The Now Platform® Washington DC release is live. Watch now!

Help
cancel
Showing results for 
Show  only  | Search instead for 
Did you mean: 
Maik Skoddow
Tera Patron
Tera Patron
find_real_file.png
I recommend bookmarking this article so that you are automatically notified by email when changes are made by me.
If you miss any content, please leave it as a comment and I will add it to this article.
 
Table of Contents

My library Knowledge Sources To Go is very popular, but it was intended mainly as a thematically grouped guide to standard sources and was provided by me as a PDF file. For certain topics, however, there is so much content that I can no longer include it in that document, as it cannot continue to grow forever.

For this reason, I have decided to handle such topics in individual community articles like this one instead.

 

 

What is Robotic Process Automation?

 

Across industries, automation has made it possible for organizations to do more with less, reducing expenses while improving accuracy and output. But traditional automation is generally built on programming, using high-code applications to integrate with relevant systems. RPA takes a different approach, performing tasks at the user-interface level. And, because RPA bots are designed to copy and learn from user actions, there’s no need to make any changes to the underlying IT infrastructure. RPA robots can be attended or unattended, depending on whether they require any assistance or oversight from human operators.

In essence, RPA automates specific kinds of actual human activities and large-scale data movement activities, capable of handling repetitive, monotonous, and rule-based tasks and duties, quickly and accurately.

 

 

 

Product Information

Entry point to the official product information pages

 

Product Documentation

Entry point to the official product documentation

 

 

 

Trainings & Courses

 

Robotic Process Automation (RPA) Core Skills

In this learning path, you will explore Robotic Process Automation (RPA), exploring concepts and capabilities including when to use RPA vs. Integration Hub. It includes hands-on lab exercises on installing RPA, building unattended robots in Desktop Design Studio, and deploying and managing bot processes in RPA Hub.

 

Build your first robot with our new Universal UI Recorder (K23) 🧪

In this lab, you will get to build your very first robotic automation using ServiceNow's latest features in RPA Hub such as the RPA Desktop Design Studio, Universal Recorder, Chrome Connector and Unattended Robots. The lab will teach the basic skills of RPA like installing all the components, communication between robot and ServiceNow and - most importantly - to solve the input form challenge on rpachallenge.com.

 

Fetching attachments with RPA (K23) 🧪

During this lab we will learn how to use robots to retrieve attachments from outside of ServiceNow. We will add a social media link for a user record and retrieve the profile image for the users. At the end of the lab you should be able to:- Configure an instance to use RPA - Trigger a process using Flow Designer - Build a robot to navigate to a site to obtain a profile picture - Process the image back into ServiceNow into the image field

 

Build RPA automations at scale along with error management  (K23) 🧪

Do you want to build automations that can easily scale up? Join us to learn how to use queues within your automation which will help you scale your automations at lightening speed. By adding queues to your automations, you can add additional robots to your process by just a click of a button! Learn how to distribute workload amongst various robots, and manage various exceptions with auto-retry functionality.

 

Fetching attachments with RPA  (K23) 🧪

During this lab we will learn how to use robots to retrieve attachments from outside of ServiceNow. We will add a social media link for a user record and retrieve the profile image for the users. At the end of the lab you should be able to:- Configure an instance to use RPA - Trigger a process using Flow Designer - Build a robot to navigate to a site to obtain a profile picture - Process the image back into ServiceNow into the image field.

 

 

 

Articles & Blog Posts

 

ServiceNow Developer Blog

Blog posts on Flow Designer written by the ServiceNow advocates.

 

2022-07-04, by @Daniel Draes 

RPABOTSWORLD Challenge #1 : Invoice Creation & Follow-up Email

I want to start showcasing some of the powers our RPA technology can do and how easy (or sometimes not...) it is. For this I have set out to find RPA challenges on the web, I will solve them and document in a set of blog posts how to do that with ServiceNow. I will explain some of the more complicated requirements and how to solve them, as well as post the final robot file for you to examine and play around with.

 

2022-08-30 by @Daniel Draes 

RPA Desktop Design Studio: Working with ambiguity on web pages

 

2022-10-31, by @Daniel Draes 

RPA: Exchanging data between the ServiceNow instance and your robot

The best path to exchange work between the Instance and the Robot is to use the concept of a Queue.

 

2022-11-03, by @Daniel Draes 

RPA: Managing Work Queues with API triggered bots

RPA Hub is a great tool to manage your RPA implementation and keep an oversight of what is happening or how well your robots are doing their work. Once you have some robots implemented there is probably a list of work for them to go through. Two scenarios are possible on how to start the robots.

 

2023-01-04 by Michael Moch

Your Guide to Know All About Robotic Process Automation

The use of automation in IT has been on the rise for some time now, and this trend is only expected to continue. According to Gartner, the percentage of businesses using structured automation will rise from 20% in 2021 to 70% in 2025. So in this blog, we will specifically learn about Robotic Process Automation (RPA) and deep dive into its uses and benefits to businesses.

 

2023-01-27 by @Jasper Miller 

Building and executing an RPA robot from a ServiceNow custom App

In this article, I will take you through the steps required for executing a Robot from a Flow in App Engine and providing it with data from the platform. The instructions that I will provide, will take you all the way from building the app, designing the robot, importing it into your ServiceNow instance, managing required configurations, passing data and executing it from the platform.

 

2023-02-23 by @Pranav Bhagat 

Exploring ServiceNow RPA for beginners and Utah's latest updates

If your organization is seeking to enhance process efficiency and accelerate workflows, you might want to consider integrating ServiceNow’s Robotic Process Automation (RPA) solution. This blog post will provide insights on how to begin with ServiceNow’s RPA offering.

 

2023-03-07, by @Daniel Draes 

RPA: Error-Handling in your robotic automation
Now that you have built a robot, how do you handle errors?

 

2023-04-25 by ServiceNow Support

Best Practices for designing automation in 'RPA Desktop Design Studio' (KB1298454 🔒)

 

 

 

Videos & Podcasts

 

2022-03-28, by Justin Meadows

RPA Studio Introduction

Curious about ServiceNow's new Robotic Process Automation? Come watch me download, install and take a brief tour of the new RPA Studio application and stay tuned for future videos as I explore this new capability.

 

2022-04-06, by Chuck Tomasi 

Break Point Podcast: RPA Hub with Prasad Velamuri

What do you do when you've got an application that only works under human power?- It's got no APIs, yet you still need to automate a process involving this software. Well, we've got an answer for you on this episode of Break Point.

 

2022-04-07, by Justin Meadows

Robotic Process Automation - Part 1

You're going to be hearing a lot about RPA or Robotic Process Automation from ServiceNow with their new Automation Engine offering. In this video I start with some fundamental concepts and building blocks by exploring actions you can take in both Flow Designer using the RPA Hub Spoke and in RPA Studio.

 

2022-05-09, by Justin Meadows

ServiceNow RPA Studio: Unattended Automation

My journey with Robotic Process Automation continues! In this video I create a small unattended automation and test it out. Adding steps to the canvas and confirming the steps execute the actions I intended, I'm a few steps closer to publishing this to my instance and using it in a workflow.

 

2022-04-08, by ServiceNow Dev Program

RPA Hub Live Build!

Let's make weird stuff!

 

2022-04-09, by ServiceNow Now Community

Automation of access management in legacy applications

This demo showcases the capabilities of RPA in automating access management on the legacy Oracle EBS software. The task of replicating the roles from an existing user account for a new user is manual and time-consuming. Using RPA and the service catalog, we can eliminate the manual task.

 

2022-04-19, by ServiceNow Dev Program

RPA Hub Demo

RPA Hub is here! Join us for a demo! Beep boop!

 

2022-07-13 by Saurabh@Now

RPA Hub Demo - Hyperautomation for Invoice Creation

A demonstration of Automation Engine (RPA Hub) capabilities of ServiceNow to create UI Automation for Legacy Applications/ Processes.

 

2022-07-17 by  App Engine Shao

RPA Challenge: 1.79 seconds with ServiceNow RPA Hub

 

2023-02-21 by ServiceNow Dev Program

Getting started with Robotic Process Automation (RPA) 🤖

In this session we will cover some of the basics of Robotic Process Automation.

 

2023-03-17 by ServiceNow Dev Program

Process Automation Designer Optional Activities

 

2023-03-31 by ServiceNow Dev Program

Robotic Process Automation 🤖🤖

In this session we will be going into the nuts and bolts of ServiceNow RPA.

 

2023-04-04 by Hardit Singh

How to activate Robotic Process Automation(RPA) in ServiceNow

I am really excited about RPA now being available in PDIs. To check how to activate it in your PDI, please check the video.

 

2023-04-04 by Hardit Singh

Introduction to Robotic Process Automation(RPA) in ServiceNow

Robotic Process Automation (RPA) is an emerging technology that automates repetitive and mundane tasks. It uses software robots, or bots, to imitate the actions of a human user and complete tasks in a fraction of the time.

 

2023-08-08 by ServiceNow Dev Program

How to install ServiceNow RPA components in your Environment

If you have a Personal Developer Instance (PDI) operating on the Utah release or a newer version, you can proceed with the Robotic Process Automation (RPA) installation. Check out the following video to guide you through the RPA setup in your system.

 

2023-08-29 by ServiceNow Dev Program

What's new in RPA in Vancouver?

In this session we will cover some of the new features of ServiceNow RPA in Vancouver.

 

2023-09-08 by ServiceNow Dev Program

The #BuildwithRPA Challenge: A Daniel and Pranav Special

In this upcoming video, Pranav will undertake the #BuildwithRPA challenge, demonstrating how to navigate through the various tasks of the challenge and showcasing the key features of RPA.

 

2024-02-13 by ServiceNow Dev Program

What's New in Robotic Process Automation🤖(RPA) in Washington DC​?

Let's talk about new features of Robotic Process Automation(RPA) that came in the Washington DC​ release.

 

 

 

Troubleshooting

 

Known Error Portal

Pre-configured filter for the respective topic. Remove the query string or modify the filters on the left side if you want to narrow down the search results in a different way.

 

Selected Articles

-

 

Comments
Edoardo M
ServiceNow Employee
ServiceNow Employee

Thank you for this super RPA collection @Maik Skoddow!

 

These are two other great samples from Daniel that you might find useful to add to the article section:

Edo

 

Maik Skoddow
Tera Patron
Tera Patron

Hi @Edoardo M 

 

thanks for the links. I have added these article references accordingly.

 

Maik

Daniel Draes
ServiceNow Employee
ServiceNow Employee

How did this post escape my sight so far? Well done!

One you might one to add:

Creator Toolbox | Getting started with Robotic Process Automation(RPA) 🤖 - YouTube

Maik Skoddow
Tera Patron
Tera Patron

Hi @Daniel Draes 

this video was already linked (at the end of the Videos section) - inclusive the nice robot icon 😉

Daniel Draes
ServiceNow Employee
ServiceNow Employee

You are faaaast! They video is so fresh I thought you have surely not seen it yet 😄 Working at Lightspeed!

Edoardo M
ServiceNow Employee
ServiceNow Employee

One more useful resource found in support (KB1298454) - Best Practices for designing automation in 'RPA Desktop Design Studio'.

 

Maik Skoddow
Tera Patron
Tera Patron

Hi @Edoardo M 

yes, the article seems to be valuable and I listed it, although it is hidden behind the login wall and thus most of the users will not have access to it.

To be honest, I miss a content concept in the ServiceNow universe. Why are such articles not written in the community? Why are all pieces of information for a certain topic scattered over so many different portals?

😕

Daniel Draes
ServiceNow Employee
ServiceNow Employee
Maik Skoddow
Tera Patron
Tera Patron

Hi @Daniel Draes 

I have added the missing article on that page. A small summary on top of your article would be helpful for the reader.

MitchMcln
Tera Contributor

@Maik Skoddow - thank you, I am using your articles to structure the SN learning, Tremendous help.

 

Two questions is I may:

is RPA and Flow Designer overlap each other, or they are part of each other?

Is RPA standard part of every module (ITSM ITOM etc) or should it be purchased separately? 

Daniel Draes
ServiceNow Employee
ServiceNow Employee

@MitchMcln 
Flow Designer is the tool to design flows (automation) in the ServiceNow platform. FlowDesigner integrates nicely in IntegrationHub which allows calls to external systems via API or via RPA. RPA uses RPA Desktop Design Studio to design the automations executed on an RPA powered windows machine.

More information on these: 
Flow Designer (servicenow.com)

RPA Desktop Design Studio (servicenow.com)

 

RPA is a platform feature bundled as licensable product within Automation Engine. It has to be purchased separately. It can be used from any platform application - being it a ServiceNow delivered one like ITSM, HR or a custom application build by customers or partners.

MitchMcln
Tera Contributor

Thank you @Daniel Draes 

Is Orchestration still a part of Vancouver release or being replaced \(integrated into) Integration Hub?

Maik Skoddow
Tera Patron
Tera Patron

Many thanks @Daniel Draes  for answering @MitchMcln 's questions! It's much better if someone from ServiceNow does this!

Daniel Draes
ServiceNow Employee
ServiceNow Employee

@MitchMcln 

Oh wow.. Orchestration. You must be an oldtimer with the platform 😄

 

Some statements wrt. Orchestration from our PM team:

  • Workflow Editor (and Orchestration) is considered Legacy technology
  • We have not been developing any new features or enhancements for it for the past 5 years
  • All new development is for Flow Designer and Process Automation Designer (and Integration Hub)

  • As of the Utah Release, we do not have a public statement on whether or when we deprecate Workflow Editor or Orchestration

So this means Orchestration is still as it used to be 5 years ago. Yes, it can still be used by customers but we do strongly recommend you consider migrating your things to Integration Hub.

MitchMcln
Tera Contributor

@Daniel Draes thank you. I came across Orchestration in one of the training videos. There is so much material out there it is easy to get lost in the versions. Thank you @Maik Skoddow  for "Knowledge sources", does help to structure navigation around the platform.

 

@Daniel Draes , will Gen AI Controller be part of Integration Hub?  

Daniel Draes
ServiceNow Employee
ServiceNow Employee

@MitchMcln The final pricing and packaging of Gen AI Controller has not been decided yet.

Version history
Last update:
2 weeks ago
Updated by:
Contributors