Robotic Process Automation (RPA)

Use Cases:

• Organization –
• Employee On-Boarding
• Invoice Auto Scan, Data Correction & Bug-Free Processing
• Auto Emails/Reminder at Set Time
• Health Care – Appointments thru Phone Bot, Patient’s Data Entry, Claims to Process, Billing, etc.
• Retail: Receiving Orders, Sending Notifications, Shipping Products, Tracking Shipments, etc.
• Banking: Uses RPA for more efficiency in work, for accuracy in data, and for the security of data.
• Credit Card Fraud Detection System – This will auto lock your card in case your card is accesses from unknown location defined by you, unusual amount of Transaction, wrong PIN entered thrice etc.
• Loan Initiation - Scan Given Information, Input Data, Validating Key Information and Process Further
• Running Defined Business Rules Based on Input
• Insurance: Insurance companies use RPA for managing the work processes, entering customer’s data, and for applications.
• Manufacturing: For the manufacturing industry, RPA tools help in Supply Chain procedures. It helps with the billing of Materials, Administration, Customer services & support, Reporting, Data migration, etc.
• Others
• Email Processing – E.g. Send Email With Subject ‘iPhone’. RPA System will read this Subject, Search all about ‘iPhone’ and sends details you as another Email.

Advantages:

• Reduced Cost
• High Operational Efficiency
• High Speed
• Zero or Reduced Error
• High Consistency
• Reduced Risk

Types of Robotic Process Automation

1. Attended automation: These tools will require human intervention while performing automation processes.
2. Unattended automation: These tools are intelligent and have decision-making capabilities.
3. Hybrid RPA: These tools will have combined capabilities of both attended and unattended automation tools.

Top Tools Used: https://www.softwaretestinghelp.com/robotic-process-automation-tools/

1. Blueprism
2. UI Path
3. Automation Anywhere
4. Pega

Few More:

1. Inflectra Rapise
2. Nice Systems
3. Kofax
4. Kryon
5. Softomotive
6. Visual Cron

Features	Blue Prism	Uipath	Automation Anywhere	Pega
Best suited for Industry type	Core RPA Capabilities	Core RPA Capabilities	Core RPA Capabilities	BPM
Is recorder available?	No.	Yes	Yes	---
Platform independence	Supports any platform.	Yes. Supports Citrix.	Yes. On-premise and in the cloud.	Desktop Servers
User-friendliness	Yes. Developers	Yes. Even for non-developers	Yes. For anyone.	Yes. It supports low-code development.
Cost	$ 15k -18k Annual	Free	Contact them for pricing details.	Start from $ 200/month
Scalability	--	Can handle any process, in any number irrespective of its complexity	Yes. Scalable.	Scalable to Enterprise level.
Architecture	Client Server Architecture	Web Based Architecture	Client Server Architecture	It runs on desktop/server. No database required.
OS Support	Windows Mac Web-based	Windows Mac Web-based	Windows Mac Web-based	Windows Linux Mac Web-based
Security	Security provided for network and software credentials	Provides security by managing credentials, providing encryption and access controls based on the role.	Provides Bank-grade security. Provides security through authentication, encryption, and credentials.

Hope this helps!!

Arun Manglick

Web API Routing Ways

Creating a Sample Web API

Here depending on the HTTP method (GET, POST, etc.) the appropriate Web API action method is invoked.     

namespace WebAPICustomNamesDemo.Controllers

{

    public class CustomerController : ApiController

    {

        NorthwindEntities db = new NorthwindEntities();

        public IEnumerable Get()

        {

            var data = from c in db.Customers

                       orderby c.CustomerID

                       select c;

            return data.ToList();

        }

        public Customer Get(string id)

        {

            var data = from c in db.Customers

                       where c.CustomerID==id

                       select c;

            return data.SingleOrDefault();

        }

               }

}

----------------------------------------------------------

//select all
var options = {};
options.url = "/api/customer";
options.type = "GET";
options.contentType = "application/json";
$.ajax(options);

Notice that the above code uses URL as /api/customer.

                     

--------------------------------------------------------

Specifying Action Name Using [ActionName] Attribute:

Above shows, depending on the HTTP method, Web API framework automatically invokes the appropriate action method.

However, if you wish, you can configure the default routing mechanism to explicitly include the action method name.

namespace WebAPICustomNamesDemo.Controllers

{

    public class CustomerController : ApiController

    {

        NorthwindEntities db = new NorthwindEntities();

        [ActionName("SelectAll")]

        public IEnumerable Get()

        {

                  ...

        }

        [ActionName("SelectByID")]

        public Customer Get(string id)

        {

                  ...

        }

               }

}

//select all
var options = {};
options.url = "/api/customer/SelectAll";
options.type = "GET";
options.contentType = "application/json";
$.ajax(options);

-------------------------------------------------------------------

Creating Action Methods by Prefixing Them with HTTP Method:

However, these generic names may not convey the intended purpose of the respective method and you may want to make then more readable.

Luckily, there is a way to customize them without any additional configuration.

Web API framework will invoke the appropriate action method as long as your action method names begin with the HTTP method.

For example, instead of Get() method you can use GetCustomers() to serve the GET requests.

namespace WebAPICustomNamesDemo.Controllers

{

    public class CustomerController : ApiController

    {

        NorthwindEntities db = new NorthwindEntities();

        public IEnumerable GetCustomers()

        {

                  ...

        }

        public Customer GetCustomerByID(string id)

        {

                  ...

        }

    }

}

//select all
var options = {};
options.url = "/api/customer";
options.type = "GET";
options.contentType = "application/json";
$.ajax(options);

---------------------------------------------------------------

Using Attributes to Specify HTTP Method and Action Method Mapping:

You can change the Web API action method names to anything you want and use certain attributes to map them with the HTTP methods. This technique gives you total control on the action method names.

The attributes that you use are [HttpGet], [HttpPost], [HttpPut] and [HttpDelete].

As you might have guessed, these attributes correspond to GET, POST, PUT and DELETE HTTP methods.

The following code shows how to use these attributes:

namespace WebAPICustomNamesDemo.Controllers

{

    public class Customer3Controller : ApiController

    {

        NorthwindEntities db = new NorthwindEntities();

        [HttpGet]

        public IEnumerable SelectAllCustomers()

        {

                  ...

        }

        [HttpGet]

        public Customer SelectCustomerByID(string id)

        {

                  ...

        }

               }

}

//select all
var options = {};
options.url = "/api/customer";
options.type = "GET";
options.contentType = "application/json";
$.ajax(options);

---------------------------------------------------------------

Using Attribute Routing:

With attribute routing the controller name and action names play no role in which action is selected.

The Route attribute can be applied on any controller or action method.

This example would be executed for any of the following URL paths:

·        /Home/Index/17

·        /Home/Index

·        /Home

·        /

public class MyDemoController : Controller

{

   [Route("")]

   [Route("Home")]

   [Route("Home/Index")]

   public IActionResult MyIndex()

   {

      return View("Index");

   }

   [Route("Home/About")]

   public IActionResult MyAbout()

   {

      return View("About");

   }

   [Route("Home/Contact")]

   public IActionResult MyContact()

   {

      return View("Contact");

   }

}

One more example:

public class StudentController : ApiController

{

    [Route("api/student/names")]

    public IEnumerable<string> Get()

    {

        return new string[] { "student1", "student2" };

    }

}

In the above example, the Route attribute defines new route "api/student/names" which will be handled by the Get() action method of StudentController.

Thus, an HTTP GET request http://localhost:1234/api/student/names  will return list of student names.

Ref: https://www.codeguru.com/csharp/.net/using-custom-action-names-in-asp.net-web-api.htm

Ref: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/aspnet/core/mvc/controllers/routing?view=aspnetcore-3.1

Ref: https://www.tutorialsteacher.com/webapi/web-api-routing

Hope this helps!!

Arun Manglick