Robotic Process Automation (RPA) Spoke
Summarize
Summary of Robotic Process Automation (RPA) Spoke
The RPA Spoke enables ServiceNow flow designers to integrate with Robotic Process Automation (RPA) Hub, providing a range of actions and subflows to manage automation processes, work items, users, and bot lifecycle stages. This functionality streamlines automation orchestration by allowing ServiceNow workflows to control and monitor attended and unattended RPA processes seamlessly.
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Key Features
- Work Item Management: Add, update, and fetch work items in queues with support for encrypted sensitive data. This ensures secure handling of request and response content within your automation workflows.
- User Assignment: Assign or unassign users to attended automation processes or attended robots, enabling dynamic control over who interacts with bots during attended automation.
- Bot Process Lifecycle Control: Change the life cycle stage of bot processes between Build, Published, and In Maintenance states, managing the deployment and maintenance phases effectively.
- Job and Execution Status Tracking: Fetch details of created process jobs and their execution status to monitor automation progress and troubleshoot issues.
- Process Control: Start and stop bot processes, with options for graceful stopping to ensure bots complete tasks cleanly. This includes handling robot pools and identifying failed robots.
- Process Parameter Updates: Update process parameters dynamically within workflows to customize bot behavior.
- Package Version Verification: Verify the HashCode of automation package versions to validate manually uploaded automation files, ensuring integrity and consistency.
- Subflows: Specialized subflows for importing package attachments, starting, and stopping processes simplify common automation operations and provide detailed feedback on process and robot statuses.
Key Outcomes
- Automation Integration: Customers can embed RPA controls directly into ServiceNow workflows, enhancing automation capabilities without switching platforms.
- Enhanced Security: Sensitive work item data can be encrypted, maintaining confidentiality throughout the automation lifecycle.
- Operational Visibility: Real-time status updates on jobs, work items, and bot processes enable proactive management and troubleshooting.
- Flexible Process Management: Managing user assignments and bot lifecycle stages provides operational flexibility and supports governance around automation deployment.
- Efficient Automation Deployment: Automated package import and validation help streamline moving bots across environments from development to production.
- Improved Bot Control: Ability to gracefully stop processes and identify failed robots improves bot reliability and reduces disruption.
With Robotic Process Automation, your flow designers can use actions to assign and unassign users to and from an attended automation process, add work items to a queue, update work items, fetch process jobs, get the status of a process job, and trigger a bot process.
| Action | Description | Action inputs | Action outputs |
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| Add WorkItem to Queue Action | Adds WorkItem in a specified queue in the RPA Hub application and returns the WorkItem ID. |
The maximum limit for Content field (Request Content and Response Content) is 8000 characters. If the Is Work Item Name Sensitive check box on the associated work queue form is selected, the data in the Request Content field is encrypted. Sensitive data with encryption is stored in the work item, so that it can be passed to the RPA Desktop Design Studio or robots. |
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| Assign User to Attended Automation Process Action | Assigns a user to the attended automation process. |
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| Assign User to Attended Robot Action | Assigns a user to the attended robot. | Username: Record |
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| Change Life Cycle Stage Status of a Bot Process Action | Changes the life cycle stage status of a bot process that is not retired. If a bot process is in Build life cycle stage status, if you have the required role, you can update it to Published state, but you cannot update it to In Maintenance. If a bot process is in Published life cycle stage status, if you have the required role, you can update it to In Maintenance state, and vice versa. |
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| Fetch Created Jobs Action | Fetches the process jobs in RPA Hub. |
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| Fetch Execution Status Action | Fetches the execution status of a specific process job in RPA Hub. | Process Job Number: String |
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| Fetch Work Item Status Action | Fetches the status of specific work queue items, asynchronously. | Work Queue Item ID: GUID |
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| Start Process Action | Triggers a specific bot process in RPA Hub and returns the status. |
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| Stop Process Action | Stops a bot process. If Graceful Stop is enabled, this action gracefully stops the bot process. |
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| Unassign User from Attended Automation Process Action | Unassigns the user from the attended automation process. |
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| Unassign User from Attended Robot Action | Unassigns the user from the attended robot and retires the attended robot. | Username: Record |
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| Update Process Parameter Action | Updates the Value field for the process parameter. |
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| Update WorkItem Action | Updates work queue items. |
The maximum limit for Request Content and Response Content fields is 8000 characters. If the Is Work Item Name Sensitive check box on the associated work queue form is selected, the data in the Request Content field is encrypted. Sensitive data with encryption is stored in the work item, so that it can be passed to the RPA Desktop Design Studio or robots. |
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| Verify HashCode of a Package Version | Verifies the HashCode of a package version in RPA Hub to validate the HashCode of the manually uploaded automation zip file with the associated package version record. For more information about verifying the HashCode of a package version, see Verify the HashCode of a package version in RPA Hub . |
Package Version: Record |
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| Subflow | Description | Subflow inputs | Subflow outputs |
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| Import Package Version Attachment Subflow | Imports the package version attachments automatically for a package version. To automatically migrate the package attachment (automation zip file) from a lower (non-production) to a higher (production)
environment. For more information about importing a package version attachment in RPA Hub, see Import a package version attachment in RPA Hub. |
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After the attachment is uploaded successfully or if an error occurs while uploading the attachment, an email notification (if email is provided as an input) is sent to the user who performs this import attachment action. |
| Start Process Subflow | Triggers a specific bot process in RPA Hub. Returns process job details. |
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| Stop Process Subflow | Triggers a specific bot process to stop in RPA Hub. Returns robots details and process job status. If Graceful Stop is enabled, this subflow gracefully stops the bot process. |
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