AutoIT - RPA Feasibility

[ViditGupta]

Hello everyone!

I recently came across AutoIT. I have been working on Robotic Process Automation for about a couple of months and have used UiPath extensively.

I want to understand how feasible it is to use AutoIT as an RPA tool? Since RPA is mostly about identifying desktop elements via selectors, RPA bots should be able to identify elements across platforms/operating systems(Win 8, 10, Vista).

I have read through parameters AutoIT require to identify a control - https://www.autoitscript.com/autoit3/docs/intro/controls.htm

I wish to understand whether control identifying parameters like ID, CLASS, NAME, INSTANCE, etc is the same for the same application (Eg - File Explorer, SAP) across different OSes (Win 8, 10, Vista).

Any response will be greatly appreciated!

Thanks

 

[Danp2]

I've looked at UIPath but never really used it. Can you share your experience with it? Also, how does it not meet your needs such that you're now looking into Autoit?

[ViditGupta]

My experience with UiPath has been good so far. It provides better UI component identification than the AutoIT window information tool. The reasons why I am looking into AutoIt is -

- AutoIt is free to use, while UiPath does have a community version, I will have to pay if I plan to use it at an enterprise level.

- The recent few releases haven't been very stable.

[junkew]

Yes you can do many rpa things. check out faq31 and 40. With all udf and support in this forum you will be on par with uipath. Play with simplespy and other spy tools around and you will learn quickly that AutoIt can deal with web, desktop, pdf,excel,word,java ,ocr,image search and with webdriver you could reach web and mobile apps but mobile is not much around in examples with AutoIt.

Things you will miss is a visualized flow although also thats possible and you will miss the bot manager to run dozens of robots in parralel with analytics. Robotics tools have many similarities with automation tools like AutoIt where automation tools are more feature rich as its around for 20+ years and robotics tools.much shorter.

And for people not knowing uipath watch this video

It gives more a visual flow ide around actions so less coding is done but as such it has also limitations.

 

Edited January 8, 2020 by junkew

[ViditGupta]

@junkew Thanks a lot for your comprehensive response. I can't wait to deep dive into the docs and start exploring AutoIT for my business-related use-cases. I just have one question -

  On 1/8/2020 at 2:37 PM, ViditGupta said:

I wish to understand whether control identifying parameters like ID, CLASS, NAME, INSTANCE, etc is the same for the same application (Eg - File Explorer, SAP) across different OSes (Win 8, 10, Vista).

Expand  

 

[junkew]

You can only answer that per application you use in the flow. For example for calc.exe its certainly not the case. For notepad.exe its probably true but for explorer.exe its certainly different. 

If you read deep dive on uia automation udf you will see there are dozens of properties to work with. But first start simple automate calc and notepad before you make it complicated with lists, tables, treeviews.

[mLipok]

I'm just curious.

Am I able to use UiPath Studio with ADO and any ActiveX , DLL libraries ?
For example I need to process SQL Database with PDF saved as BLOB , of coruse processing this PDF (using ActiveX), and raporting to this SQL Database or to XLS file.

I ask this question not that I would like to use a solution other than AutoIt.
Just sometimes someone tells me "why don't you do this or that program in a different language, technology," and then when I start asking questions, it always turns out that AutoIt is the best.

And using your experience, I would like to know how it relates to UiPath Studio .

 

Edited January 9, 2020 by mLipok

[junkew]

@mLipokUipath is a tool with predefined actions you visually connect together so far i did not find a manual tellng me how i can make my own predefined actions.

See https://docs.uipath.com/studio/docs/managing-variables and pictures there. There is no code just a sequence of actions shown in a treeview or listview and when you select an action a propertieseditor for all parameters you can use.

Just install uipath trial version and automate calc.exe and take the free uipath course.

Similar answer for other major leading rpa tools like kofax kapow or automation anywhere. Target users of rpa tools are in geberal not developers or scripters.

And just watch some videos o f uipath https://www.uipath.com/developers/video-tutorials?utm_campaign=Lead Nurturing&utm_source=hs_automation&utm_medium=email&utm_content=80047783

Edited January 9, 2020 by junkew

[ViditGupta]

@mLipok Yes, you can create custom UiPath activities and import DLLs via NuGet Package Manager. Just like UDFs in AutoIT, UiPath has activity packages that provide feature enhancement. Please go through the links below -

https://docs.uipath.com/activities/docs/creating-a-custom-activity

https://www.uipath.com/kb-articles/how-to-query-data-from-sql-database