While automating any business process, leveraging the Robotic Enterprise framework commonly known as Re-Framework in UiPath is a valuable approach. The Re-Framework has standardized and structured templates designed to help developers build RPA workflows and easily tackle complex business scenarios for larger deployments. The robust nature with quickly scalable architecture makes it easy for developers to leverage best practices and fulfil the basic needs of automation, like reading config files & data, initializing needed applications, get transactions for processing, logging status, handle exceptions and simultaneously re-trying failed transactions without human intervention.
Now, let’s look at the various stages of the framework and their purpose in the framework –
Initialization – The 1st stage and integral stage of RE framework which can be used to make required applications ready. By reading, storing the config data in the directory, opening necessary applications and closing unnecessary files and applications, we make the workflow ready for the next stage. In this stage we can also generate exception alerts, stop the process or move the workflow to the next stage.
Get Transaction data – It is used to extract and fetch data from Database, Queue, Data Table, Folder and take it to the next stage. There are 2 alternatives to this as below –
- If a new process is kicked-off, it will advance to the Process Transaction stage
- If there is no data or all transactions have been processed, it advance itself to the End Process stage
Process transaction – In this stage, the workflow will perform the actual processing for the retrieved data. There could be three outcomes of processing –
- Success
- System Exception
- Business Exception
For the 1st outcome, the flow will again move to Get Transaction Data stage to retrieve the next item for processing.
For the 2nd outcome, the flow will not process the transaction, mark it as not processed, close all applications for this transaction data item and loop back to the Initialization stage.
In case of the 3rd outcome, the business exception, the transaction is marked and skipped, and the workflow will retrieve the next transaction data from Get Transaction Data stage.
End state process – This is the final stage of the framework. Once the entire data is processed successfully, then Robot goes to the End state process and closes all the applications and ends the process.
Diagram easy understanding– attached in PPT –
It is recommended that every project has “Main .Xaml file” which uses the State machine workflow. This can provide a better presentation of the process flow and make the flow easy to understand and visually more appealing.
The Framework is best suited for the below types of processes-
- Transaction oriented processes
- Complex and big / lengthy processes
- Processes with various business exceptions
- Queue based transaction for auto retry.
Benefits of using this framework –
- Easy to create and modify workflows as logic code is kept separate from various components of the framework.
- Configuration/setting file is pre-defined.
- Exception handling mechanism (system & business)
- Logging mechanism once each stage is completed to keep track of processes completed and errors.
- Easy to interact with Config File and UiPath Orchestrator (Queue/Asset etc.)
- Re-initialize the applications after system errors.
- Define the number of times the failed transaction can be re-run in config as well as orchestrator queue without human intervention.
- Process can stop smoothly & gracefully in between transaction lists.
- Framework includes the ability to take a snapshot of the screen at the point where an unknow exception is encountered and send it to the process owner/developer via mail, thereby allowing the developer to see the unattended automation and troubleshoot the problem.
- Adoption of best development practices while building the workflow.
- Codes are standardized to enable easy maintenance by any other developer.
The framework includes pre-built reusable workflows that can be used in any of your automation, e.g., for taking screenshots after every system error, for setting every transaction status, logging into applications whenever required, etc.
As there’s workflow to maintain transaction status and logging at every stage, we can use this data for efficient analysis for each process.
Use Cases where we can reuse the RE framework to automate –
- Onboarding / setting up new customers or users
- Validating and processing Invoices
- Tracking and generating reports for network issues.
The customization in the Re-Framework allows you to adapt to different automation scenarios while still benefiting from its standardized structure and error-handling capabilities.
