You’ve created the first iteration in building your business process – congratulations! You defined several forms, released, deployed, and ran the process – amazing! Hopefully, you are feeling empowered and eager to learn more. Now, it’s time to simplify your trigger form and add an automation to extract data from an excel file.
In this lesson you will learn why and how you could do this with SAP Process Automation. First, you start with the design and test of the automation to extract data from an excel file that contains the details of the sales order. Then, you will learn how to simplify the Start Form reducing the number of input fields needed for the user to trigger the process. You will also learn how to map the inputs and outputs of the different artifacts according to the changes of the process. Last but not least, you will Learn how to verify setting, register your Desktop Agent and run you’re the process.
What are automations and why use them
Automate repetitive tasks and focus on added value tasks.
When we look at the process we have developed so far, we can quickly see the first improvements that we can make further simplify the experience for the user.
Many tasks assigned to users require repetitive activities that involve interacting with applications by way of clicks, as well as handling data through copy-paste actions.
Let’s imagine the user of your process only has to select the Order Number with Customer Name and – like magic – the process retrieves the remaining details from the data source and displays it in your process without any further effort
How can you do this? By extracting data with an Automation!
Using automation can really speed up your process and reduce potential errors that the user of the process might make when entering the details. When we imagine a full business process, we often think about a broad task that is complicated, complex, and lasts a significant amount of time.
But what about all the tasks that are not so complex or complicated?
Users tend to forget about the simple tasks – ones that are hidden and repetitive – which can cause mistakes.
They are prone to human errors that can often happen with unpredictable activity peaks for so many reasons.
On one hand, you can focus on the tedious process. On the other hand, you could consider working on the short tasks which last a few minutes, but several times.
Well, for example five minutes by 40 times a day, is more than three hours for just one person.
Automating all tedious actions to free up human workers for more high-value tasks. At the end of the day, you've got something, because small steps can make big changes.
Robotic process automation (RPA) as part of SAP Process Automation can take care of these tasks of the process. RPA services are delivered in two ways:
- Unattended Mode
- The unattended mode, in which the bots are working autonomously with human supervision only – there is no human intervention.
- Attended Mode
- The attended mode, in which bots will work with humans to assist them, to help them.
Automation as part of SAP Process Automation helps citizen developers to deliver business value by improving operations, and by mobilizing resources for a greater number of high value tasks at lower cost. It increases the service quality by reducing processing times for workflows with financial impact, such as revenue-generating transactions like sales orders management.
To design an automation in the Process Builder, we need to use the automation editor, so let's look at that in detail.
The Automation Editor
The automation editor is composed of four main parts:
- The Toolbar
The first part, at the top, is called the toolbar. It’s composed of very simple actions such as undo, redo, delete a step, save your automation, or even test it.
- The Workflow
The most important part of this automation editor is called the workflow of the automation at the center of the screen. This workflow shows you the list of the steps inside your automation.
When executed, the automation will be executed, one by one, each step from the top to the bottom.
- The Right-Side Panel
To add steps to your automation, you need to use the right-side panel. You can pick automations, activities, data or different controls to add to your workflow.
- The Console
At the bottom of the automation editor, you have the console.
In the console you can access the design and test console that allows you to see the different errors, warnings and info of your automation while designing it or while testing it. You have also access to the variables of the automation.
From the right-side panel, you can add multiple things.
First, you can add an automation that has already been built. This automation could come from you, if you already built one, from colleagues, or even from the STORE or an external project to your landscape.
Second, you can also use captures of applications you captured on your computer. So, let's say you have an application, and you want to automate it. You create a capture of it with its screens and elements like buttons, fields, controls and then interact with the different entities inside the main flow of the automation.
Third, you have access also to what we call the activities. These activities come from the SDK packages from SAP. These activities are simple actions that you can do in your automation. It can be from using the file system, using an Excel file, or piloting an application.
We see that in detail in the exercise.
Fourth, you also have access to data types if you want to structure data or reuse variables.
And last, you can use the Controls. With that, you can use condition loops inside your automation. You can even write your own JavaScript code if the activities provided by SAP are not enough.
