Work Ahead Webinar Series: Best Practices for Building and Managing Your Automation Pipeline

Automation Hub

1. What is the pricing for Automation Hub?
   1. We recently adjusted the pricing for Automation Hub – while it was previously on a per-user model, now it’s priced per Automation Hub instance with unlimited users. Task Capture is bundled with Automation Hub, so you get unlimited licenses – please reach out to your sales rep if you’re interested in learning more
2. Where can we find more detail on these products?
   1. UiPath.com/AutomationHub
3. How can I access Automation Hub? Is there a Community Edition available?
   1. Get started for free at UiPath.com/AutomationHub
   2. Everyone starts with the Trial Plan, which gives access to a Trial instance of Automation Hub for 60 days for free with unlimited users and includes unlimited usage of Task Capture –Community Edition. You’ll get to try Automation Hub for free for 60 days.
   3. Once you want to upgrade to the Standard Plan, you can request an upgrade from directly within the Automation Hub instance. The standard plan includes unlimited users and includes unlimited usage of Task Capture –Enterprise Edition
4. Is Automation Hub vendor agnostic? Can it be used with other vendors?
   1. Yes, UiPath Partners and Customers can manage multi-vendor automation scenarios through Automation Hub, enabling you to build a centralized automation pipeline for yourself (and/or your clients), no matter your vendor choice
   2. Within Automation Hub, you can define how you (or your customer) manage the vendors you are working with, as well as the license types you have.
   3. Customers can source pipeline, assess opportunities, calculate ROI, track the performance of their Automation Program as well as store and manage re-usable components for automations that they will develop using UiPath as well as for those that they develop using a different technology vendor.
5. Why aren’t Automation Hub and Task Capture one single product?
   1. Automation Hub and Task Capture have unique value props, but we are exploring how to integrate the two more deeply
6. I appreciate Automation Hub’s ROI view of what one can expect to save, but what about the actuals? Any Insights integrations planned?
   1. Yes, Automation Hub will be integrated w/ Insights this year
7. Will you also cover process mining on this webinar?
   1. This presentation covers managing the automation life cycle with Automation Hub, and creating PDD’s and automation skeletons with Task Capture. We’ll have sessions focused on Process Mining in the near future
8. When will Automation Hub be available on prem?
   1. Additional deployment options will be available this year
   2. For now, the only deployment model that we offer is a SaaS. After mid-2020, we will offer additional on-premise deployment offers.
9. Can you make projects confidential?
   1. With the current version, you cannot hide the idea completely. Certain information from the automation profile (Cost Benefit Analysis) is visible only to the Admin roles and the project manager assigned to that automation.
      With the segregated views we will be working in the next 3 months, you will be able to cover this scenario.
10. Will you allow nested questions in Automation Hub in the user intake survey?
    1. We do have in mind to allow the feature of customizing the high-level assessment survey in H2. The first iteration will not support nested questions.
11. Can Automation Hub be deployed on customers’ cloud (for example: Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud etc.)?
    1. No, Automation Hub is provisioned and managed by UiPath. However, we do plan to offer on-premises and private cloud deployment options in the second half of 2020.
12. What’s the difference between AH and UiPath Connector?
    1. We’re not sure if you’re referring to Connector for Salesforce (https://connect.uipath.com/marketplace/components/connector-salesforce-activities) or UiPath Connect. Please see the product description pages for more information: https://www.uipath.com/automationhub and https://connect.uipath.com/
13. Do we have our own datacenters?
    1. No, we build on 3rd party cloud providers. Please note that this is not exposed to the end customer –terms, support and SLA will be from UiPath. Our service is built on Microsoft Azure.

Task Capture

1. Does Task Capture generate XAMLs for UiPath Studio?
   1. Yes
2. Does Task Capture have an MSI install?
   1. Not currently
3. How user friendly is Task Capture? Can it be used without training?
   1. Very user friendly, anyone can start documenting their own processes, and then output them to PDD or XAML documents
4. Does Task Capture work in a Linux environment?
   1. No. It works only on Windows.
5. Does Task Capture allow you to upload PDDs from other applications and use them in UiPath?
   1. In Task Capture, you can upload your PDD template (taken from other applications), as long as you include the variables needed by Task Capture to be used as placeholders

CoE-related

1. How has UiPath set up its own Automation Hub instance? Does every employee get access?
   1. Yes, all 3000 UiPath employees around the globe have access to Automation Hub. Anyone can submit an automation idea, and vote for ones they like.
2. Will you share automations that the UiPath CoE creates on the Connect Marketplace?
   1. Yes, we plan to share relevant automations with the community on Connect, and add our processes in a public repository on GitHUB.
3. Do you have any citizen development case studies?
   1. We have several customer stories featuring Citizen Developers online, particularly Wartsila’s. The CoE will share our own case study throughout the year.
4. How do you benchmark your data for the CoE? Have you benchmarked any end to end processes?
   1. The end to end processes touched by automation we’ve measured before the implementation using Process Mining (former Process Gold) - tool that keeps measuring the performance in order to understand the impact of changes and do the required corrections.
5. Could you provide more details on how you involve Professional Services?
   1. We have a partnership with other tech teams in UiPath - in the same way a customer can work with outsourced developers/ architects/ Business Analysts.
   2. Depending on the project complexity and implementation duration, we can assign a person as “project based” or create a dotted line in the Org chart and move for certain period the resource in our internal CoE.
6. Why is the BA part not included in the 2 weeks sprint?
   1. The BA covers the main responsibilities of the “Product Owner” role in Scrum – being in contact with the business users and Automation Champions from all divisions, taking care of the documentation, process streamlining and prioritization. Once the automations fit the DOR (definition of ready) requirements, the development team drags the ideas from the refined backlog.
   2. During the Sprint, the BA has a support role and coordinates the UAT and deployment phases.
7. Do you have 1 orchestrator instance for each environment (Dev, QA, PRD) or just 1?
   1. Yes.
      Dedicated orchestrators for Dev and Test environments + the production instance.
8. Do you keep estimated/actual cost in CBA when the process is done? And why?
   1. We try to keep updated the CBA for mid& large initiatives but with a disclaimer for costs (we are not paying for the products licenses), and we are focusing more on the 3 categories in which we split the benefits: Cost/ Quality/ Productivity
9. Have you been experiencing better results from top-down strategies or bottom up?
   1. We use a mix of both
      1. The bottom up strategy created ~400 automation ideas in 6 months
      2. For the top down approach we drive 4 large transformational programs with several mid & large automations in scope for each of them.
10. Is it easy to include workers in the process to submit ideas?
    1. Yes, any employee can submit automation ideas in Automation Hub. The key is encouraging employees to share their “AHA moments” on AH
11. Is the CoE a combination of PMO, Enterprise Architecture, and Delivery?
    1. We have a mix of all the concepts implemented in the internal CoE.
       We are following the SDLC concepts for standard delivery of task automation and small initiatives, covering with the Portfolio management methodology the complex implementations at division level (eg: F&A automation portfolio) taking into consideration dependencies (systems, resources, etc.).
       We don’t use a full flavored EA approach, but we keep track and highlight the robots implemented in the overall systems landscape.
12. Can you shed more light on the sprint planning and ceremonies? What does grooming look like in UiPath?
    1. We use the standard recommendations from the SCRUM methodology – One rule that we implemented is exactly this one. Being a new field, the temptation of changing the Scrum approach is high and their recommendation is to do that only after 1-2 years.
    2. A deviation is represented by the lack of Product Owner. As we mentioned above, the Business Analyst is covering that part.
13. What are the best devops automation practices?
    1. We are working closely with the IT DevOps team for maintaining a performant dev& test and prod environments – spinning on and off the VM’s (cost savings), installing necessary 3rd party software and monitoring the environments performance.
    2. We are using GitHUB as a repository for the source code and the deployment/ push of developed processes/components is done automatically from Dev to Test to Prod using Jenkins and Azure DevOps tools.
14. What is the average turnaround time for a process automation?
    1. The implementation duration is related to the process complexity. For example, a small implementation can take ~ 1 week, a medium one around 2-3 weeks and a large/ very complex initiative can take 1-3 months.
    2. In the examples we take into consideration:
       1. PDD creation and sign off
       2. SDD creation
       3. Development & DSD creation
       4. UAT
       5. Production Deployment and communication
15. How do you ensure there aren’t negative impacts to other areas when workers create their own bots?
    1. Whenever a business user creates his own automation that can be deployed for several others - the solution ends up in the CoE team for code review and once it’s ok is pushed on the Prod Orchestrator.
    2. If the automation is developed solely for his own use, the business user is responsible for running that attended automation – because for any interactions with the systems, uses his own credentials.
16. For our team moving to Azure Devlops – could you go over the process of pushing/moving code?
    1. GitHub is used as a code repository and we are using branches in order to maintain the code consistency. When we push the code from one env to another we are using a combination between Jenkins and an unattended robot (robot which creates the nupkg that will be deployed)
17. What types of automations do you share with employees in the Robot for Every Person program?
    1. We have ~ 15 processes developed (two examples were given in the webinar – OOO automation and T&E report)
18. How much time are you saving with the T&E bot?
    1. It’s about time and cost. 3000 employees with one run per month, that usually takes 3 minutes (login and filtering in order to obtain the report or custom view in the reporting tool). With the robot you remove the filtering part (the logic is in the robot) and use only one license to access the data.
19. Are automations shared across regions so that common processes can be automated globally?
    1. Yes. The division Automation Champion identify if a process is used in multiple countries/ regions and decide what’s the Minimum Viable Product, who will use the automation first (in which country/ region) and the roll-out plan.
20. SLA for Automation Hub deployment?
    1. Automation Hub is a SaaS solution, so customers have nothing to deploy on their side. Hence, no SLAs for deployment of the product. We release new features and improvements every 2 weeks.
21. Can I automate a database environment in their administrative roles?
    1. Yes we can automate DB admin interaction, in terms of create/ update/ remove users; grant or remove permissions; create scheduled jobs; etc.
22. Can I automate a Big Data or DW environment for reporting and dashboards with BI systems?
    1. We require more details on this one. The question is too generic.

Q: I’m keen to know more about the Document Processing Framework, especially around PDF files.

A: Sure! Find what you need in our online documentation for UiPath.PDF.Activities and UiPath.DocumentProcessing.

Q: Is Computer Vision able to track handwritten text present in a document? Or does this still require Abby Flexicapture?

A: UiPath Computer Vision focuses on reading UI (User Interface) elements on the screen with AI techniques. We have several Cognitive services integrated with the UiPath Platform, including Microsoft Azure Computer Vision and Google Cloud Vision, which can recognize handwritten text.

Q: Is Computer Vision recording related to the recent package which has the privacy statement that screenshots may be sent to UiPath?

A: Yes. There are, however, two deployment modes for this feature. If you access it through our Cloud, the screenshots are sent to UiPath. But you can also deploy the model on-premises or in your own Cloud. In that case, nothing gets sent to UiPath.

Q: Does your AI Computer Vision require a license? Is Computer Vision available in the community version? The community edition currently sends images to the UiPath server. Will a robot do that after the release of the enterprise version?

A: Computer Vision is available in two ways today. First, there is a Cloud-based option available for free to our community and enterprise users. This is the default method configured in the activity. Second, the model is available for on-premises use by enterprise customers. In the case of the Cloud option, images are sent to the UiPath Cloud for processing, but UiPath does not retain any of the processed images. For the on-premises option, images are not sent to UiPath at all.

Q: With the Computer Vision activities, can you anchor to a variable string? I have a grid of text boxes with various row/column headers and would rather use a simple loop to go through the anchors to find the text box I need to enter data into.

A: Yes, you can do that.

Q: What is the maximum duration for Orchestrator Execution Snapshot recordings before an unattended robot encounters an error?

A: Two minutes.

Q: Is there any capability for the integration with ServiceNow API in which we must pass credentials?

A: We are actively exploring the integration with ServiceNow and will have more to share in the future.

Q: Regarding monitoring: is that information available via an API query? Is there any historical data available?

A: The information to query the data available in monitoring is not available via API. Monitoring data happens over 24 hours. For longer durations in monitoring, you can ingest the logs via elastic-search to compute utilization/uptimes.

Q: Can I create a Global Variable in my Main.xaml and access it via sub-workflows without using Arguments?

A: Global variables are usually considered a bad practice and are not supported.

Q: How is UiPath related to RPA and classic Artificial Intelligence areas (as i.e. neural networks, rules-based systems, expert systems, knowledge-based systems and so on)?

A: Here’s our own vision for AI.

Q: How can I get involved in the Fast Track 2019 program?

A: The 2019 Fast Track is released and available for download. If you wish to participate in future platform testing, you can join the insider program.