recording
• Used to visually identify all elements, rather than replying on selectors
or images & is suitable for automatically generating workflows that use
CV activities
Native Citrix Recording
• Used in Native Citrix automation projects & is the equivalent of the
Desktop recording for Citrix environments
Image Recording
• Used to record virtualized environments such as VNC, virtual
machines, and Citrix for image, text & keyboard automation
• Require explicit positioning
Image, Native Citrix & Computer Vision
Recording

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More About Recording
All user interface elements are
highlighted while you record, as you can
see in the following screenshot, so that
you can be sure the correct buttons,
fields or menus are selected.
Regardless of the type
of recording selected,
some actions are
recordable and some
are not.
Recordable Non-Recordable
● Left-click on
buttons, check
boxes, drop-
down lists and
other GUI
elements
● Text typing
● Modifier keys
● Mouse hover
Note:
If you make changes to your display settings without restarting the
computer, elements are not going to be properly identified.

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Text typing
Left clicks
Click on Check boxes
Click on Drop-downs
▪ Following keyboard shortcuts can be used while recording:
▪ F2 – pauses the recording for 3 seconds. A countdown timer is displayed in the bottom left corner of
the screen. Can be useful with menus that automatically hide
▪ Esc – exists the automatic or manual recording. If pressed again, recording is saved as a sequence,
and you return to the main view
During Recording, you can do….
Recordable Actions Non-Recordable Actions
● Left-click on buttons,
check boxes, drop-
down lists and other
GUI elements
● Text typing
● Modifier keys
● Mouse hover

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Modern Experience
Using the Modern Experience
automation, the recording tool is now
unique, so it’s not necessary to select the
App type in advance.
Project Settings 🡪 Toggle the Modern
Design Experience
Enabling Modern Experience

12. Demo
● Get Stock Price

13. Selectors

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Selectors
• The Selectors are identifiers of a specific User Interface element through its
address and attributes specific attributes.
• Every element has a specific selector.
• You can see the selector of an element by clicking on the
• Options menu and select Edit Target

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Selector Editor Window
Classic Design Modern Design
▪ Enables the user to see the automatically generated selectors and edit their
attributes

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UI Explorer
• The UI Explorer is the functionality in
UiPath Studio that allows you to analyze
and edit selectors.
• It contains a status button showing users
the state of the selector
• A visual tree panel that displays a
navigable UI of each application running
at that moment, as well as the selected UI
element.
• The UI Explorer displays all the available
tags and attributes and gives you the
option to check them in or out.

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Validate
• Shows the status of
the selector by
checking the validity of
the selector definition
and the visibility of the
target element on
screen.
• Has the following
status:
• O (buffer): Selector is
being validated
• √: Valid selector
• ×: Invalid selector
• ?: Modified selector,
revalidate
Indicate Element
• Indicates a new UI
element to replace the
previous one
Repair
• Enables the user to re-
indicate the same
target UI element and
repair the selector.
• The button is available
only when the selector
is invalid
Highlight
• Brings the target
element in the
foreground.
• The highlight stays on
until its switched off
• The button is enabled
only if the selector is
valid.
Indicate Anchor
• Indicates a new anchor
relative to the indicated
Ui element
Properties of Ui Explorer

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• A wildcard is a special character that can replace the dynamic part of the selector.
• There are two types of wildcards:
Asterisk
{*}
• Replaces zero or more
characters
Question
mark {?}
• Replaces a single character
Wildcards in Selectors

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Dynamic Selectors
▪ Variables are used as a property for the attribute of your target tag. This allows
selectors to easily identify a target element based on the value of the variable
▪ The variable can be changed to interact with a different element, without changing the
selector itself.
Format
<tag attribute=‘{{Value}}’ />
• Tag: the target tag, such as <ctrl/>
• Attribute: the target attribute, such as name=‘menuItem’
• {{Value}}: the name of the variable or argument which holds the
property of the element the user wants to interact with

20. Data Scraping

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Data Scraping/Table Extraction
Enables you to extract structured data from your browser, application or
document to a database, .csv file or even Excel spreadsheet.
Classic Design
Modern Design

22. Demo
● Extract Currency Info

23. Excel Automation and Data
Manipulation

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Excel Automation - What can you automate?
• Create report:
• Read and write data
• Sort data
• Data Filters
• Pivot tables
• Excel formatting
• Work with ranges – append, auto fill, add/delete rows/columns, sheet
• Check reports for errors:
• Delete duplicate data
• Data reconciliation
• Fill in forms with data from Excel spreadsheets
• Extract data from emails and move to desktop/web application
• Data extraction and migration
• Data Table to Excel, Excel to Data Table
• Run macro

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Excel Application Scope Vs Workbook
• It is a container and all the other
Excel activities used to work with
the specified Excel file have to be
placed inside the container:
• Workbook activities, on the other
hand, do not require a scope. The
Excel file needs to be indicated in
the properties for each individual
activity.

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Data Table
• DataTable is the type of variable that can store data as a simple spreadsheet
with rows and columns. You can identify each piece of data based on its
unique column and row coordinates.
• Some common actions with Data tables are:
• Loop through the data
• Filter Data
• Add/Modify Data
• Sort

27. Demo
● Data Manipulation

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Data Manipulation
▪ Data manipulation is the process through which the data is altered using
various operations in order to facilitate its usage
▪ Operations:
▪ Modifying
▪ Structuring
▪ Formatting
▪ Sorting
▪ Allows the use to change data from one form to another by
concatenating, converting, extracting, splitting or segregating to make it
ready to be used by RPA in workflows
Data Manipulation allows us to customize the data in order to be able to
generate the desired outcome based on the process needs

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Common operations for data manipulation are:
Retrieving
• Specify
conditions to
extract, filter
or
summarize
data
Adding
• Add new
data in a
data
structure
Deleting
• Remove
entries from
a data
structure
Modifying
• Changes the
existing
entries in a
data
structure
Operations for Data Manipulation

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Log into UiPath Academy www.academy.uipath.com
> go to the Learning by Role page
> enroll for the RPA Developer Foundation course
> go through the lesson titled “ Working with the
Recorder, Selectors in Studio, DataTables and Excel
Automation With Studio”
Session 4 – Advanced practices with Studio and Orchestrator
> Email Automation, String Manipulation, Debugging
and Error Handling, Leveraging Orchestrator etc.
Feel free to ask any questions in the UiPath Forum thread
- https://forum.uipath.com/t/rpa-summer-school-studio-
thread/461307
What’s next?

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Thank You
Any questions?

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Exercise
• Go To https://www.rpasamples.com/opportunities
• Use Scrape Data to retrieve the Account list into a DataTable
• Use “Write Range” within Excel Application Scope
• Add a new column to the table with “Add Column Data”
• Loop through the DT and check if qty is over 40 -> add a note
• Use “Write Range” again (or write cell if it’s not too long) to update the Excel