UiPath Tutorial for Beginners: What is UiPath RPA? Features

What is UiPath?

UiPath is a robotic process automation platform for end-to-end high-scale automation. UiPath software offers solutions for enterprises to automate repetitive office tasks for rapid business transformation. It converts repetitive tasks into an automated process using multiple tools. It was founded in Bucharest in 2005 by Romanian entrepreneurs Daniel Dines and Marius Tîrcă, originally under the name DeskOver.

More and more companies are adopting digital ways of working day by day. With digitisation, the biggest advantage is the speed of execution. But the challenge is that it requires diverse tools, and therefore a workforce with a diverse skill set to handle those tools. A workforce with such a varied skill set is scarce. To resolve this issue, the IT industry has been looking for a reliable, fast, intelligent, and robust solution. This demand is fulfilled by robotic process automation platforms such as UiPath.

The key idea is that a robot works through the user interface exactly as a person would. Nothing inside the target application has to be modified, which is why the approach suits legacy systems that offer no API.

Products of UiPath

UiPath is available as three different products that work together:

UiPath Studio

It allows you to plan any automation process visually with the help of different diagrams. Each diagram represents a certain type of work to perform.

UiPath Robot

Once you are done designing the processes in Studio, you need to execute them. Robots pick up those steps and run them without human direction in any environment. A robot can also work when a human triggers the process.

UiPath Orchestrator

This tool is a web-based application. It helps you to deploy, schedule, monitor, and manage robots and processes. It is a centralised platform from which all robots are managed.

UiPath Architecture and How It Works

The three products above map onto three layers, and understanding that split explains where each piece of work happens.

Layer	Component	Responsibility
Design	UiPath Studio	Build and test the workflow, publish it as a package
Execution	UiPath Robot	Run the published package against the target applications
Control	UiPath Orchestrator	Store packages, assign jobs, hold queues and credentials, collect logs

Robots themselves come in two operating styles, and choosing the wrong one is a common early mistake.

• Attended robot: Runs on the same machine as a person and is started by that person, usually to remove clicks from a task they are already doing. It cannot run while the desktop is locked.
• Unattended robot: Runs on its own virtual machine, triggered by a schedule or a queue item from Orchestrator, with no person present. This suits overnight batch work.

Features of UiPath

Now we will learn about the important features of UiPath:

1. Hosting Options: It can be hosted in cloud environments or on virtual terminals.

2. Application Compatibility: Offers a wide range of applications to work with, which includes web and desktop applications.

3. Centralised repository: This feature lets users handle all the robots simultaneously.

4. Security: Offers auto login features to run the bots, with credentials held in Orchestrator rather than in the workflow.

5. Advanced screen scraping solution: A scraping solution that works with almost any application, including .NET, Java, Flash, PDF, legacy, and SAP, with high accuracy.

6. Reliable tool for modelling business processes: UiPath Studio supports automation at scale with the help of modelled business processes.

7. Scalability and robustness:

• Effective debugging and exception handling mechanisms.
• Artificial intelligence that handles day-to-day applications such as Outlook, Excel, and PDF, including document understanding for semi-structured files.

How to install UiPath?

Now we will learn how to install UiPath. The screenshots below were captured from an earlier release, and the current sign-up runs through UiPath Automation Cloud, so the wording of some screens differs while the sequence of steps remains the same.

Step 1) Enter this URL in your browser: https://www.uipath.com/community. Click on the get community edition button.

Step 2) Enter all the marked details.

Step 3) Click Request Community Edition.

Step 4) You will receive the mail shown below. Click on download community edition and your download will begin.

Step 5) Once the download is completed, click on the setup file.

Step 6) Once the software is installed, click on start free trial.

Step 7) In the next screen,

1. Enter your email address.
2. The device id will be detected automatically.
3. Then click on the Activate button.

You will have UiPath on your system now.

Understanding UiPath Interface

UiPath has a GUI which consists of multiple panels. It offers easy access to specific functionality.

Following are the main components of UiPath Studio:

• The Ribbon
• The Universal Search Bar
• The Activities Panel
• The Library Panel
• The Project Panel

The Ribbon:

It consists of the following four tabs:

1. Start – It helps you create a new project or open a previously created task. By default, all projects are created in C:\Users\Username\Documents\UiPath.

2. Design – It offers all the options to create or launch sequences and flowcharts, access wizards, and manage variables.

3. Execute – It helps in running or stopping any project. Before starting the debug process, it can slow down steps and open logs.

4. Setup – Used to publish a project or create a shortcut for it, schedule tasks, and install extensions.

The Universal Search Bar:

The Universal Search bar allows the user to search for anything contained in the libraries, activities, project, and Designer panels.

The Activities Panel: The Activities panel allows quick access to all available activities that can be dragged into the current project.

The Library Panel: The Library panel allows you to reuse automation. A search box is also provided to find items faster.

The Project Panel: The Project panel allows you to view the contents of the current project and open the file location in Windows Explorer.

Sample Script using UiPath

Following are the steps to create a sample RPA UiPath script. The recorder is the fastest route to a first working robot, because it writes the activity sequence for you.

Step 1) Click on the “Blank” icon, boxed in the image below:

Step 2) In the next screen,

1. Enter the name of the project.
2. Click the Create button.

Step 3) In the next screen,

1. Click on Recording.
2. Select “Basic”.

Step 4) This opens a small window with an icon to record, as shown below. Click on the Record button.

Step 5) Once this icon is clicked, you will see the cursor turn into a hand icon, and the screen highlights each element as you move over it, as shown below.

Step 6) Perform the manual tasks that you want to automate. UiPath will automatically create the sequence of your mouse and keyboard actions.

Once recording is done, click Save and Exit.

Step 7) You will see the sequence of recorded steps as shown below.

Step 8) Then click on the run icon. UiPath will replay the recorded actions.

This is a basic way to create small automation robots. UiPath has many advanced features for building more complex robots, including selectors, data tables, and exception handling.

UiPath Vs. Other Automation Tools

Many automation tools already exist in the market, such as Selenium and similar browser-driven frameworks. These tools generally perform well on web automation, but they struggle when you try to automate desktop applications or remote sessions.

Areas where RPA tools like UiPath go beyond that existing technology are:

• Desktop automation
• Remote applications and virtual desktops
• Data handling techniques
• Scraping techniques
• The methodology of writing the logic, which is visual rather than code first

The distinction that matters is purpose. Selenium is a testing framework that drives a browser, whereas an RPA platform is a business process tool that drives whatever the user can see.

UiPath vs Automation Anywhere vs Blue Prism

Three platforms dominate enterprise RPA shortlists. The table below sets them side by side on the factors that usually decide a selection.

Parameter	UiPath	Automation Anywhere	Blue Prism
Design approach	Visual drag and drop, low code	Web based designer, low code	Object and process studio, more structured
Attended automation	Strong, a core use case	Strong	Limited, unattended by design
Learning curve	Gentlest for beginners	Moderate	Steepest, developer oriented
Free edition	Community Edition	Community Edition	Trial only
Recorder	Yes, multiple recorder types	Yes	No recorder, objects are modelled
Typical strength	Speed of building a first robot	Cloud native deployment	Governance and auditability

Advantages and Disadvantages of UiPath

Weighing both sides prevents the common outcome of a pilot that works and a rollout that stalls.

Advantages

• A first automation can be built without writing code, so business analysts can contribute directly.
• Works against any interface the user can see, including legacy systems with no API.
• Orchestrator gives central scheduling, credential storage, and audit logs.
• A large activity library and an active community reduce the time spent solving common problems.

Disadvantages

• Selectors are brittle. An interface change in the target application can break a working robot.
• Licensing costs rise quickly once unattended robots move into production.
• Automating a badly designed process simply makes a poor process run faster, so process review must come first.
• Robots need maintenance, which means an ongoing support commitment rather than a one-off project.

To go further, compare this with the Automation Anywhere tutorial and the Blue Prism tutorial, read the wider RPA introduction, and prepare for interviews with the UiPath interview questions. For the testing side of automation, see automation testing.

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