Conquer the #BuildWithRPA Challenge and Snag Exclusive Swag!

[laurenmcman]

Hey y’all! 🤠 We’re back and better than ever with another #BuildWith Challenge - this time focused on Robotic Process Automation (RPA)! Harness the power of bots to automate repetitive tasks, boost efficiency, and unlock human creativity. Excited? Intrigued??? Well, then join us in this year's #BuildWithRPA Challenge and experience the future of automation firsthand.

In case you need a refresher on last year’s challenge, #BuildWithAES Challenge saw impressive participation from you, our Community. 171 participants created 335 pieces of content on App Engine Studio that garnered over 29,000 views, shares, and reactions. 🤯 A round of applause and kudos to all of you who participated! 👏🏻 Moving forward, we will be hosting a #BuildWith challenge each fall to spark innovation and showcase features and capabilities across the Now Platform.

So, What Exactly Does RPA Do?

Consider the ServiceNow Robotic Process Automation Hub (RPA Hub) as the central processing unit of a well-oiled machine. This hub commands a collection of high-tech robots that diligently execute manual digital processes at scale. These robots are best suited for automating UI-based tasks such as extracting data from spreadsheets or updating user information in a legacy HR system. Beforehand, legacy systems without APIs were unreachable to the web-based ServiceNow platform; with RPA that is no longer the case! RPA Hub also acts as a supervisor, keeping a close eye on both your attended and unattended robots to ensure they’re functioning properly.

Without further ado, let's kick this challenge off by taking a look at some of the ways RPA has benefitted our Community.  ⬇️

But don’t take their word for it. We've designed this challenge to give you a hands-on experience with RPA and help you discover all the advantages it can offer.

What’s in It for You?

By participating, you will earn a #BuildWithRPA Community badge and even get your hands on a 2023 CreatorCon t-shirt. If you missed out on snagging this exclusive tee at Knowledge, or haven't yet claimed your CreatorCon t-shirt, seize this chance to make it yours!

CreatorCon 2023 T-Shirt

How Do I Enter the Challenge?

1. Complete this step-by-step lab to build your first robot. If you’re already a pro, you are also welcome to submit your own custom bot.
2. Snap a screenshot/video of your completed build and share it on the Community & on Social Media.
3. In the description of the posts, tell us where you think you can go with RPA. Share a corporate idea and a crazy one! Be sure to use #BuildWithRPA on your social post!

Unfamiliar with RPA? Have No Fear!

The lab we have provided you with includes a comprehensive step-by-step guide on how to build your first robot. Wanting more? Check out these resources…  

• RPA Hub Resource Playlist
• Getting Started with RPA Video
• #BuildWithRPA Lab Walkthrough Video

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

• Where Do I Enter?
  • To enter, you must follow the guidelines and respond to this Community blog post. You must include links to your content as well as links to where you shared on social media with #BuildWithRPA hashtagged.
• Where and What Do I Post on Community?
  • You’re in the right place! Simply log into your ServiceNow Community account. At the bottom of this blog, you will see an area to comment. This is where you can input your ideas of what you can do with RPA: 1 corporate idea and 1 crazy along with proof of lab completion or your custom bot build. Need some inspiration? Take a look at the example below.

• Where and What Do I Post on Social Media?
  • You can post on any social media platform whether it’s LinkedIn or Twitter, share your completed lab and RPA ideas with #BuildWithRPA. Need more guidance? Take a look at the example below.

• What if I Don’t Have Social Media?
  • Not to worry! Please send an email to BuildWith@servicenow.com and we will get in touch to get you your swag.
• When Will I Receive My Swag?
  • When you complete the challenge, you can expect an email from ServiceNow with the subject line #BuildWithRPA T-Shirt Redemption. Enclosed there will be a link to our Developer Swag Store and a code to which you can redeem your tee. Based on the address you provide; your tee will ship there. If you are located outside the USA, please expect a longer shipping time.
• Do I Need to Fill Out a Submission Form?
  • No submission form required! Just follow the guidelines above and you are good to go!
• When Does the Challenge End?
  • To receive a tee, you must submit your challenge entry by October 13^th, 2023. However, you are more than welcome to continue to share your builds past this date. 
• Who is Eligible to Enter the Challenge?
  • We invite everyone aged 18 and above to join us! Regardless of if you're an absolute beginner or an experienced RPA user, your contribution is valued! Sadly, our legal advisor informs us that while government employees may participate, they are ineligible for the t-shirt reward.  (Terms and Conditions apply).
• What If I am New to RPA?
  • You're not alone! Everyone was once a beginner, and there's no better time to dive in than now. We've curated a selection of helpful videos to kickstart your journey towards building your first robot with RPA Hub. To further assist you, our lab provides a detailed, step-by-step guide, meticulously designed to ensure your understanding of the process. Before you know it, you'll be ready to tackle the #BuildWithRPA challenge.
    • #BuildWithRPA Lab
    • RPA Resource Playlist
    • Getting Started with RPA Video
    • #BuildWithRPA Lab Walkthrough
• I Have a Problem Who Do I Reach Out to?
  • Please send an email to buildwith@servicenow.com with #BuildWithRPA Challenge in the subject line.

Terms and Conditions

No purchase is necessary. #BuildWithRPA Challenge is open only to individuals at least eighteen (18) years old at the time of entry. The Challenge begins September 8, 2023, at 10:00 a.m. Pacific Daylight Time ("PDT") and ends on October 13, 2023, at 11:00 p.m. PDT.

Entrants must respond to the official forum with a 1) Screenshot or video showing completion of the provided lab with 1 corporate and 1 crazy idea of where to go with RPA or 2) a screenshot or video of their original bot build with 1 corporate and 1 crazy idea of where to go with RPA AND entrants must post their video or blog into the ServiceNow Developer forum here AND share it on LinkedIn or Twitter with #BuildWithRPA Challenge on their post AND the social media post will be linked to their forum post. 

The Submission must be your own, original work; The Submission must contain a relevant reason/response to the prompt of RPA; The Submission must meet the format and size requirements of the social platform used to enter; The Submission must conform with any applicable social media platform terms.

The prize includes the official 2023 ServiceNow Developer Program T-shirt. Government employees are excluded from receiving the t-shirt but can participate in the challenge. The brand of t-shirt may vary. T-shirts may take up to 4 weeks or longer to arrive once ordered. Approximate Retail Value (“ARV”): $25 USD.

The ServiceNow Developer Program reserves the right to access email data provided by the entrant in order to reach out to individuals who have completed the challenge. Entrants who have met the guidelines and have successfully completed the challenge will receive an email from ServiceNow with instructions on how to redeem the prize. International country restrictions will apply.

Except where prohibited, participation in the Challenge constitutes each entrant's consent to use submission’s name, and photograph (including, without limitation, entrant’s Twitter and LinkedIn profile photo), voice, opinions and/or hometown and state for promotional purposes in any media, worldwide, without further payment or consideration.

[ArjunRNagabandl]

I am excited to have completed RPA lab ,this was totally new to me and entirely different to typical build work on the platform . #BuildWithRPA

Corporate Idea 🏬 : I believe insurance industry in general has a lot of manual processes. For example, processing of claim/application forms completed by their customers , attachments of evidence and so on. I have noticed there is significant delays in processing of these customer emails as it requires a lot of manual effort. RPA bots could be used to streamline the process, automate the manual work and provide better outcomes for insurance companies and their customers.

Crazy Idea 😇 : With inflation & interest rates hitting the roof , everyone is finding avenues for tracking expenses and minimizing the grocery bills etc. My idea is to make a list of weekly grocery items that could be stored in a spreadsheet. So the RPA bot access this list ,fetch the prices of these items from various supermarkets. This could help me find the best place to shop on a given day or a week.

Here is a screenshot of lab completed on RPA Desktop Design Studio. Link to my LinkedIn post here

[florian29]

I built my first digital robot with the #BuildWithRPA Challenge.

Corporate Idea: Robot Process Automation can be used to automate legacy systems without interface connectivity, e.g. in production, to prevent human error or speed up the overall process.

Crazy Idea: RPA can be used to automate the booking of a vacation. All you have to do is specify the destination, budget, time period and means of transport and the robot will automatically book your desired vacation for you, without you having to go through comparison portals yourself.

Link to my social post: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/florian-ricken-677438bb_buildwithrpa-activity-7117399425945071616-myx...

[Joao Carlos1]

Excited to share my ideas after completing #BuildWithRPA Thanks #Servicenow for letting us to participate!

💼[Corporate idea] Automated Onboarding

So, what if we use RPA to make the onboarding process easier? We can program a bot to set up email accounts and check that new employees have submitted all the required documents. The bot could also install the software they need based on their job role. If they haven't finished their required training, the bot can send reminders. It can even schedule meetings with team members and send a welcome email to introduce the new hire.

🚀[Crazy idea] Virtual Office Tour Guide

With so many people working from home after Covid imagine a new employee joins the company and needs an office tour before going to office for the first time. An RPA bot could guide them through a virtual tour, pulling up maps, showing where the coffee machine is, even introducing team members via pre-recorded videos. It's like a video game walkthrough, but for your office.

Social media Link: Linkedin 

Below are the screenshots of the course:

[Sandhya Gurram]

I did the #BuildwithRPA challenge at #ServiceNow Hyderabad Developer Meetup

Crazy Idea:
Fed up with endless mall parking queues🥲? Imagine an RPA bot that chats up your ancient IoT gadget to spill the beans on available slots. No more sad face! 😄 

Corporate Idea:
In a "Lost devices Service Desk" use case using RPA in ServiceNow, users can report lost items through the portal. An RPA bot immediately acknowledges their request and checks the lost device database for matches. If a match is found, the bot notifies the user of the item's location; if not, it generates a ticket for service desk intervention. This RPA-driven process expedites item recovery, minimizes manual efforts, and ensures a swift resolution for users. 🤖🔍 

Link to my social media post: https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7116066652177268738/

[ersujandutta]

Hi Lauren,

It's been an amazing learning scope with the RPA challenge(took the challenge twice Infact). Not only the Lab guide but also the numerous Ideas. Here is the entry from my side.

Corporate Idea: Vendor Contract and Compliance Automation. Basically build RPA bots to traverse through the various Vendor contracts and documents to build a data analysis based on the various defined factors for compliance.

Crazy Idea: Income Tax Return Automation. This has to be a crazy one, where RPA bots would traverse through all our documents to file in the ITR on our behalf.

The link to the social media post: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/sujan-dutta-95612420_buildwithrpa-servicenow-servicenowdeveloper-acti...

[SRI HAVISH KOLA]

I did the #BuildwithRPA challenge at the #ServiceNow Hyderabad Developer Meetup

Crazy Idea
We can introduce an RPA bot integrated with ServiceNow that's dedicated to managing a very important task - making sure everyone in the office gets their coffee fix according to their preferences! ☕ 😀

Corporate Idea
An organisation can leverage RPA to streamline and automate the handling of IT service tickets within the ServiceNow platform.
When a user submits an IT service request or issue, an RPA bot automatically creates a ticket, analyses the request text and classifies it into appropriate categories.

Link to my social media post: LinkedIn

[Cesar Leonardo]

For the RPA Challenge, I did run through the RPA Course, but I decided for this challenge to go a little bit further.

I created a small Workspace/App using the App Engine Studio to give it a touch of lemon to the challenge.
With what I learned on the course, built a robot that will get a request from ServiceNow to update a price on a Crypto coin: Etherium, Bitcoin or BNB.

The RPA will go through the Binance app (just because it's the one I know how to use) and gather all the data directly from the App (24 High, 24 Low, Current price, and many other data).

ServiceNow receives the payload and fulfills the request by creating a Database with all this data into the custom app table.

My idea is to keep working on this one to make it better and probably without using the App itself but the browser (which I tested it and is way faster).

.) Business Idea: Amazon Integration. I had some experience having to integrate Amazon AWS with ServiceNow for returns and products management and probably everyone who did this kind of integration knows that Amazon loves to put weirdly explained documentation on how its integrations work and those complex signatures that on ServiceNow are not really easy to replicate.

But having an RPA that will be able to do a product recall using the Amazon Portal would be way easier to integrate, much faster and way better to maintain.

.) For the Crazy (and not so much): What if we integrate this tool with IoT and automate a full house and be able to escalate that into a company?
Automation can get into a whole new level if you can create a robot with so little effort and get all the data you need directly into ServiceNow.
ServiceNow would be able to basically automate your home and you will have only 1 Hub (and not multiple like it is right now) and on a Company scale this could open to anything really!

This is the link to my Linkedin post! take a look at it!: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/do-while-singh_buildwithrpa-rpachallenge-servicenow-activity-71171782...



Looking forward to see how RPA and AI will play out on the Vancouver release!

[Sagar Pagar]

Hello Everyone!!

I have successful completed the #BuildWithRPA challenge in th Pune Developer meet-up last month! This helped me a lot in enhancing my knowledge about RPA Hub.

Sharing my ideas here,

Corporate Idea: Automated Account invoice processing for finance team.

Description:

We can use the RPA to process the account invoices, extract data and generate reports based on it as per need. It will be helpful as it avoid manual errors and will take less time. It will help finance team to avoid errors and improve the productivity.

Crazy Idea: Automating meeting room bookings with RPA

Description:

RPA can be used to create a bot that will guide us to the nearest available meeting room with capacity and suggest the best available meeting room to us.

LinkedIn post 

RPA challange at meet-up 

#servicenow #BuildWithRPA #servicecommunity #servicenowdeveloper

[Sanjana Kushwah]

Happy to share my ideas after completing #BuildWithRPA!

Corporate Idea: RPA Bots can be used in HR Operations to reduce the manual process of HR Professionals where they need to do the repetitive task of sending offer letters, relieving letters or provide the status of candidature.

Crazy Idea: RPA - not just a bot but a Personal Trainer.

RPA robots can be used to help us with "Taking Care of Ourselves". Based on our Calendar schedule, it can suggest us quick short exercises (body stretching steps) at the end of every meeting and also remind us to walk a few steps when the meetings get extended.

Excited to see where RPA can take us! #BuildWithRPA

Below is the screenshot of my completed lab and link to my social post: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/activity-7117543805460877314-PlIN?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_...

[Community Alums]

I am thrilled to announce that I have successfully completed the ServiceNow #BuildWithRPA challenge! The automation capabilities of ServiceNow RPA are truly remarkable.

Here are my proposed concepts:

Corporate Idea: Using RPA to Enhance Quality Assurance

Utilizing Robotic Process Automation (RPA) to bolster Quality Assurance (QA) by automating testing within ServiceNow as a replacement for the Automated Test Framework (ATF). This approach addresses the challenges arising from ATF limitations in testing, offering solutions for complexities, scalability issues, and maintenance requirements. RPA presents numerous benefits, such as expanding test coverage, accelerating execution, and minimizing errors. We aim to inspire organizations to consider RPA as a viable alternative to ATF for automating QA processes.

Crazy Idea: Harnessing RPA for Customer Data Acquisition in New Businesses

In today's digital era, data stands as a valuable asset, particularly for startups striving to expand their customer base. An efficient means of collecting customer information is through web scraping, a process that can be significantly streamlined and automated using Robotic Process Automation (RPA). By incorporating RPA into your strategy for scraping customer data, you can gain a competitive edge for your new business. This empowers you to efficiently gather and leverage valuable customer information, enabling targeted marketing campaigns, lead generation, and data-driven decision-making. Leveraging RPA can be a game-changer for your new business, enabling you to extract valuable customer data effectively.

Link to my social media LinkedIn post :