[Automation] Integrating with the MusicMaker Bot on Discord (Using UiPath)
Level of Difficulty: Beginner – Senior. Discord is a great place to get a community of like-minded people together to partake in a whole range of activities, from gaming and home automation to Q&A community forums right across to using educational forums and everything in between. The more informal options often have text or voice…
[Automation] Download Files from Google Drive in C#
Level of Difficulty: Beginner. There are multiple ways to download files from Google Drive, some of which require authenticaton and others that require lots of code. Here’s the simplest way to download the files, provided you’ve got the right file url. The above approach also works when writing to memory stream, instead of copying to…
[Et al.] Understanding UiPath Licensing Compared to Power Platform Licensing
Level of Difficulty: Beginner – Senior. As a follow-on from the post written comparing UiPath to the Microsoft Power Platform, this post aims to unpack the different licenses and licensing strategies implemented by the two different vendors. Since both are leaders in the automation space, it is apt to understand both when evaluating the feasibility…
[Automation] Getting Data from the ‘New’ GitHub Projects
Level of Difficulty: Beginner – Senior. GitHub Projects is nothing new – it has been around for a while now with a really cool API that allows you to pull data from it. For those who have made use of that functionality, it has been a breeze trying to automate and integrate different tasks across…
[UiPath] Setting up a Power BI Custom Connector for UiPath Data Service
Level of Difficulty: Intermediate – Senior. UiPath Data Service has become a sophisticated way to encapsulate data and information used in automation solutions within the UiPath platform without needing to invest in additional infrastructure. The power that data enables which ties everything together is the ability to integrate and visualise the available data. For this,…
[Automation] Basic Exception Handling in Power Automate Cloud Flows
Level of Difficulty: Beginner – Senior. Power Automate is a powerful tool that works well for integration and even automating workflows. Citizen developers have started adopting Power Automate to automate some of their day-to-day activities. One of the most important parts of a traditional solution development strategy is error and exception handling. Automation would typically…
[UiPath] Creating a UiPath Data Services Entity Record From UiPath Studio
Level of Difficulty: Junior – Senior. I recently started playing with integrating UiPath Apps, UiPath Data Services and UiPath Storage Buckets into my automations. It has been a tremendous amount of fun to see it all come together and how it all gels together. I had a few challenges creating records in UiPath Data Services…
[UiPath] Task Capture Good Practices
Level of Difficulty: Junior – Senior. UiPath Task Capture is a tool that exists within the UiPath product offering. It has been tagged as a “Prepare Automation” type tool which assists in mapping out a process in terms of process steps, screenshots, actions and descriptions. The UiPath Task Capture Document can be exported as a…
[UiPath] Preparing for the UiPath Advanced RPA Developer (UiARD) Certification Exam
Level of Difficulty: Junior – Senior. Since writing the UiPath Advanced RPA Developer (UiARD) Certification Exam, I have received many questions about and requests for assistance with preparing for the exam. So I’ve decided to detail an approach that worked for me. Some background context – the first time I wrote the certification over a…
[UiPath] Uploading Files to UiPath Storage Buckets
Level of Difficulty: Junior – Senior. I recently started playing with integrating UiPath Apps, UiPath Data Services and UiPath Storage Buckets into my automations. It has been a tremendous amount of fun to see it all come together and how it all gels together. One of my biggest frustrations, however, was getting my file uploads…
[Automation] GitHub (and Enterprise) API Versus Azure DevOps API
Level of Difficulty: Intermediate – Senior. There are so many really good and useful resources made available on how to use the GitHub API. A lot of work has gone into integrating Azure DevOps and GitHub into automation projects and this is done through their APIs. I have found certain Azure DevOps functions to be…
[RPA] Publishing Test Cases From UiPath Studio to UiPath Test Manager
Level of Difficulty: Intermediate – Senior. This post assumes that the background information and pre-work has already been done. The pre-work mainly refers to the understanding of the business problem, the identification of test cases and unit tests as well as the development of the test cases and unit tests. A two-part series was released…
[Python] Scraping Context (Categories, Topics and Entities) From Websites Using TextRazor and Python
Level of Difficulty: Beginner – Senior. Say you have a website that you’d like to scrape to find out what information the website represents. Well the good news is that you can, in Python, using a library named TextRazor. TextRazor allows you to scrape categories, entities and topics from the website. To use this library,…
[Automation] Making a SOAP API Call in Python, Using a Session Key
Level of Difficulty: Beginner – Senior. Let’s say you’re working on a system that needs to query a legacy SOAP API. Although SOAP APIs are becoming more scarce as REST and Open Data APIs are taking the world by storm, the reality is that SOAP APIs still exist and are still used. In most SOAP…
[Automation] Starting a K2 Workflow from UiPath
Level of Difficulty: Beginner – Senior. UiPath has written an activity (UiPath.K2.Activities) that starts a K2 workflow. It seems quite simple at first; the only input properties that it expects are the service URL, username, password and workflow ID. It was ideal for what I was trying to achieve, until it wouldn’t load my workflows…
[Automation] Things I wish I knew Before my First Power Automate Hyperautomation Implementation
Level of Difficulty: Beginner – Senior. Any toolset comes with it’s own unique tricks and challenges. There is a ‘first time’ for everything which comes with a list of lessons learnt. By sharing these lists, we better prepare the community of developers who may be facing similar challenges. Here’s a summarised list of lessons learnt…
[Automation] Using Power Automate as a Data Integration Tool with Excel (for Bulk Processing)
Level: Beginner – Senior. Power Automate connects into multiple different platforms and systems, making it a very powerful integration tool. Power Automate has been positioned by Microsoft as a platform that aims to facilitate Robotic Process Automation (RPA). Although there is still some work to be done before the Power Automate toolset can match competitors,…
[Automation] Retrieving a List of Mail Senders From a Shared Mailbox (Using Outlook and Python)
Level of Difficulty: Beginner – Senior. Have you ever had a use case where you have a shared mailbox setup on your Outlook but you don’t have the credentials to the account behind the mailbox (if one exists)? Well you can get around that by running the Python script detailed in this post. The approach…
[Automation] Working with SQL transactions in UiPath
Level of Difficulty: Beginner – Senior. When working with databases, the use of transactions is a very healthy habit to get used to. It will save you from those update or delete statements without a where clause that cannot be undone (especially in prod… Imagine…). UiPath presents the Start Transaction activity which claims to do…
[Business Intelligence] Connecting a Google Sheet to Power BI as a Data Source
Level of Difficulty: Beginner – Senior. The market for data collection, visualisation and analysis tools spans across many different providers on many different platforms and in some cases, the best way to become exposed to the variety of tools is by mixing and matching between them. So why not visualise a Google Sheet on Power…
[Automation] 10 Tips for Optimising Power Automate Flows
Level of Difficulty: Beginner – Senior. Power Automate is a powerful tool that allows for integrations and RPA solutions to be developed through the use of Power Automate Desktop and Cloud flows. A disadvantage of using Power Automate is that it can take strain when working with large volumes of data. Lengthy flows take long…
[Automation] A Comparison Between UiPath and Power Automate
Level of Difficulty: Beginner – Senior. Automation is becoming a hot topic in conversations about the fourth industrial revolution (4IR) and fifth industrial revolution (5IR). Automation is referred to as the use of technology to replace human labour or even work alongside people in some way, leading to some sort of benefits (or saving) of…
[Azure] In-Stream Excel Manipulation in .NET Core, using Azure Blob Storage and Azure Functions
Level of Difficulty: Junior – Senior. So you have an Excel template stored in Azure Blob Storage which will be read and manipulated by inserting data into the Excel template returning the manipulated file in stream. This can either happen (Time Trigger) on a schedule or per request (HTTP Trigger) basis. The decision is to…
[Azure] Creating an Azure Blob Storage Resource and Container
Level of Difficulty: Junior. Do you have files that you would like to store in Azure? Azure Blob Storage is perfect for that. Here’s the 101 on Azure Blob Storage that will be covered in this post: Create a Resource GroupCreate an Azure Blob Storage Account ResourceCreate a ContainerUpload FilesRetrieve Connection Strings and Keys Let’s…
[Automation] Using Google Drive, Google Sheets and Python in Google Colaboratory to Automate Rubric Creation and Synchronisation
Level of Difficulty: Intermediate – Senior. Have you ever run into a situation where you have over 200 students whose work needs to be marked and the admin around it is enough to make anyone go crazy? Well here’s a step towards getting around the labour-intensive admin that goes hand-in-hand with marking student projects, using…
[Automation] Retrieve Power Automate Flow Run Logs and Visualise in Power BI
Level of Difficulty: Intermediate – Senior. This post will focus on pulling the Power Automate flow run logs, using PowerShell, exporting them to a CSV file and visualising them in Power BI What are the steps? The steps that we will be following are: Setup PowerShellGet the dataVisualise in Power BI Setup PowerShell You’ll need…
[RPA] Getting Started With UiPath Insights Cloud
Level of Difficulty: Beginner. UiPath Insights is an RPA analytics solution that enables your business to track, measure, and manage the performance of your entire automation program. UiPath Insights can be used with a cloud orchestrator or a stand-alone orchestrator. If you have a stand-alone orchestrator, you can follow this guide to set up UiPath…
[RPA] Conditional Assigns in UiPath – Using The Shorthand IF Statement
Level of Difficulty: Beginner. Have you ever wanted to assign a variable based on the value of another variable but… Without the use of an IF statement block? Here’s how to achieve that. Let’s take an example… We have a boolean variable, named UnicornsExist which can be set by the user through an input dialog.…
[RPA] Automating Azure DevOps Project, Repository and Work Items Creation through UiPath
Level of Difficulty: Beginner – Intermediate. This post will assist in automating the creation of projects, repositories and work items in Azure DevOps through UiPath by using the Azure DevOps API. There are multiple Azure DevOps libraries available on the UiPath Marketplace that make the API calls for you but the aim of this post…
[RPA] Using SQL User-Defined Table Types in UiPath as a Component of a Data Exchange Architecture
Level of Difficulty: Intermediate – Senior. This post will assist in understanding what SQL user-defined table types (UDTTs) are and how they can be used within UiPath as a part of a Data Exchange Architecture (DEA). Following explanations of UDTTs and DEA approaches, we will do a practical implementation walkthrough. User-Defined Table Types (UDTTs) User-defined…
[Business Intelligence] Connecting Power BI to an Excel File Stored on Microsoft Teams, SharePoint or OneDrive as a Data Source
Level of Difficulty: Beginner – Senior. Power BI reports are a quick and easy way to visualise existing data. Often, we want to visualise data from flat files that aren’t necessarily stored on our local computer but rather, files that are modified by other contributors. By storing a file on OneDrive or SharePoint (or indirectly,…
[Automation] YouTube Playlist Monitoring Using Python
Level of Difficulty: Beginner – Senior. There are many different workflow and automation suites/platforms available out there (some of which include IFTTT, Power Automate and Tonkean) that allow users to interact with their YouTube connector. Most of these workflows classify the functions within the connectors as either a Trigger or an Action. A trigger would…
[Automation] Monitoring Gmail Inbox Using Python
Level of Difficulty: Beginner – Senior. Many automation solutions make use of the functionality provided by mail services as it serves as an important element that allows for communication between humans and the automation process. There are many benefits provided by using Google Mail (Gmail), one of which is cost – for that reason, this…
[RPA] The Use of Design Patterns in UiPath Processes
Level of Difficulty: Senior. This post will assist in understanding the practical use of design patterns and how they can be applied to the development of processes within UiPath. What’re Design Patterns? In a nutshell, a design pattern can be described as a template (or format) that is used to structure code in order to…
[Et al.] Intelligent Development – Developing Intelligently
Along with the emergence of the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) we are seeing an increased usage of rebranded terms, that now contain the word “Intelligent”. We find ourselves surrounded by concepts like Intelligent Automation, Intelligent Digital Workplaces, Intelligent Customer Experience, Intelligent Infrastructure and many more. How much longer until we are faced with the new…
[Automation] Working With The UiPath Automation Hub API And Postman (Then Getting The Code)
Level of Difficulty: Beginner – Senior. Does your organisation use Automation Hub to capture and consolidate automation ideas and collateral? Have you ever wanted to interact with the data you have in Automation Hub in an automated manner? Well UiPath makes that easier now with the Automation Hub API – no more front-end automations needed…
[Data Visualisation] Creating a Hamburger Menu for Filters in Power BI
Level of Difficulty: Beginner – Senior. Often we create Power BI reports that require some sort of filtering mechanism but filters take up a lot of real-estate that could be used for other visuals instead. What if we could hide and show a filter pane using a “hamburger” menu mechanism? We can and here’s how.…
[Python] Using Python for SQL Schema and Table Validation and Logging Progress to Microsoft Teams
Level of Difficulty: Intermediate to Senior. So you’ve reached created a database, you’ve created schemas and tables. You’ve managed to create an automation Python script that communicates with the database, however, you’ve reached a crossroad where you need to validate your SQL tables. Some of the validation might include ensuring that the tables exist and…
[Python] Automating ASP.NET Core Web API Creation That Communicates With Your Database in 60 Seconds or Less
Creating an ASP.NET Core Web API That Communicates With Your Database in 60 Seconds or Less
[Automation] Using Power Automate with SQL Server (Primary keys that aren’t int)
Level of Difficulty: Beginner – Senior. Are you in a situation where you’re using a SQL database and you’ve already designed, created and gone through all 700 iterations of the review? Primary keys already created of type uniqueidentifier with default value of NEWID(). Then Fred comes with his clever idea of adding some sort of…
[Et al.] Look After The BAs!
As a Developer in an Agile environment, I want to appreciate the Business Analysts (BA) so that we can continue working in a respectful and collaborative manner. Sounds like a user story right? Well maybe it should be so that we can persistently practise this principle. Often we are faced with feuds between colleagues in…
[RPA] Uploading Files to Azure Blob Storage in UiPath Processes
Level of Difficulty: Intermediate – Senior. This post will assist in using Azure Blob Storage to store files used in UiPath processes. A funny thing happened the other day… Jackson broke the news to the team that his laptop was stolen. After some panic, he lets everyone know that at least the latest solution was…
[Python] Auto-Format Code According to PEP 8
Level of Difficulty: Beginner to Senior. So you’ve written a Python Script, Kevin has just told your team that all code needs to be reviewed and part of the team’s Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) will be PEP 8 compliance. Now there’s a slight sense of chaos and stress because “What is PEP 8?! Can one…
[Python] Setting up alerts on SQL Server Job Agent failures
Level of Difficulty: Beginner to Intermediate. So you’ve found yourself in a semi-ops situation where you need to do daily checks on SQL Server Agent Jobs because the client, Steve, has concerns that his data is not updating. Now you have to go through the manual process of opening SQL Server Management Studio then logging…
[Python] The 5WH of Getting Started with Python
Are you looking to get more involved with Python but you have quite a few questions and you’re not too sure where to start? Read my blog post: The 5WH of Getting Started with Python
[Python] Using Python Through Command Line
Level of Difficulty: Beginner. Sandra has asked you if you can give her a crash course on how to use Python through the command line. So you decide to show her how to run a few Python commands and maybe install a library. Here’s what you can do. What are the steps? The steps that…
[Python] DIY Usage Monitoring with Python
Level of Difficulty: Beginner to Intermediate. This blog post is aimed at providing basic (automated) server (or computer) monitoring by using a Python script that can write to a SQL Server database or to a CSV. It is important to note that there are various platforms that allow for advanced server monitoring along with a…
[Python] Finding the Python Interpreter Path
Level of Difficulty: Beginner. Are you having issues pip installing libraries to the right place? Could it be because you have more than one interpreter installed? Well… How many Python interpreters do you have installed? The standard IDLE interpreter – the one that comes with the Python installation? The one that was installed when you…
[RPA] Using The Microsoft Office 365 Activity For Sending Emails in UiPath
Level of Difficulty: Beginner. This post will assist in using the Microsoft Office 365 Activity, specifically for sending emails with attachments, in UiPath. What are the steps? The steps that we will be following are: Follow the link on how to create an App Registration on AzureGet the Application ID and Tenant ID from AzureInstall…
[RPA] Using The Python Activity in UiPath
Level of Difficulty: Beginner. This post will assist in using the Python Activity in UiPath which allows Python scripts to be invoked and executed from UiPath. Not only can you execute Python scripts, but you can also pass parameters through to the Python method and assign the result to a UiPath variable which can be…
Who is The JPanda
“This is fine.” – Wise People Across The World How Did The JPanda Come About? While working at CSIR, Jacqui was exposed to using the Pandas Python library extensively. Through this, her love for Pandas and Python alike, grew – thus earning her the nickname The Panda. This nickname followed her into Britehouse where her…
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