In this blog post, we will cover the technologies that RPA Developers must know.
Post Contents
👨💻Who is an RPA Developer?
An RPA developer is a professional who specializes in designing, developing, and implementing automation solutions using RPA technology.
RPA is a form of business process automation that uses software robots or bots to mimic human actions and interact with digital systems to perform repetitive tasks.
These tasks include data entry, extraction, form filling, report generation, and more.
⚡Essential Technologies For RPA Developers
The essential technologies and skills that a Robotic Process Automation (RPA) developer must know are listed below.
🔰RPA Tools/Platforms
Familiarity with popular RPA tools/platforms such as UiPath, Automation Anywhere, Blue Prism, Power Automate, and others.
These tools enable developers to create and manage automation workflows.
👩🏫Programming Languages
Proficiency in programming languages is crucial for RPA development. Basic to intermediate-level programming skills would take you places in your RPA developer career.
Commonly used programming languages\scripts include:
- VBScript: Often used in UiPath.
- C#: Frequently used in UiPath and Automation Anywhere.
- Python: Useful for various RPA tasks and integrations.
- JavaScript: Useful for web automation and integration with web-based applications.
💻Web Technologies
Understanding web technologies such as HTML, CSS, and JavaScript is valuable for automating web-based processes.
Knowing the concepts such as DOM (Document Object Model), DOM tree, HTML and CSS attributes would be helpful while working with Web Scraping.
🙎♀️Data Handling
Knowledge of data handling techniques, such as reading and writing data to files (Excel, CSV) and databases (SQL Server, Oracle, or MySQL), is essential for effective RPA development.
🧩API Integration
Understanding how to work with APIs (Application Programming Interfaces) allows RPA developers to connect systems and exchange data seamlessly.
You must know working with REST APIs, Auth 2.0 mechanisms, and tools like Postman for testing API calls.
🗼Workflow Design
The ability to design and map out efficient workflows is crucial for successful RPA implementation. It is prior to even getting started with the development work.
Creating a High-Level Design (HLD) and adhering to it while developing the bot is the key here.
🌋Exception Handling
Dealing with exceptions and errors in RPA processes is essential to ensure robustness and stability. Your understanding of runtime exception handling will play a very important role in graceful bot executions.
🤝Debugging and Testing
Proficient in debugging techniques and testing automation workflows to identify and fix issues.
Debugging is honestly one of the most important things when programming. Knowing how to set breakpoints, how to step over, and step into functions that are being used saves development times by hours.
Not only does debugging save precious development time, but it also helps you understand your code’s logic and flow system better.
👨💼Business Process Knowledge
Understanding the business processes to be automated is vital for designing efficient and accurate automation solutions.
🔐Security
Awareness of safety best practices to ensure that sensitive data and processes are adequately protected.
🔎OCR
OCR stands for Optical Character Recognition. Familiarity with OCR technologies enables RPA developers to work with scanned documents and images.
You must have a basic understanding of how OCR works and the popular OCR tools available in the market.
🧠AI and ML
Knowledge of Artificial Intelligence & Machine Learning concepts can be advantageous for implementing advanced automation scenarios.
With the kind of attention the GenerativeAI (GenAI) has grabbed, you would soon be seeing RPA + AI (Intelligent Automation) automation.
Hyper Automation is the next big thing in the RPA field.
🛂Version Control
Proficiency in using version control systems (e.g., Git) is crucial for collaboration and managing changes in RPA projects.
Also, would be worth learning CI/CD concepts, and basic knowledge of tools such as Jenkins, and Bamboo would be beneficial.
📊Analytics and Reporting
Ability to gather and analyze data from automated processes to generate meaningful reports and insights.
Knowledge of PowerBI, A360 Bot Insights, UiPath Insights, etc would be really beneficial.
📕Closing Notes
Please note that the technology field is continually evolving, and new tools and techniques are often emerging. RPA developers should always stay up-to-date with the latest trends and developments in the industry.
Happy Automation!