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Day 4 - Excel Automation and Data Manipulation
- 1. Introduction to the Excel Automation and Data Manipulation 24.06.2024 Africa Series Day 4 — Kickstart for Automation Student Developers
- 2. 2 Senior RPA Developer @SterlingBank UiPath MVP 2024 linkedin.com/in/emmanuel-kolawole/ Senior Consultant @dipoleDIAMOND UiPath MVP 2024 linkedin.com/in/afeararomi/ Global Manager, Marketing Community@UiPath linkedin.com/in/crisvidu/ Emmanuel Kolawole Afe Araromi Cristina Vidu Meet Today’s Hosts
- 3. 3 Meet Today’s Speakers Automation Project Manager @InnGen 2023 UiPath Student Dev Champion linkedin.com/in/moazu-razak/ RPA Developer at Boundaryless Group linkedin.com/in/michael-patrick/ Moazu Razak Michael Patrick RPA Developer at dipoleDIAMOND linkedin.com/in/joseph-osubu/ Joseph Osubu
- 4. 4 1. Welcome 2. Session Agenda 3. About Excel Automation and Excel Activities 4. About Datatables 5. Data Manipulation and Data Conversion 6. About Strings and String Manipulation 7. QnA 8. Close out Today’s Agenda
- 5. 5 About Today’s Session • The meetup will not last for more than 1.5 hours • You are encouraged to network and share your LinkedIn in the chat box • We apologize for keeping you on mute till Q&A time • Please use the chat to place questions too between now and Q&A
- 7. 7 What's Excel automation? Microsoft Excel automation is a technique used to automate repetitive or time- consuming tasks in Microsoft Excel using software tools or coding techniques. Excel automation can be used to automate tasks such as data entry, calculations, and report generation. The automation of Excel can lead to improved accuracy, efficiency, and cost savings. It can also be used to create powerful data visualizations. UiPath.Excel.Activities package provides two ways to interact with Excel workbooks: ● Workbook or File Access Level ● Excel or Excel App Integration
- 8. 8
- 9. 9 Excel Automation - What can you automate? • Create report: • Read and write data • Sort data • Data Filters • Pivot tables • Excel formatting • Work with ranges – append, auto fill, add/delete rows/columns, sheet • Check reports for errors: • Delete duplicate data • Data reconciliation • Fill in forms with data from Excel spreadsheets • Extract data from emails and move to desktop/web application • Data extraction and migration • Data Table to Excel, Excel to Data Table
- 10. 10 How do I use it? • Package: UiPath.Excel.Activities
- 11. 11 Data Tables One of the most important activities in Studio – DataTable • Maintain Big Data in Data Table variables • Read from excel • Merge data tables • Output to excel • Data processing in loop • Data lookup • Filter • Data Sorting • Remove duplicates
- 12. 12 Why are DataTables important in Excel automation? • Efficient handling of large amounts of data: When working with large datasets, DataTables allow for more efficient handling of data, including sorting, filtering, and grouping. • Improved data accuracy: DataTables can be used to validate data and ensure accuracy before exporting to Excel, reducing the risk of errors or mistakes. • Better data organization: DataTables can help organize data in a structured format, making it easier to navigate and understand. • Integration with other systems: DataTables can be integrated with other systems or applications, allowing for seamless data transfer and analysis across different platforms.
- 13. 13 Excel Demo Run-through 1 Open Excel File Read Input File Add a New Column Calculate Estimated Value End Process Update Excel with New sheet containing updated record
- 14. 14 Excel Demo 2 • Go To https://www.rpasamples.com/opportunities • Use Scrape Data to retrieve the Account list into a DataTable • Use “Write Range” within Excel Application Scope • Add a new column to the table with “Add Column Data” • Loop through the DT and check if qty is over 40 -> add a note • Use “Write Range” again (or write cell if it’s not too long) to update the Excel
- 16. 16 Data Manipulation with Strings in Studio ▪ Data manipulation is the process through which the data is altered using various operations in order to facilitate its usage ▪ Allows the user to change data from one form to another by concatenating, converting, replacing, extracting, splitting or segregating to make it ready to be used by RPA in workflows Data Manipulation allows us to customize the data in order to be able to generate the desired outcome based on the process needs
- 17. 17 Concat • Concatenates the string representations of two specified objects • String.Concat(Var1, Var2) Contains • Checks whether a specified substring occurs within a string. • Returns true or false • VarName.Contains(“Test”) Format • Converts an entire expression into a string (and Inserts them into another text) • Reduces complexity and increases readability • String.Format(“{0} is {1}”, VarName1, Varname2) IndexOf • Returns the zero-based index of the first occurrence of a character in a string • Varname.Indexof(“A”) Strings and String Manipulation ● Some of the operations that can be performed on strings are:
- 18. 18 Methods for String Manipulations Join • Concatenates the elements in a collection and displays them as string • String.Join(“|”, CollectionVariable) Replace • Replaces all the occurrences of a substring in a string • VariableName.Replace(“original”, “replaced”) Split • Splits a string into substrings using a given separator • VariableName.Split(“|”c)(index) Substring • Extracts a substring from a string using the starting index and the length • VariableName.Substring(StartIndex, Length) Strings and String Manipulation
- 19. 19 Variables ▪ Data of all kinds can be stored in variables, and there are several variable types in Studio that can be classified into three types Variable Types Scalar Characters Booleans Numbers Collections Arrays Lists Strings (a collection of characters) Dictionary Tables Two dimensional structures that hold data indexed by rows and columns
- 20. 20 Data conversion is the process of converting one type of data to another type. The methods for data conversion include: Simply assigning the data value to the desired data type. In UiPath, explicit assignment is generally used for data conversion • Eg: Integer.parse(“1243”) to convert string to number Assign Convert any datatype to string using the .ToString method. •Eg: the user can convert DateTime datatype to string datatype or number to string and vice versa .ToString Method Stores any kind of data, including text, numbers, dates, and arrays. Automatically converted to other types to perform certain actions. The first element in the expression is used as a guideline for what operation Studio performs GenericValue Variable Data Conversion
- 21. 21 What is a Regular Expression? Regular Expression (RegEx) is a specific search pattern that can be used to easily match, locate and manage text. However, creating RegEx expressions may be challenging. UiPath Studio contains a RegEx builder that simplifies the creation of regular expressions. Uses of RegEx include: ● Input Validation ● String Parsing ● Data Scraping ● String Manipulation Some business scenarios where RegEx is used include; Extracting phone numbers that start with a certain digit, Collecting all the street names from a bulk text, even if they don't follow a specific pattern - some of them contain "Street", others "Rd." .etc
- 22. 22 Practice Exercise 1 Extract Email With Regex 1. Start a new project. Add a ‘Sequence’, rename it, and add an annotation. 2. Add a Read Text File activity to the sequence. ◆ Add “Template.txt” in the Filename property field ◆ Create a new variable inside the Output property field and name it InputData. 3. Add a Matches activity the workflow. ◆ Add InputData in the Input property field. ◆ Create a new variable inside the Result property field (use CTRL + K to auto-assign the correct type) and name it FoundEmailMatches. ◆ Click Configure Regular Expression button to configure the regular expression. Select Email as the value for the RegEx property and Exactly 1 as the value for the Quantifiers property. ◆ Set the RegexOption property field value to IgnoreCase. ◆ Click Save.
- 23. 23 Practice Exercise 1 4. Add a Log Message activity, set its Log Level to Info and add the following message: "New employee IDs will be generated for the following email addresses:". 5. Add a For Each activity. ◆ Add FoundEmailMatches variable in the List of items property field. ◆ Add emailAddress in the items property field. ◆ Add a Log Message activity inside the Body sequence. ● Set the Log Level to Info and add emailAddress.Tostring in the Message property field. 6. Run the project in Debug mode and check the Output Panel.
- 24. 24 What is a list variable? A list variable in UiPath is a type of variable that can hold a collection or sequence of data items. It allows you to store and manage multiple values of the same data type (such as strings, numbers, or custom objects) within a single variable Unlike arrays, it does not have a fixed number of elements. Lists provide specific methods of manipulation, such as: ● Adding and removing items. ● Searching for an element. ● Looping through the items (and performing certain actions on each). ● Sorting the objects. ● Extracting items and converting them to other data types. How to initialize list variables To initialize a variable is to specify an initial value to assign to it. All variables are given an initial value when they are declared. However, this process differ between value or reference type variables. Data Manipulation with Lists and Dictionaries in Studio
- 25. 25 a. Value type - For numeric, Boolean, DateTime and other value types, the compiler will give them a valid value if we do not explicitly do so b. Reference type - Reference type variables, like Lists and Dictionaries, initialize to the object we provide. Hence, the compiler will not assign a value if we don't. How to initialize list variables ● The first way was to create a list type of variable. Then, we used a Build Collection activity to add items to the list and specify the list variable to hold the items. ● The second way was to create a list type of variable, then add the items inside the Default value field. Then, initialize the list by typing new List of Type from the specified items. new List(of String) Data Manipulation with Lists and Dictionaries in Studio
- 26. 26 What is a dictionary variable? Dictionary variables (Dictionary<TKey, TValue>) are collection type of variables of (key, value) pairs, in which the keys are unique. Think of the Address Book in your mobile phone, where each entry has corresponding data (name, phone number(s), email address, etc). The data types for both keys and values have to be chosen when the variable is declared. Data types within dictionaries can be any of the supported variables (String, Int32, etc) including Dictionary<TKey, TValue>. Some business scenarios in which you will most likely encounter dictionaries include Storing configuration details or other information that needs to be accessed throughout a process, Storing the job titles or other relevant information of employees etc. The operations that are most often associated with dictionaries are: ● Adding and deleting (key, value) pairs. VarName.Add(Key, Value) VarName.Remove(Key) ● Retrieving the value associated with a key. VarName.Item(Key) ● Re-assigning new values to existing keys. VarName.Add(Key, Value) Data Manipulation with Lists and Dictionaries in Studio
- 27. 27 What’s Next? Global Student Developer Chapter https://community.uipath.com/global-student-developer/ Log in to UiPath Academy academy.uipath.com ● Go to the Learning Plans page ● Enrol for the Automation Developer Associate Training course https://bit.ly/4c8mHem ● Take the “Excel Automation with the Modern Experience in Studio” lesson ● Take the “Data Manipulation with Strings in Studio” lesson Session 5: Making your Automation Journey Continuous and Beneficial ● Series Registration Page https://bit.ly/3Vz0G1d
- 28. 28 Goodbye! But Stay Close… ● community@uipath.com ● www.community.uipath.com Happy Automation!