CN117391642A

CN117391642A - Method and system for generating variable in RPA flow

Info

Publication number: CN117391642A
Application number: CN202311700250.1A
Authority: CN
Inventors: 童根
Original assignee: Hangzhou Real Intelligence Technology Co ltd
Current assignee: Hangzhou Real Intelligence Technology Co ltd
Priority date: 2023-12-12
Filing date: 2023-12-12
Publication date: 2024-01-12

Abstract

The invention belongs to the technical field of RPA, and particularly relates to a method and a system for generating variables in an RPA flow. The method comprises the following steps: s1, after a user finishes RPA login, acquiring data of all components from a variable generator through a user ID; s2, editing the acquired component locally by a user to obtain a required RPA flow; s3, after the required RPA flow is edited, uploading all variables in the RPA flow to a variable control center S4, and calculating the variables conforming to the use habit of the corresponding user by combining the variable pool rule and storing variable data of the corresponding user by the variable control center; and S5, uploading the variable data to a database through the user ID, and directly acquiring a variable library belonging to the corresponding user for the next login. The invention has the characteristics of improving the flexibility and adaptability of the RPA system, saving the operation cost, reducing errors and improving the efficiency.

Description

Method and system for generating variable in RPA flow

Technical Field

The invention belongs to the technical field of RPA, and particularly relates to a method and a system for generating variables in an RPA flow.

Background

Since the beginning of widespread use of automation technology, solutions based on robotic process automation (Robotic Process Automation, RPA) have become an important tool for optimizing business processes for numerous enterprises and organizations. The RPA technology utilizes a software robot to simulate and execute repetitive and normative tasks, thereby reducing the need of manual intervention and improving the working efficiency and accuracy.

At present, the RPA technology is widely applied in various industries, and provides opportunities for enterprises and organizations to automate business processes. For variable generation, existing RPA systems typically use predefined scripts and rules that require prior programming and configuration, the specific techniques used include the following:

RPA flow visualization orchestration technique: RPA process editing tools typically provide visual programming that allows a user to easily drag and drop individual steps into a flowchart and then connect them to build a complete automated process. This visualization method enables non-technicians to create automated processes.

2. Predefined rules and scripts: current RPA systems typically use predefined rules and scripts to perform tasks. These rules and scripts need to be precisely configured prior to implementation of the RPA system to ensure that the system is able to perform tasks as intended. This approach works well in handling standardized and highly structured tasks because rules can be precisely matched to task requirements. However, their rigidity makes it difficult to accommodate changing business requirements.

However, in practice, RPA systems are often required to handle large amounts of variables and data that may change over time, tasks, and workflow. This dynamics and variability makes efficient management and generation of variables in RPA flows complex and challenging. Current RPA systems are often limited in processing variables, often requiring complex programming and manual intervention, which is time consuming and laborious for businesses and organizations.

In addition, current RPA systems have some limitations in variable generation and management, including but not limited to:

1. the support for dynamic generation and updating of the variables is limited, and the variable is difficult to adapt to the continuously-changing business requirements;

2. the automation degree of variable generation is low, and a large amount of manual configuration is needed, so that the autonomy of the RPA system is limited;

3. the variable generation process lacks intelligence and adaptivity and cannot be optimized according to the context and task requirements and user habits.

Thus, a more efficient method is devised to automatically generate and manage variables in an RPA flow, thereby improving flexibility and adaptability of the RPA system, reducing operating costs, reducing errors, and improving efficiency.

Disclosure of Invention

The invention aims to solve the problems of lower automation degree, low efficiency and lack of intelligence and self-adaptability of the conventional RPA system in terms of variable generation and management in the prior art, and provides a method and a system for generating variables in an RPA flow, which can improve the flexibility and adaptability of the RPA system, save the operation cost, reduce errors and improve the efficiency.

In order to achieve the aim of the invention, the invention adopts the following technical scheme:

the generation method for the variable in the RPA flow comprises the following steps of;

s1, after a user finishes RPA login, acquiring data of all components from a variable generator through a user ID;

s2, editing the acquired component locally by a user to obtain a required RPA flow;

s3, uploading all variables in the RPA flow to a variable control center after the required RPA flow is edited;

s4, the variable control center combines the variable pool rule, calculates the variable which accords with the use habit of the corresponding user, and stores the variable data of the corresponding user;

and S5, uploading the variable data to a database through the user ID, and directly acquiring a variable library belonging to the corresponding user for the next login.

Preferably, the step S1 further includes the steps of:

s11, if the component data cannot be obtained through the user ID, obtaining the template data; the template data is obtained by adopting a preset universal template variable rule.

Preferably, in step S2, the user directly uses the recommended variable or performs the custom variable in the process of editing the acquired component locally.

Preferably, in step S4, the variable pool rule specifically includes: corresponding variable names are preset according to the respective function roles of the components.

Preferably, in the process of step S4, if it is found that the user selects the variable having the same variable name in one flow, the RPA automatically adds a suffix to the repeated variable name to distinguish.

Preferably, the variables are in JSON data format during transmission.

Preferably, the JSON data format includes a name componentName of the component and a value v ariblenames preset by the component.

The invention also provides a system for generating the variable in the RPA flow, which comprises the following steps of;

the component data acquisition module is used for acquiring the data of all components from the variable generator through the user ID after the user finishes RPA login;

the component editing module is used for editing the acquired component locally by a user to obtain a required RPA flow;

the data uploading module is used for uploading all variables in the RPA flow to the variable control center after the required RPA flow is edited;

the variable control center module is used for calculating variables conforming to the use habits of the corresponding users by combining the variable pool rules and storing variable data of the corresponding users;

and the data storage module is used for uploading variable data to the database through the user ID and directly acquiring a variable library belonging to the corresponding user for the next login.

Compared with the prior art, the invention has the beneficial effects that: (1) The invention provides a method for generating RPA flow variables, which can solve the problems of manual generation, lack of intelligence and self-adaptability of the existing RPA flow variables by introducing an automatic variable generation method and user context personalized variable generation; (2) In the aspect of variable generation, the invention provides a mode for automatically generating the variable, and manual configuration of a user is not needed every time, so that the efficiency of flow editing can be improved, and the error rate of editing the variable is improved; (3) The invention collects all the historical flow variable data of the user, can personally recommend the variable to the user, is more intelligent, and improves the self-adaptability of the flow; (4) The system of the invention also compatibly considers the problem of the same name variable in the process, solves the conflict by adding the suffix, and improves the stability; (5) The invention has the characteristics of high automation and high stability, and is more in line with the habit of users.

Drawings

FIG. 1 is a schematic diagram of an overall architecture of a system for a method of generating variables in an RPA flow in accordance with the present invention;

FIG. 2 is a flow chart of a method of generating variables for use in an RPA flow in accordance with the present invention;

fig. 3 is a flowchart of a practical application of a method for generating variables in an RPA flow according to an embodiment of the present invention.

Detailed Description

In order to more clearly illustrate the embodiments of the present invention, specific embodiments of the present invention will be described below with reference to the accompanying drawings. It is evident that the drawings in the following description are only examples of the invention, from which other drawings and other embodiments can be obtained by a person skilled in the art without inventive effort.

As shown in fig. 2, the invention provides a method for integrating RPA flow control by an internet of things terminal, which comprises the following steps of;

1. after the user finishes RPA login, acquiring the data of all components from the variable generator through the user ID; if the component data cannot be obtained through the user ID, obtaining the template data; template data is obtained by adopting a preset universal template variable rule;

2. the user edits the acquired components locally to obtain a required RPA flow; in the process of editing the acquired component locally, a user can directly use recommended variables or carry out custom variables;

3. after the required RPA flow is edited, uploading all variables in the RPA flow to a variable control center;

4. the variable control center combines the variable pool rule, calculates the variable which accords with the use habit of the corresponding user, and stores the variable data of the corresponding user;

5. and uploading variable data to a database through the unique user ID, so that the variable database belonging to the corresponding user can be directly acquired after the next login.

In the RPA and variable generation system, the variables are transmitted by adopting a JSON format, and the specific data format is shown in the following table 1:

table 1 data format specification table of variables in RPA and variable generation system

Position of	Data format	Description of the invention
			Variable pool	{ "data": [ { "componentName": "open web page", "variableNames": [ "Web object", "openWebPage"]"composition name" input text The "variableNames" [ "input text result", “inputTextValue”],}]}	default component name componentName, component Is named variabalenames: preset of components Value of
Transmitted variable value	{"userId": "user_45343413332","data": [{" componentName "open web page", "variableNames" for [ "web page pair Image "," openwebPage "]"input text" and "componentName" variabaleNames [ "input text result", "inputTextValue ]"],}]}	The user is passed on to the database and variable control hub, the data format between the RPA and the variable generation service. component name, name of component variabalenames: preset value of component

Through the table above, it can be seen that the variables returned to the RPA flow are in the form of an array, the user can see the variable selection of a drop-down box on the flow page, if the user selects the variable with the same name in a flow, the RPA is required to automatically add suffixes similar to "(1)", and "_1" to the variable name, so as to ensure that the variables cannot conflict. Meanwhile, when the flow is transmitted for training, the variable generation service can automatically delete the suffixes and perform training and saving of the variables.

In conclusion, the invention solves the technical problems related to variable generation, and provides a more powerful automatic variable generation method which accords with the habit of a user.

As shown in fig. 1, the system integrally comprises a user, an RPA and a variable generation service part, and the invention mainly aims at innovation of the variable generation service part. The variable control system comprises three modules, namely a variable pool, a variable control center and a variable generator, wherein the modules are specifically described below.

Variable pool: according to the RPA components, some common variable names are specified in advance, for example: opening a webpage component, wherein variable names can be 'webpage object', 'openWeb', 'open_web_page', and the like;

variable control center: the module receives all variables in the flow after the user submits the flow, automatically and asynchronously trains, calculates the variable generation conforming to the habit of the user by context analysis and combining with the rule of a variable pool, and stores the variable generation into a persistent storage (such as a database); the following is a detailed calculation process of the module:

1. variable reception: the module first obtains all variables in the current flow and the historical flow submitted by the user, and the variables are named as different names according to the different RPA components and the style of the user, for example, an "acquire interface element text" component, and variable names possibly used include "acquire text value", "get_text_value", "get text value" and the like.

2. Asynchronous training and context analysis: with asynchronous training, the module uses a machine learning algorithm to analyze the received variables. Considering the previous selections, habits and behavior patterns of the user in the flow, and depending on the RPA components, special attention is paid to the predefined variable naming convention for each component. For example, in an "open web component," a user often uses a variable named "web object," and the module learns and gives higher weight to this variable in the calculation.

3. Variable pool rule application: the modules incorporate predefined variable pool rules that specify common variable names for different RPA components. This ensures that the generated variables not only conform to the user's habits, but also follow the naming convention of the components.

4. Calculating and generating: after the analysis and rule application of the steps, the module executes a calculation process to generate new variables which accord with the custom of the user and the naming standards of the RPA component. For example, for "open web component," the module may generate a new variable, "web object new," to meet the naming convention and avoid conflict with existing variables.

5. Persistent storage: finally, the generated variables are saved to persistent storage (e.g., database) according to a naming convention to ensure availability for retrieval and use in subsequent flow steps.

Variable generator: when the user requests to acquire the variable, the variable names of all the components are returned to the user.

Based on the technical scheme of the invention, taking a weather inquiry process as an example, the system flow is shown in fig. 3, and the example should not limit the use scenario of the scheme of the invention:

1. a user initiates a login request from an RPA client to an RPA server, and the server is ensured to obtain user information so as to distinguish variable names capable of obtaining different user styles;

2. the server obtains all component variable requests of the user from variable generation service through a user_id;

3. the variable generation service can inquire from the database through the user_id;

4. if there is a variable generation result for the user in the database, return is made. If the user has a history flow with a set of own variable naming styles, the returned data format is shown in table 1, where all components in RPA are scheduled to be returned with several possible variables, for example, in this embodiment, the user may want to write an RPA flow for querying weather, the related components are mainly interface calling components, the preset names of the components in the variable pool are "interface call result", "interface_call_result", "interface call value", but the variable generating service may combine the history flow of the user, analyze that the user prefers to use hump type naming, and at the same time, the user may prefer to use a mode of adding a service name, and finally generate the variables for the user according to the priority levels, which may be "interface call result", "interface call value".

5. And returning the generated variable data to the user, and if the variable data is not queried in the database, using a default template, wherein the template is all component data generated according to the variables in the variable pool.

6. Returning a default template in the RPA client.

7. The user establishes a flow for inquiring weather on the RPA client, and when the interface calling component is used, the system recommends the variable value returned before.

8. Transmitting the current editing flow to a server side, and carrying all variables and user_id;

9. the server side transmits the variable name of the user_id to the variable generation service, and a variable center module of the variable generation service trains the variable submitted at the time.

10. And the variable generation service asynchronously stores the training result into a database to complete the persistence of the variable template.

In fig. 3, RPA Client represents an RPA Client, and RPA Server represents an RPA Server.

The invention provides a method for generating variables in an RPA flow, which can solve the problems of manual generation, lack of intelligence and self-adaptability of the existing RPA flow variables.

Firstly, in the aspect of variable generation, a mode of automatically generating the variable is provided, and manual configuration of a user every time is not needed, so that the efficiency of flow editing can be improved, and the error rate of editing the variable is improved;

secondly, the invention collects all the historical flow variable data of the user, can individually recommend the variable to the user, is more intelligent, and improves the self-adaptability of the flow.

Finally, the system is compatible with and considers the problem of the same name variable in the process, and adopts a mode of adding a suffix to solve the conflict, thereby improving the stability of the system.

The foregoing is only illustrative of the preferred embodiments and principles of the present invention, and changes in specific embodiments will occur to those skilled in the art upon consideration of the teachings provided herein, and such changes are intended to be included within the scope of the invention as defined by the claims.

Claims

1. The method for generating the variable in the RPA flow is characterized by comprising the following steps of;

2. The method for generating variables in an RPA flow according to claim 1, wherein step S1 further comprises the steps of:

3. The method for generating variables in an RPA process according to claim 1, wherein in step S2, the user directly uses recommended variables or custom variables in the process of editing the acquired components locally.

4. The method for generating variables in an RPA flow according to claim 1, wherein in step S4, the variable pool rule specifically includes: corresponding variable names are preset according to the respective function roles of the components.

5. The method according to claim 4, wherein during step S4, if the user selects the variable with the same variable name in one flow, the RPA automatically adds a suffix to the repeated variable name to distinguish.

6. The method for generating variables in an RPA flow according to claim 1, wherein the variables are in JSON data format during the transmission process.

7. The method for generating variables in an RPA flow according to claim 6, wherein the JSON data format includes a name componentName of a component and a value v ariblenames preset by the component.

8. A system for generating a variable in an RPA procedure for implementing the method for generating a variable in an RPA procedure according to any one of claims 1 to 7, wherein the system for generating a variable in an RPA procedure comprises;