SAP Intelligent RPA for Developers E-Book

Vishwas Madhuvarshi

• Herausgeber: Packt Publishing
• Kategorie: Fachliteratur
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 485

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022

Beschreibung

SAP Intelligent Robotic Process Automation (RPA) enables businesses to automate repetitive work and integrate automation capabilities across SAP and non-SAP systems.
This book provides end-to-end coverage of business process automation using SAP Intelligent RPA and shows how to build multiple SAP Intelligent RPA projects from start to finish. Some of these projects may build upon the work done in previous chapters to showcase the Agile development process in SAP Intelligent RPA.
As you progress, you'll cover the SAP Intelligent RPA factory, Desktop Studio, Cloud Studio, and the Bot store. You'll also learn about the building blocks of the SAP Intelligent RPA solution and creating bots from initial application declaration to workflow design and deployment, along with making bots run in attended and unattended modes.
You'll also learn about SAP Process Automation, the new SAP service that is going to replace the SAP Intelligent RPA service soon. Finally, we will discuss the migration path for your SAP Intelligent RPA projects to SAP Process Automation and showcase that the RPA development remains similar in both services.
By the end of this RPA book, you’ll be able to create and manage complex bots that are capable of interacting with SAP and non-SAP systems.

Leseprobe

SAP Intelligent RPA for Developers

Automate business processes using SAP Intelligent RPA and learn the migration path to SAP Process Automation

Vishwas Madhuvarshi

Vijaya Kumar Ganugula

BIRMINGHAM—MUMBAI

SAP Intelligent RPA for Developers

Copyright © 2022 Packt Publishing

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embedded in critical articles or reviews.

Every effort has been made in the preparation of this book to ensure the accuracy of the information presented. However, the information contained in this book is sold without warranty, either express or implied. Neither the authors, nor Packt Publishing or its dealers and distributors, will be held liable for any damages caused or alleged to have been caused directly or indirectly by this book.

Packt Publishing has endeavored to provide trademark information about all of the companies and products mentioned in this book by the appropriate use of capitals. However, Packt Publishing cannot guarantee the accuracy of this information.

Associate Group Product Manager: Richa Tripathi

Senior Editor: Rohit Singh

Content Development Editor: Tiksha Lad

Technical Editor: Pradeep Sahu

Copy Editor: Safis Editing

Project Coordinator: Deeksha Thakkar

Proofreader: Safis Editing

Indexer: Tejal Daruwale Soni

Production Designer: Vijay Kamble

Marketing Coordinator: Deepak Kumar

First published: May 2022

Production reference: 1050522

Published by Packt Publishing Ltd.

Livery Place

35 Livery Street

Birmingham

B3 2PB, UK.

ISBN 978-1-80107-919-8

www.packt.com

To dear Shama, Anushka, Alisha, the late Mrs. Kanta Devi, and Prof. C. B. Arya for helping me become who I am today.

– Vishwas Madhuvarshi

To my daughter Samhita for being an inspiration and encouraging me to write a book.

– Vijaya Kumar Ganugula

Contributors

About the authors

Vishwas Madhuvarshi has been developing software for more than 20 years and has seen the industry as a developer, project manager, and director. He is currently a global director of emerging technologies and works across the complete hyperautomation toolchain – ranging from RPA, user experience, business process automation, and blockchain to AI/ML – in SAP practice. He has been instrumental in setting up the company's RPA and process mining practices. While this is his first book, Vishwas has written several whitepapers on RPA and user experience. He is from Delhi, India, and currently lives in Houston, USA. You can reach Vishwas on LinkedIn, vishwasmadhuvarshi.

Vijaya Kumar Ganugula has been working in the IT industry since 2000. He is an RPA delivery lead, working on a variety of automation projects using most of the leading RPA tools on the market. Vijaya is currently working as a deputy general manager at HCL Technologies Ltd focusing on automation solutions for clients spread across geographies and business lines. His team is one of the early attendees of the official training on SAP Intelligent RPA and has been working with SAP Intelligent RPA since 2019.

I would like to thank my loving and patient wife, Haritha, and my daughter, Samhita, for their continued support, patience, and encouragement throughout the long process of writing this book.

About the reviewers

Maria Victoria Bonzon has 5 years of experience working at SAP, with 2 of them as part of the UX and Mobility Consulting team for Latin America. As an industrial engineer, process optimization has always been of interest to her and she believes that intelligent technologies are an excellent tool for that. She has a particular interest in RPA due to the high potential to improve processes with a low Total Cost of Ownership (TCO).

On a professional level, she is someone who is constantly looking for new challenges and willing to overcome them. She wishes to keep dreaming big and following her goals with passion and consistency.

Marek Benda is a senior ABAP developer with over 17 years of experience, who has been dedicated to SAP Intelligent RPA since its first release a few years ago. He currently works as a systems architect and developer on several SAP Intelligent RPA projects. 

Table of Contents

Preface

Prologue – SAP Process Automation Service

Understanding the SPA service

Transitioning to SPA from SAP Intelligent RPA

Where to begin and look for help when needed

Summary

Part 1: Introduction to SAP Intelligent Robotic Process Automation

Chapter 1: SAP Intelligent RPA Architecture and Components

Technical requirements

A brief history of SAP Intelligent RPA

Why is this important?

The core components of SAP Intelligent RPA

Cloud components

On-premises components

The relationship between Intelligent RPA components

Why SAP Intelligent RPA?

Where to find help when needed

Summary

Questions

Chapter 2: An Overview of SAP Intelligent RPA Cloud Factory

Technical requirements

Environments

Agents and agent groups

Projects and packages

Triggers

Monitoring

Configuration

Summary

Questions

Chapter 3: Installing SAP Intelligent RPA On-Premise Components

Technical requirements

Supported operating systems

Minimum system and network requirements

Supported browsers

Supported technologies for automation

Installing SAP Intelligent RPA on-premise components

Installation procedure

Installing Remote Tools for Visual Studio

Installation procedure

Installing a source code comparison tool

Installation procedure

Supported languages

Summary

Questions

Chapter 4: Setting Up SAP Intelligent RPA On-Premise Components

Technical requirements

Registering the Desktop Agent tenant

Procedure for registering

Configuring the web browser extension

Google Chrome

Microsoft Internet Explorer

Microsoft Edge

Verifying the installation of on-premise components

Summary

Questions

Chapter 5: An Overview of Desktop Studio

Technical requirements

Introduction to perspectives in Desktop Studio

Introduction to the Explorer perspective – capturing applications

Introduction to the Workflow perspective – connecting applications to create automation

Introduction to the Editor perspective – developing automation further

Introduction to the Debug perspective – testing automation and making tweaks

Introduction to the UI Designer perspective – developing visual add-ons (optional)

Summary

Questions

Chapter 6: An Overview of Desktop Agent

Technical requirements

How Desktop Agent works

Exploring the Desktop Agent tabs

Common issues and their resolutions

Summary

Questions

Part 2: Installing and Setting Up SAP Intelligent RPA

Chapter 7: An Overview of Cloud Studio

Technical requirements

Cloud Studio's place in the SAP Intelligent RPA world

Designing automation solutions with Cloud Studio

Reusing packages from Desktop Studio in Cloud Studio

Deploying packages and projects from Cloud Studio

Summary

Questions

Chapter 8: An Introduction to SAP Spotlight and Signavio

Technical requirements

Introducing SAP Spotlight

What is SAP Spotlight?

How to use a Spotlight report

Introducing Signavio

SAP Process Manager by Signavio

SAP Process Intelligence by Signavio

SAP Workflow Accelerator by Signavio

SAP Process Collaboration Hub by Signavio

Summary

Questions

Part 3: Developing Bots with Desktop Studio

Chapter 9: Desktop Studio Perspectives

Technical requirements

The Explorer perspective

The Applications panel

The Display panel

The Parameters panel

The Recognition panel

The Track Events panel

The Text panel

The Criteria panel

The Captured Data panel

The Subtree panel

The Workflow perspective

The Workflows panel

The Workspace/Workflow Designer panel

The Context panel

The Events panel

The Properties panel

The Activities panel

The UI Designer perspective

The UI Designer panel

The Designer View panel

The Code Map panel

The Find Results panel

The Properties panel

The Editor perspective

The Scripts panel

The Document Editor/Code Editor panel

The Page Viewer panel

The Bookmarks panel

The Breakpoints panel

The To-Do List panel

The Code Map panel

The Find Results panel

The Error list panel

The Debug perspective

The Events panel

The Pages panel

The Scenarios panel

The Filter panel

The Tester panel

The Screenshots panel

The Page Viewer panel

The Details panel

The Context panel

Summary

Questions

Chapter 10: Creating and Managing Projects

Technical requirements

Creating a new project and updating projects

Exploring the project structure and folder organization

Editing project details

Archiving a project

Exporting a project for deployment into the SAP Intelligent RPA tenant

Summary

Questions

Chapter 11: An Introduction to Technology Connectors

Technical requirements

Introduction to technology connectors

The Win32 connector

The Web connector

The UI Automation connector

The SAP GUI connector

Enabling SAP client-side scripting

Enabling SAP server-side scripting

The SAPUI5 and S/4HANA connector

The Java/SWG connector

The HLLAPI connector

The OCR connector

Summary

Questions

Chapter 12: Capturing and Declaring Applications, Pages, and Items

Technical requirements

Starting your first automation project

Capturing applications and pages

Capturing SAP Logon application

Capturing the SAP Logon application pages

Capturing the SAP page

Defining the criteria for applications and pages

Defining the criteria for the SAPLogon760 application

Defining the criteria for the pages

Defining UI elements/controls

Defining controls under the pWindowSAPLogon76 page

Defining controls under the pSAP page

Defining controls under the pSAPEasyAccessU page

Defining controls under the pEnterVendorInvoice page

Defining the controls under the pGuiBasicData subpage

Defining the controls under the pGuiTax subpage

Variable declaration

Summary

Questions

Chapter 13: Designing Scenarios

Technical requirements

Creating your first workflow

Activities to handle applications

Activities to handle pages and page transitions

Logging in to the SAP server

Posting a vendor invoice

Logging off from the SAP server

Activities to interact with UI controls

Adding a Click activity to a control

Setting text values to a control

Sending a Keystroke activity to a page

Setting a value from a variable to a control

Getting a value from a control to store in a variable

Summary

Questions

Chapter 14: Advanced Criteria Definition

Technical requirements

Setting parameters for advanced recognition

The Must Exist parameter

The Must Not Exist parameter

The Ancestor parameter

The Labelled By parameter

Refining criteria in the Criteria panel

Defining criteria using operators

Adding the parent hierarchy to criteria

Capturing repeated elements

Summary

Questions

Chapter 15: Controlling Workflows and Scenarios

Technical requirements

Creating reusable scenarios

SAP Login subprocess

The SAPPostVendorInvoice subprocess

The SAPLogoff subprocess

Creating the SAPLogin workflow

Creating the SAPLogoff workflow

Creating a workflow with loops and conditional flows

Adding loops to the workflow

Updating the SAPPostVendorInvoice workflow with a loop

Adding a conditional flows to the workflow

Updating the SAPPostVendorInvoice workflow with conditions

Reusing scenarios and passing data

Summary

Questions

Chapter 16: Designing Custom Pages with UI Designer

Technical requirements

Creating custom pages

Designing custom pages

Using the custom pages in a workflow

Summary

Questions

Part 4: Generating and Updating the JavaScript Code

Chapter 17: Generating Code

Technical requirements

Building the project to generate the source files

Introducing the SDK

Exploring source code structure and source files

Relating the generated source code with declarations

Structure of the source code generated for a workflow

Summary

Questions

Chapter 18: An Introduction to Desktop SDK

Technical requirements

Exploring the Desktop SDK core classes

Using the constants defined in SDK

Accessing the SDK libraries from the source code

Understanding the SSO class

Summary

Questions

Further reading

Chapter 19: SDK Extension Libraries

Technical requirements

Using the Microsoft Office extensions

Reading and replying to Outlook emails

Creating and sending emails

Processing data from an Excel file

Understanding the Microsoft Word extension library

Extracting information from PDF documents

Learning about the technology-specific extensions

Summary

Questions

Further reading

Chapter 20: Managing Environment Variables

Technical requirements

Creating environment variables

Reading environment variables

Summary

Questions

Further reading

Part 5: Building and Running Projects

Chapter 21: Building Projects

Technical requirements

Revising the Vendor Invoice Posting project

Processing unread emails subprocess

Processing Excel attachments subprocess

Logging into SAP subprocess

Posting vendor invoice in SAP subprocess

Sending process summary email subprocess

Logging off from SAP subprocess

Integrating the workflows into a single workflow

Preparing the environment and building the project

Including the SDK extensions in the project

Creating environment variables

Building the Vendor Invoice Posting project

Exploring the project source code

Summary

Questions

Chapter 22: Deploying Projects

Technical requirements

Managing environments, agents, and agent groups

Creating an environment

Managing agents and agent groups

Packaging and importing the project into the Cloud Factory

Creating a project package

Importing the package

Adding the package to the environment

Adding triggers for the package

Updating the package versions

Summary

Questions

Chapter 23: Debugging Projects

Technical requirements

Debugging the project in the Desktop Studio

Managing the debugging options

Starting the debugger

Debugging step by step

Running the deployed project from the Desktop Agent

Enabling a workflow to run in release mode

Summary

Questions

Part 6: Orchestrating Workflows with Cloud Studio

Chapter 24: Development Using Cloud Studio

Technical requirements

An overview of Cloud Studio

Capturing and declaring applications

Capturing applications

Declaring applications

Designing automation

SDK packages and Custom script development

SDK packages

Custom script development

Summary

Questions

Chapter 25: Reusability of Packages Across Multiple Solutions

Technical requirements

Reusing packages developed by Desktop Studio

Exporting projects from Cloud Studio

Deploying projects developed in Cloud Studio

Summary

Questions

Chapter 26: An Introduction to Process Recorder

Technical requirements

Introducing process Recorder

Summary

Questions

Part 7: SAP Intelligent RPA Store, Roadmap, and SAP BTP Automation Services

Chapter 27: SAP Intelligent RPA Store

Technical requirements

Getting a package from the Store

Deploying the Store package

Downloading and modifying the Store package

Modifying packages created using Desktop Studio

Packages created using Cloud Studio

Summary

Questions

Chapter 28: SAP Intelligent RPA – Future Roadmap and Automation-Related Services

Technical requirements

New and upcoming features in SAP IRPA

SAP Business Technology Platform overview

Complementary automation services for SAP IRPA in SAP BTP

Summary

Questions

Assessments

Chapter 1:

Chapter 2:

Chapter 3:

Chapter 4:

Chapter 5:

Chapter 6:

Chapter 7:

Chapter 8:

Chapter 9:

Chapter 10:

Chapter 11:

Chapter 12:

Chapter 13:

Chapter 14:

Chapter 15:

Chapter 16:

Chapter 17:

Chapter 18:

Chapter 19:

Chapter 20:

Chapter 21:

Chapter 22:

Chapter 23:

Chapter 24:

Chapter 25:

Chapter 26:

Chapter 27:

Chapter 28:

Other Books You May Enjoy

Preface

SAP is the market leader in enterprise application software. With nearly 440,000 customers worldwide, 77% of the world's transaction revenue touches an SAP system. SAP has made automation a key pillar across its product suite and counts on SAP Intelligent Robotic Process Automation (RPA) to automate repetitive work and integrate automation capabilities across SAP and non-SAP systems. This book provides end-to-end coverage of business process automation using SAP Intelligent RPA.

You will learn about various building blocks of the SAP Intelligent RPA solution, follow many step-by-step tutorials on creating bots from initial application declaration to workflow design and deployment, and make bots run in attended and unattended modes. You will also learn about SAP Intelligent RPA 2.0 components such as the low-code Cloud Studio and an updated runtime to create and execute your bots.

By the end of this book, you will be able to create bots capable of interacting with SAP and non-SAP systems. In addition, you will understand the efficient management of these bots and various SAP Cloud Platform services that complement SAP Intelligent RPA. Finally, you will also learn some of the lessons that we as authors of this book learned while delivering SAP Intelligent RPA projects.

Who this book is for

This book is for developers and business users interested in learning SAP Intelligent RPA for the automation of non-value-add, monotonous, and error-prone work. SAP Intelligent RPA offers three modes of development—no-code, low-code, and pro-code. Business users can use the no-code development mode with no technical knowledge assumed. A rudimentary understanding of JavaScript is helpful for business users but is essential for developers who want to engage in pro-code development to address complex challenges.

Access to the SAP Business Technology Platform trial system would be necessary as you progress through the book. Although you can wait to set the system up when needed, we recommend setting it up now by using this link, https://www.sap.com/products/business-technology-platform/trial.html and exploring the available functionalities as and when possible.

What this book covers

Chapter 1, SAP Intelligent RPA Architecture and Components, explains the overall architecture of SAP Intelligent RPA along with their dependency on other components in using the SAP Intelligent RPA. You will understand the options available to develop and deploy the automation solutions and which component is relevant for any step in automation solution development.

Chapter 2, An Overview of SAP Intelligent RPA Cloud Factory, gives an introduction to SAP Cloud Factory, which centrally manages all common resources related to SAP Intelligent RPA. This chapter introduces terminology and usage of the Cloud Factory and explains Environments, Agents and Agent Groups, Packages, Jobs, and Triggers.

Chapter 3, Installing SAP Intelligent RPA On-Premise Components, explains the system requirements for installing and running the Desktop Studio and Desktop Agent, and installation procedures. It also explains installing third-party dependencies.

Chapter 4, Setting Up SAP Intelligent RPA On-Premise Components, includes an explanation of various topics required to complete the setup and before running the automation solutions, which includes security within SAP Intelligent RPA, authorization, roles, and authentication.

Chapter 5, An Overview of Desktop Studio, includes a short introduction to Desktop Studio perspectives to familiarize you with the terminology.

Chapter 6, An Overview of Desktop Agent, gives an introduction to Desktop Agent, explains the role of Desktop Agent during the automation process, how Desktop Agent is launched, and how to connect Desktop Agent to Cloud Factory.

Chapter 7, An Overview of Cloud Studio, explains the Cloud Studio and its usage, differentiating the Desktop Studio from Cloud Studio, and different options available in Cloud Studio to import packages, create workflows, and export projects.

Chapter 8, An Introduction to SAP Spotlight and Signavio, introduces a couple of additional tools from SAP that can help ease understanding the process and orchestrate an automation solution.

Chapter 9, Desktop Studio Perspectives, is an extension of Chapter 4, Setting Up SAP Intelligent RPA On-Premise Components, which includes a very detailed explanation of the Desktop Studio, different perspectives, and usage while developing an automation solution.

Chapter 10, Creating and Managing Projects, covers a detailed explanation of projects, including how to create projects, structuring projects, project properties, dependencies, and maintaining versions.

Chapter 11, An Introduction to Technology Connectors, gives an introduction to eight connectors available in SAP Intelligent RPA, including a detailed explanation of the Web, UI Automation, SAP GUI, SAPUI5, and Win32 connectors, along with usage examples on when to use which connector for capturing screens.

Chapter 12, Capturing and Declaring Applications, Pages, and Items, introduces us to SAP Intelligent RPA terminology used for automating applications. It has a detailed explanation of how to capture different types (Windows Desktop applications, and web applications) of applications, capturing and defining pages, and subpages within applications. The chapter also shows how to identify the controls within the page and defines the criteria for identifying these.

Chapter 13, Designing Scenarios, covers creating workflows and adding activities such as set or get values from UI components/controls, or performing actions on controls such as clicking a button.

Chapter 14, Advanced Criteria Definition, covers extending the criteria definitions learned in Chapter 12, Capturing and Declaring Applications, Pages, and Items; this chapter covers advanced declaration techniques provided by SAP Intelligent RPA that are used to identify pages and controls uniquely in complex applications.

Chapter 15, Controlling Workflows and Scenarios, explains how to includes loops to process a list of data and control the flow based on data, that is, to include conditional flow in the workflows.

Chapter 16, Designing Custom Pages with UI Designer, includes a detailed explanation of the UI Designer perspective and how to create custom pages and use them in a workflow.

Chapter 17, Generating Code, provides a detailed explanation of building the automation project and where to look for compilation errors while building the project. This chapter also covers how the generated project source code is organized.

Chapter 18, An Introduction to SDK Reference Guide, covers the SDK and different libraries available in the SDK that are useful while developing an automation solution.

Chapter 19, SDK Extension Libraries, is a continuation of the previous chapter, where a detailed explanation of SDK extensions is covered. This includes integrations with Office apps such as Outlook, Excel, and so on, PDF integration, and other specific technologies, such as SAP extensions.

Chapter 20, Managing Environment Variables, covers the usage of environment variables, how to create them in the Cloud Factory, and reading and using them in workflows.

Chapter 21, Building Projects, explains how a project is built for testing or deployment and probable issues and resolutions faced during building the project.

Chapter 22, Deploying Projects, covers how a project is deployed to the Cloud Factory and different options available for controlling the deployments targeted to specific groups based on either users or business areas.

Chapter 23, Debugging Projects, targets developers involved in automation solution development. This chapter includes a detailed explanation of the Debug perspective. It covers the steps to follow to check the state of the pages, screens, and controls, and identify and monitor the changes to variables and controls.

Chapter 24, Development Using Cloud Studio, provides a detailed explanation of how the Cloud Studio is used for developing automation solutions and how the Cloud Studio can be used like Desktop Studio for the development of automation solutions.

Chapter 25, Reusability of Packages Across Multiple Solutions, covers how to manage solution components and reuse them across automation solutions.

Chapter 26, An Introduction to Process Recorder, gives an introduction to process Recorder and how it can be used to accelerate the development process.

Chapter 27, SAP Intelligent RPA Store, explains the usage of SAP Intelligent RPA Store and how to download the predefined solutions and adopt them by updating as per business requirements to increase automation productivity.

Chapter 28, SAP Intelligent RPA – Future Roadmap and Automation-Related Services, discusses SAP Intelligent RPA's future roadmap as well as a list of automation-related services available in SAP Business Technology Platform (BTP).

Any errata related to this book can be found at the following link: https://github.com/PacktPublishing/SAP-Intelligent-RPA-for-Developers.

Download the color images

We also provide a PDF file that has color images of the screenshots and diagrams used in this book. You can download it here:

https://static.packt-cdn.com/downloads/9781801079198_ColorImages.pdf

Conventions used

There are a number of text conventions used throughout this book.

Code in text: Indicates code words in text, database table names, folder names, filenames, file extensions, pathnames, dummy URLs, user input, and Twitter handles. Here is an example: "Since this is an SAP page, we will be using the keys defined under SAPScripting and not e.key.Enter, which can be used for non-SAP pages."

A block of code is set as follows:

<VariableSizedWrapGrid Orientation="Horizontal" MaximumRowsOrColumns="3" ItemHeight="200" ItemWidth="200">

    <Rectangle Fill="Red" />

    <Rectangle Fill="Blue" />

    <Rectangle Fill="Green" />

    <Rectangle Fill="Yellow" />

</VariableSizedWrapGrid>

Bold: Indicates a new term, an important word, or words that you see onscreen. For instance, words in menus or dialog boxes appear in bold. Here is an example: "Right-click on the GLOBAL node in the Workflow perspective and select the New Workflow… option from the context menu."

Tips or important notes

Appear like this.

Get in touch

Feedback from our readers is always welcome.

General feedback: If you have questions about any aspect of this book, email us at [email protected] and mention the book title in the subject of your message.

Errata: Although we have taken every care to ensure the accuracy of our content, mistakes do happen. If you have found a mistake in this book, we would be grateful if you would report this to us. Please visit www.packtpub.com/support/errata and fill in the form.

Piracy: If you come across any illegal copies of our works in any form on the internet, we would be grateful if you would provide us with the location address or website name. Please contact us at [email protected] with a link to the material.

If you are interested in becoming an author: If there is a topic that you have expertise in and you are interested in either writing or contributing to a book, please visit authors.packtpub.com.

Share Your Thoughts

Once you've read SAP Intelligent RPA for Developers, we'd love to hear your thoughts! Please click here to go straight to the Amazon review page for this book and share your feedback.

Your review is important to us and the tech community and will help us make sure we're delivering excellent quality content.

Prologue – SAP Process Automation Service

Just before this book was published, we learned that the SAP Intelligent RPA service might soon be discontinued in its current form. While the news came as a shock, we talked with the SAP team to understand the way forward. As a result, we learned that while the SAP Intelligent RPA and Workflow Management services may be discontinued soon, they will become part of a new service, SAP Process Automation (SPA). This information quelled the initial shock, but several additional questions came up overall. In this prologue, we will try to answer those questions under the following topics:

Understanding the SPA serviceTransitioning to SPA from SAP Intelligent RPAWhere to begin and look for help when needed

Understanding the SPA service

SPA is a new SAP service that intends to combine two existing services, SAP Intelligent RPA and Workflow Management, to offer automation developers a full suite of tools in one place. Within the SPA service, we still have the option of creating either automation or a workflow or creating an end-to-end process. However, all these options are available under a single service now. If your license for SAP Intelligent RPA or Workflow Management is valid for more time, you can still keep using those services for that duration.

Our core concern is to help you transition from SAP Intelligent RPA to SPA. Therefore, we will touch upon only the relevant parts of the service. Let's see how SPA looks and how we can create automations using this new service.

Check out the following screenshot:

Figure Prologue.1 – SAP Process Automation

Let's discuss the nine areas of interest shown in the preceding screenshot:

Lobby: This is the landing page of the SPA service, shown in the preceding screenshot. The one significant difference from SAP Intelligent RPA that you will also see here is a link to My Inbox (5).Store: This tab leads to the pre-built content for SPA. Here, you will see the content for live processes (workflows) in addition to process automation content. Store is slightly different from the SAP Intelligent RPA store, and there are no bots built using Desktop Studio. Here is a screenshot of it:

Figure Prologue.2 – SPA store

Monitor: You can manage and monitor all your processes and workflow instances from this tab.

Figure Prologue.3 – Monitor tab

Settings: You can manage agents, backend configurations, destinations, and several other settings from this tab.

Figure Prologue.4 – Settings

My Inbox: My Inbox opens up in a new tab and shows all tasks assigned to the logged-in user. Since we have no running automations yet, our list is empty.

Figure Prologue.5 – My Inbox

Create a Process: This link leads you to an interface similar to the Workflow Management service. After providing the project and process names, you can create an end-to-end process using various constituents, such as forms, approvals, automations, decisions, actions, workflows, and controls.

Figure Prologue.6 – Create a Process

Create a Form: As the name suggests, this link leads you to a form editor where you can create a custom form for your scenario.Create an Automation: As Intelligent RPA developers, this link is the most relevant to us. This link leads us to a project creation screen.

Figure Prologue.7 – Automation project creation in SPA

Once the project is created, the next screen for Create Automation pops up.

Figure Prologue.8 – Create Automation in SPA

Once you have provided the necessary information on this screen, you will see the familiar editor from SAP Intelligent RPA with all the constituents exactly as you would be used to.

Figure Prologue.9 – Automation editor in SPA

Since we are at the beginning of the book, these images may not mean much to you now. It would be safe to say that even if SAP Process Automation Service replaces the SAP Intelligent RPA service in the future, you will still be able to use your learnings from this book in the new service.

Browse Content: This link leads you to the Store tab (2).

Transitioning to SPA from SAP Intelligent RPA

Transitioning from the SAP Intelligent RPA service to SPA raises the following two questions:

How long can I continue working on the SAP Intelligent RPA service?

We have been told that customers can keep using the SAP Intelligent RPA service until the end of their license validity. However, license renewal may or may not be available after the license validity expiration.

Can I migrate my current SAP Intelligent RPA projects to the SPA service?

Yes. With some limitations, you can now migrate your SAP Intelligent RPA projects to SAP Process Automation. For details, please check here, https://blogs.sap.com/2022/04/20/move-now-import-your-sap-intelligent-rpa-projects-into-sap-process-automation/.

So, you can create new automations, import pre-built automations from the store, and migrate your SAP Intelligent RPA projects to SAP Process Automation. Keep following the SPA roadmap at https://roadmaps.sap.com/board?PRODUCT=73554900100800003832&range=CURRENT-LAST#Q2%202022 to understand the updates to the migrate feature.

Where to begin and look for help when needed

While the SAP team has shared that the SAP Intelligent RPA and Workflow Management services may be retiring, these services have not been listed under the RETIRING SOON section. So, we can keep using these services for some more time:

Figure Prologue.10 – Services retiring soon

However, preparing for the eventual shift from SAP Intelligent RPA to SPA would be a wise move on your part to be ready for the transition. To experience SPA, now a part of SAP's new free tier, follow this blog by Sebastian Schroetel: https://blogs.sap.com/2022/03/30/sap-process-automation-free-tier-is-out-create-your-own-automations/. To start building projects in the SPA service, you can follow this seven-part series of blogs by Murali Shanmugham: https://blogs.sap.com/2022/02/20/getting-started-with-sap-process-automation-the-new-no-code-experience-for-automation-part-1/. You can also find answers to most of your questions at SAP's help page for SPA at https://help.sap.com/docs/PROCESS_AUTOMATION.

Summary

In this prologue, we discussed SAP's proposed transition from SAP Intelligent RPA to SPA. As we understand it, there is no direct impact on your ongoing SAP Intelligent RPA projects, and there is now a straightforward migration path for SAP Intelligent RPA projects to SPA. Also, all your learnings from this book will remain applicable to the new SPA service. Now, let's begin learning about SAP Intelligent RPA.

Part 1: Introduction to SAP Intelligent Robotic Process Automation

This is an introductory part of the book in which you will be familiarized with the products and different components available in SAP Intelligent Robotic Process Automation (RPA). You will also get an understanding of the brief history of SAP Intelligent RPA and how it has evolved into a reliable product for all automation needs of any organization or business area. This section also explains how to install and set up SAP Intelligent RPA and where to get the installable files. You will see a list of prerequisites before starting the installation and how to set up different third-party tools used by SAP Intelligent RPA for various development activities.

This section comprises the following chapters:

Chapter 1, SAP Intelligent RPA Architecture and ComponentsChapter 2, An Overview of SAP Intelligent RPA Cloud FactoryChapter 3, Installing SAP Intelligent RPA On-Premise Components Chapter 4, Setting Up SAP Intelligent RPA On-Premise ComponentsChapter 5, An Overview of Desktop StudioChapter 6, An Overview of Desktop Agent

Chapter 1: SAP Intelligent RPA Architecture and Components

This chapter aims to provide you with an introduction to SAP IntelligentRobotic Process Automation (IRPA) and how you can use it to help your organization achieve its automation objectives. We will discuss a brief history of SAP Intelligent RPA, its components, and how they relate to each other. After this quick introduction, we will talk about all the available resources in your learning journey and where to seek help when you need it. Finally, we will address why you should learn SAP Intelligent RPA and why your organization should use it.

In this chapter, we will cover the following topics:

A brief history of SAP Intelligent RPA The core components of SAP Intelligent RPA The relationship between Intelligent RPA componentsWhere to find help when neededWhy should you learn and use SAP Intelligent RPA

By the end of this chapter, you will understand SAP Intelligent RPA and why an individual or an organization should use it. You will also gain knowledge of how to use SAP Intelligent RPA.

Let's begin with understanding a bit of the history of SAP Intelligent RPA.

Technical requirements

For the instructions and code in this chapter, you just need an internet connection.

A brief history of SAP Intelligent RPA

SAP acquired Contextor SAS – a Europe-based firm specializing in delivering RPA solutions – in November 2018 and renamed it SAP Intelligent RPA soon after. However, Contextor had been delivering RPA solutions in Europe since 2003 and involved in research and development specific to RPA since 2000.

Why is this important?

It is necessary to understand that SAP Intelligent RPA is based on an RPA platform with a deep foundation and solution maturity spanning nearly 2 decades. Any RPA solution can offer the expected functionalities, but solution maturity takes time, and SAP Intelligent RPA has gone through that process.

The solution that SAP launched in 2018 as SAP Intelligent RPA is now renamed SAP Intelligent RPA 1.0, and a new version, SAP Intelligent RPA 2.0, has been launched recently. SAP started offering pre-built bots for Intelligent RPA as SAP Best Practice content in 2019 and changed the delivery model through the Intelligent RPA Store some time back. We will briefly discuss all core components in this chapter while leaving detailed discussions about each of them to later chapters in the book. For now, we will move on to discuss SAP Intelligent RPA's core components.

The core components of SAP Intelligent RPA

Six core components spread equally on cloud and on-premises make up the SAP Intelligent RPA platform. They are primarily categorized as cloud and on-premises components. Let's discuss each of these components in the following sections.

Cloud components

We can classify the following three components as cloud components:

Figure 1.1 – The cloud components of SAP Intelligent RPA

As the name suggests, cloud components reside in the cloud, specifically in the SAP Business Technology Platform (BTP), previously known as the SAP Cloud Platform. The three cloud components are Cloud Factory, Cloud Studio, and the Store, each discussed in the following subsections.

Cloud Factory

Cloud Factory – also known as Intelligent RPA Factory – serves as the orchestration and monitoring center of SAP Intelligent RPA. It hosts resource management tools and monitors job execution, displays logs, and historical job data. Cloud Factory is where the registration of desktop agents and the creation of agent groups take place. It also provides the apps for configuring a dedicated mail server and integration with the SAP Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) tool.

Cloud Studio

Cloud Studio is the newest entrant to the SAP Intelligent RPA toolset and is the main constituent and development tool of Intelligent RPA 2.0. SAP Intelligent RPA provides three modes of developing RPA bots – Low Code (LC), No Code (NC), and Pro Code (PC). Cloud Studio is currently aligned with NC and LC modes of automation development but will soon also offer PC mode. Using Cloud Studio, you can create new projects or assemble, test, and validate new and existing projects.

Store

The Intelligent RPA Store is the online catalog and delivery platform for all SAP's predefined content, including bots for business and learning, built using Cloud Studio and Desktop Studio. SAP clients can use these bots as a starting point to develop custom bots specific to their business case, saving both time and money in the process. Bot Store also lists all the SAP Intelligent RPA SDKs. You can search for desired content on parameters such as design tool, catalog, category, application, edition, line of business, and industry using the store. At the time of this writing, the Store lists 353 SAP packages. In the beginning, SAP delivered Intelligent RPA content through the SAP Best Practices channel but switched to the Store in 2020. You can access the Store from Cloud Factory or directly via this URL: https://store.irpa.cfapps.eu10.hana.ondemand.com/#/home.

Let's now discuss the on-premises components.

On-premises components

The remaining three components are classified as on-premises components, as shown in the following diagram:

Figure 1.2 – On-premises components

We will talk about each component in detail next.

The Desktop Agent

The Desktop Agent is a small software component that is essential on a workstation or server that is running automations. Desktop agents leverage user sessions to carry out automations by connecting with and invoking the actions on the components (Microsoft Outlook, Microsoft Excel, the web browser, and so on) involved in the automation scenario. The desktop agent connects with Cloud Factory using a WebSocket connection (persistent and bidirectional) and runs both attended and unattended automations.

Desktop Studio

Desktop Studio is a software component installed on a developer's workstation and is the Integrated Development Environment (IDE) for developing all aspects of process automation. Desktop Studio's various development perspectives provide tools for application capture, code editing, workflow design, and user interface design. Desktop Studio is associated with LC and PC modes of automation development.

The browser extension

The browser extension is the software module that gets installed along with other on-premises components and is responsible for the automation scenarios associated with a web browser.

Having learned about the different components that constitute SAP Intelligent RPA, we'll next learn about how they interact with each other.

The relationship between Intelligent RPA components

While all components of SAP Intelligent RPA are not equal and every member does not interact with every other component directly, there are numerous connections and interdependencies that drive the bot building and execution processes. Let's take each element one by one and discuss the following aspects:

The primary users of the componentInteraction with other componentsMaintenance of the component

The following diagram describes all these aspects visually, but we will elaborate on these aspects as we go along:

Figure 1.3 – A flowchart showing interactions between Intelligent RPA components

Let's see how this interaction works:

Cloud Factory: Administrators are Cloud Factory's primary users, but developers also utilize Cloud Factory as the landing page for accessing Cloud Studio and the Store. Business users usually never need to access Cloud Factory directly. Cloud Factory is the de facto control center of the Intelligent RPA platform and hence connects with many components. Cloud Studio can only be accessed through Cloud Factory, while a user needs to access the Store from Cloud Factory to use any pre-built content. Cloud Factory and desktop agents interact to make unattended packages available at scheduled times and run automations in attended mode. SAP maintains and keeps updating Cloud Factory frequently:

Figure 1.4 – Cloud Factory

Cloud Studio: Developers are the primary users of Cloud Studio. Administrators also have access to the studio, but they do not need it for their function. Cloud Studio connects with the factory to deploy generated projects, and a developer can access the local filesystem to upload any available files or desktop packages. The maintenance of Cloud Studio is owned by SAP.Store: Business users and developers are the Store's primary consumers to find predefined content relevant for their intended automations. The Store is connected to Cloud Factory but can also be accessed directly with a public URL. The Store is maintained by SAP and keeps getting new content regularly.Desktop Studio: Developers are the primary users of Desktop Studio. The studio interacts with the browser extension for web application capture, and with the operating system and various applications on its host system to build automations, but it also interacts with the Desktop Agent for debugging. While newer versions of the studio are provided by SAP, it is a developer's or IT team's responsibility to keep the studio current.Browser extension: Post-installation, no user needs to interact with the browser extension, except for maintenance directly. However, the browser extension interacts with Desktop Studio and the Desktop Agent for application capture and execution.Desktop Agent: Besides business users, Cloud Factory is the primary user of the Desktop Agent. While business users use the Desktop Agent to run automations in attended mode, Cloud Factory interacts with the Desktop Agent to run unattended automations as per the schedule.

Now that we have learned about the various components of SAP Intelligent RPA and how they interact to create automations, let's understand why it is important to consider using SAP Intelligent RPA as your primary automation platform.

Why SAP Intelligent RPA?

With over 400,000 customers worldwide and 77% of the world's transaction revenue going through an SAP system (see https://www.sap.com/about/company.html for more details), SAP is the undisputed leader in the Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) space. Hyperautomation – a synergistic combination of advanced technologies such as artificial intelligence and machine learning with RPA, workflow, and Business Process Management (BPM) solutions – has featured in Gartner's Top 10 Strategic Technology Trends for 2020 and 2021.

SAP Intelligent RPA appeals to this large SAP customer base due to the native integrations, continuous product improvements, and SAP's plan to provide embedded automation inside SAP S/4HANA and other cloud Line of Business (LoB) products, which started in 2021 (see https://roadmaps.sap.com/board?PRODUCT=73554900100800002142&range=CURRENT-LAST#Q2%202021 for more details). Moreover, SAP Intelligent RPA delivers the benefits of hyperautomation by its unique placement alongside the complementing services of AI, ML, workflow, and BPM within SAP Business Technology Platform (previously known as SAP Cloud Platform), where SAP Intelligent RPA also resides.

This unique combination makes SAP Intelligent RPA the desired automation platform. It ensures that developers learning this platform will benefit from the vast customer base and continuous product improvements.

Where to find help when needed

SAP Intelligent RPA is a vast topic and is growing at a rapid pace. While we will bring you the core knowledge to begin your journey as a successful Intelligent RPA developer, we highly recommend supplementing your reading at the following places:

SAP Blogs (https://blogs.sap.com/tags/73554900100800002142/) is a great place to learn all things about SAP Intelligent RPA. Use the CATEGORIES selection (technical articles, product information, and so on) to limit the blog posts to your area of interest.The SAP Intelligent RPA community (https://answers.sap.com/tags/73554900100800002142) is the place to ask questions and learn from the questions that others have asked.The SAP Intelligent RPA Store (https://store.irpa.cfapps.eu10.hana.ondemand.com/#/explore/order=last-updated%2Cdesc) is the place to see all the bots that are available to you as a developer. There are also many packages labeled as learning that you should use in your learning journey.The SAP Intelligent RPA website (https://help.sap.com/viewer/product/IRPA/Cloud/en-US) is an excellent place to begin if you have any questions.The SAP Intelligent RPA YouTube channel (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCkJEtt4vQqJ_HJ7DxiR19qw) is a good source for overview videos, tutorials, demos, and webinars. While this channel is now renamed to SAP Process Automation, you can still find several videos related to SAP Intelligent RPA.You can access various SAP Intelligent RPA-relevant courses on the openSAP website (https://open.sap.com/courses?q=RPA).

Summary

In this chapter, we learned about the brief history of SAP Intelligent RPA, the core components of SAP Intelligent RPA, and how these components interact with each other. We also discussed why learning SAP Intelligent RPA is beneficial for developers like you. You now have a basic understanding of SAP Intelligent RPA. We will learn about arguably the most important component of SAP Intelligent RPA – Cloud Factory – in the next chapter.

Questions

Here are some questions for you to test your knowledge. The answers to these questions can be found at the back of the book in the section named Assessments:

Which SAP Intelligent RPA component is the main constituent of SAP Intelligent RPA 2.0?What options do you find under the Configuration tab of Cloud Factory?Which SAP Intelligent RPA IDE offers the NC mode of development?

Chapter 2: An Overview of SAP Intelligent RPA Cloud Factory

This chapter introduces SAP Cloud Factory, a cloud-based application to centrally manage all common resources related to SAP Intelligent RPA. We will discuss the terminology associated with Cloud Factory and briefly discuss monitoring options and the alert framework. As we go along, we will create an environment, add an agent, import a package from the Store, and schedule its execution.

When you access SAP Intelligent RPA Cloud Factory, you will see a page similar to the following. We will discuss the tabs marked 1 to 6 in the following screenshot in this chapter:

Figure 2.1 – Cloud Factory landing page

In this chapter, we will cover the following topics:

EnvironmentsAgents and agent groupsProjects and packagesTriggersMonitoringConfiguration

By the end of this chapter, you will understand the functionalities in Cloud Factory and how to use them effectively.

Let's begin with the first topic: environments.

Technical requirements

An internet connectionAccess to the SAP Business Technology Platform trial system (https://www.sap.com/cmp/td/sap-cloud-platform-trial.html)A subscription to the SAP Intelligent RPA trial version (https://help.sap.com/viewer/82d5a2499d8449dda691bb4d5b3d7949/Cloud/en-US)An agent installed on your workstation and registered with your Intelligent RPA tenant (feel free to skip to Chapter 6, An Overview of Desktop Agent, for installation instructions before coming back)

Environments

Organizations running SAP tend to have a three-system landscape. These systems are usually called development, test, and production (there can also be two-, four-, or five-system landscapes, but an SAP landscape with three systems is most common). A transport mechanism exists to move the code and related artifacts (dependencies) only in one direction (development → test → production). An environment serves a similar purpose in SAP Intelligent RPA. While SAP servers are usually physical, the Intelligent RPA environment is a logical entity and serves as an encompassing unit for all the project's runtime resources.

Here is how we can create a Dev environment named irpa_book:

First, click on the + New Environment button, as shown:

Figure 2.2 – Creating an environment – 1

In the next option box, enter the details as shown in the following screenshot. It is recommended to assign the same names to your landscape environments with various types. So, irpa_book of type Dev, irpa_book of type Test, and irpa_book of type Prod should form the Intelligent RPA landscape for your client project. For our use case, only one environment of type Dev would work just fine.

Figure 2.3 – Creating an environment – 2

Click on Create, and you'll have your environment ready.

Once created, you can share this environment with eligible users, edit it, or delete it. You can share the environment with a user, group, or anyone and assign them one of the following privileges:

Manage: Can modify and share the environmentEdit: Can modify the environment's content but cannot shareRead: Can read the environment's contentView job data: Can only view jobs' data

As shown in the following screenshot, you can also add packages, triggers, agents, variables (small data elements that store values of the text type and credentials locally), API keys, and alert handlers to your newly created environment or act on existing ones.

Figure 2.4 – Available actions for an environment

At the bottom of the Environments tab, you will find an environment console that displays any errors, warnings, or informational messages for that environment.

Figure 2.5 – Environment console

When working on a development project, this console is the place to look for any errors, warnings, or information.

Agents and agent groups

An agent (Desktop Agent) is a mandatory software component installed on computers designated to run automations. It uses the context of a user session to execute automation scenarios. For unattended scenarios – with no user interaction – Cloud Factory initiates the automations. A user usually starts the attended scenarios through an agent.

Once you add the name and domain of your tenant from Desktop Agent, the agent shows up under the Agents tab. From here, you can add this agent to the environment using the + Add Agent button, as shown here:

Figure 2.6 – Adding an agent to an environment

Once added, just like an environment, you can share, edit, or delete the agent.

Under the Agents tab, you can see all the agents available in Cloud Factory, their status, their mode (attended or unattended), the product version, and other relevant information.

Figure 2.7 – Agents tab

An agent can be in one of these statuses:

DisconnectedPreparing (in the process of connecting)Idle (connected, no project)Starting (project loading)Ready (connected and project loaded)PausedRunningBusy (maintenance state)

An agent group is a collection of agents that you can manage collectively. For example, suppose you need to run an automation scenario simultaneously on tens or hundreds of computers. In that case, an agent group will come in handy to deploy automation scenarios, control the executions, and monitor them for the outcomes.

An agent group can be of the Machine or Login type. Machine refers to the device name of the computer that will act as an execution system for automations (you can find it at Windows Settings | System | About | Device Specifications | Device Name). In contrast, Login refers to your login name on that computer. To create an agent group quickly, you can create a CSV file with information about all the agents and import this file to make the group.

Figure 2.8 – Creating an agent group

The CSV file format and the steps to create an agent group are not discussed here but can be found at https://help.sap.com/viewer/c836fab4182e45548b6c6c6d0 d0a9146/Cloud/en-US/94e58952326c4eb48215a25896f7b892.html.

The Agents tab also contains Alerts and Registrations. Alerts refers to the email messages you can configure in certain events, such as agent deletion, a lost connection to an agent, a connection closed by an agent, or no eligible agent available for distribution of the automation. Alerts requires the configuration of a mail server.

Registrations refers to the generation of a registration token for mass registration of agents. This token can be downloaded on the workstations designated to run automations, and registrations of agents can be sped up using the command line or registry editor. Both Alerts and Registrations are beyond the scope of this book.

Let's move on to projects and packages.

Projects and packages

A project is a design-time object, while a package is an immutable, deployable entity created from a project. While you can create a new project from scratch, there is no way to create a new package. A new package can be generated from a project.

Figure 2.9 – Creating a new project

Also, a previously exported package can be imported or a pre-built package can be acquired from the Store.

Figure 2.10 – Importing a package

A project can have various constituents, such as captured applications, automations involving the applications, processes made of various automations, imported files, data types, and alerts.

A package can have various life cycle states, such as preview (default, first state for a package), released (only released packages can be added to a production environment), deprecated (state before package deletion), and decommissioned (set for automatic deletion). Packages follow semantic versioning (more information at https://semver.org/), and versions take the form of Major.Minor.Patch (for example, 2.1.1). The major version constitutes breaking changes. The minor version refers to additive, backward-compatible changes, while the patch comprises backward-compatible bug fixes. As a package is immutable, you need to save it as a project to make any changes.

Let's import a package from the Store. To do so, perform the following steps:

Go to the Store tab and search for the Hello World package.Select the one for Cloud Studio and click on Get on the next screen.

After a few seconds, the package's status on the Acquisitions tab will change to Success, and at this time, you can see the Hello World package under the Packages tab. However, you will notice that two other Core SDK and Excel SDK packages have also shown up as these were listed as dependencies for Hello World.

Figure 2.11 – Imported packages from the Store

Open these packages and see all the actions that you can take. We will add a trigger to this package in the next section, but try to take other actions and see whether there are any surprises, especially in the decommission step.

Triggers

A trigger makes a package in an environment available to run in response to a specific event. You can add a trigger from inside an environment or from a package. In both cases, you'll arrive at the same window. Within an environment, use the + Add Trigger button to create a new trigger.

Figure 2.12 – Adding a trigger from an environment

You can also initiate the addition of a trigger from a package, as highlighted in the following screenshot:

Figure 2.13 – Adding a trigger from a package

There are three types of triggers:

Attended: An attended trigger makes the package available to assigned agents during the specified period. A user can run the job manually during that time window. While creating an attended trigger, you need to provide the following information:A nameAn optional descriptionDesktop package to be deployedDate range (when the package will be available)Time zoneTime Window (days of the week and time)

The numbers in the preceding list correspond to the following screenshot. The following trigger makes the NewLaunch1 package available to assigned desktop agents on April 18, 2021, and April 25, 2021. This package is available for running from Monday to Thursday from 8:00 A.M. to 5:00 P.M. and from 8:00 A.M. to 12:00 P.M. on Friday. For an automation project created in Cloud Studio, a project pane artifact is necessary to create an attended trigger.

Figure 2.14 – Creating an attended trigger

Scheduled: A scheduled trigger makes the package available during the given time window, but the agent runs the automation as per the schedule defined. To ensure that the bot runs as scheduled, Desktop Agent must be connected with Cloud Factory. Should you face any problems when the bot runs in scheduled mode, check the SAP troubleshooting documentation at https://help.sap.com/doc/0ff61ed2d1334ed7804f77cd38cb708e/Cloud/en-US/a0b24deefff14ba9b7cb32b38b9793d5.pdf. Besides the field we saw for an attended trigger, the following additional fields are needed for a scheduled trigger:Recurrence: How often the trigger is activated. Specify in minutes, hours, days, weeks, or months.Jobs expire after: A job that is not distributed before or is not responding after the defined time window expires would be canceled.New job: If deactivated, a new job will not be added until the previous one on the same trigger has finished execution.

Refer to the following screenshot for these:

Figure 2.15 – Additional fields for a scheduled trigger

API: An API trigger makes your automation available to external applications for execution.

This concludes our discussion about triggers. Let's look at the Monitoring tab next.

Monitoring

The Monitoring tab is the place to look for the overall status of Cloud Factory. You can access the Dashboard, Jobs, Logs, Consumption, and Data tabs from the Monitoring tab, as shown:

Figure 2.16 – Monitoring tab

Here are the details of each tab:

Dashboard: This tab shows environments with distributions (planned distributions signify the unattended tasks ready to be executed), ongoing jobs (the number of ongoing jobs), agents (the number of agents and their status), history (job history), and jobs executed Today (the number of jobs completed on that particular current day) in Last 7 days, or Last 30 days).Jobs: Here, you can see the information about individual jobs, their status, trigger, duration, and so on. Use the filter at the top to find the jobs during a date range, automation package, job status, and so on. Flat mode lists all the jobs even if they are children of another job.

Figure 2.17 – List of jobs

Logs: This tab gives you visibility of all event logs centrally. You can filter the logs using various available criteria.Consumption: This tab shows you the number of monthly job runs for the past 13 months graphically.Data: From this tab, you can download records of historical job data, alert logs, distribution, and business activity data in CSV format. Once downloaded, you can use this data to study any patterns.

With this, we conclude the discussion about the Monitoring tab. Let's discuss the Configuration tab next.

Configuration

If you plan to use alerts (not necessary now but recommended for client projects), you can configure an email server under the Configuration tab. See detailed steps in the blog at https://blogs.sap.com/2020/11/04/how-to-configure-mail-server-in-sap-intelligent-robotic-process-automation-cloud-factory/.

SAP Cloud Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) is a cloud counterpart of SAP Solution Manager. Both these solutions help with the application life cycle management of products. If your company subscribes to SAP Cloud ALM, you can integrate your Intelligent RPA instance from here.

Summary

In this chapter, we learned about SAP Intelligent RPA Cloud Factory, the central point of management for all common resources. We started our discussion with environments and the roles they play in SAP Intelligent RPA. We learned about the three types of environments and all the artifacts that they can contain. We moved on to discuss agents and agent groups, and then discovered that while agents are mandatory for the workstation executing our automation packages, agent groups give us a mechanism to manage many agents together.

We also talked about projects and packages and understood the relationship between the two. Triggers of various types were discussed next, and we learned about three kinds of triggers: attended, scheduled, and API. Under Monitoring, we discussed different options available to keep a watch on our Intelligent RPA Cloud Factory status.