Different Activities and the differences between them – in UiPath

Close window vs Kill process:

Example for close window:

Input:

Take a notepad which contains data already. Add some text to it and leave it without saving.

Output:

It will not force close. The notepad will be saved with changes made.

Example for kill process:

Take the example of notepad. Please check for process name from the Task manager- Details tab

Input:

Output:

This will terminate the process immediately without saving your changes.

Flow Decision Vs Flow Switch:

Flow decision and switch must be used inside flowchart.

Example for Flow Decision:

Has two branches. Based on the condition the flow either goes to True or False.

In the below example, I am using an array which contains fruit names.

Example for Flow Switch:

Has more than three branches. Based on condition the flow goes to a branch.

In the below example, I am using an array which contains different RPA tool names. Flow switch condition:

Output:

Pick vs Parallel activity:

Example Pick branch:

A Pick activity contains a collection of PickBranch activities. PickBranch is a pairing between a Trigger activity and an Action activity. When using Pick, the branch that executes is the branch whose trigger completes first.

In below example, amazon website gets opened first and then myntra and action for first pick branch executes.

Example Parallel activity:

An activity that executes all child activities simultaneously and asynchronously.

In the below example, there are two child branches. First child opens the amazon site and click on computers and second child opens notepad and types text into notepad.

On Element appear, Find Element, Element exists:

Example for on element appear:

A container that waits for a UI element to appear and enables you to perform multiple actions within it.

We have three important properties to check before working with this activity:

Repeat forever -must be set to false (if set to true, it will continuously check for element)

Wait visible- waits for the element to be visible

Wait active- waits for the element to be active

In below example, Once the page loads and if the element appears it clicks on it.

Example for Find element:

Waits for the specified UI element to appear on the screen and returns it as a UiElement variable.

We have two properties to check before working with this activity

Wait visible- waits for the element to be visible

Wait active- waits for the element to be active

Example for Element exists:

Enables you to verify if a UI element exists, even if it is not visible.

Excel vs Workbook activities:

Activities must be enclosed in excel application scope	No Scope to hold activities
Excel must be installed to use excel app scope	Even if excel is not installed workbook activities work
Can run macros	Cannot run macros
Excel can be kept open at the time of execution	Excel must be closed at the time of execution

Add queue item, add transaction item and Bulk add queue items:

Add queue Item:

Adds a new item to the queue. Status is new when the item is added. You need to provide “QueueName” additionally you can set deadline(date before the item must process) and postpone(date after which the item must be processed), priority(Normal, Low, High) and add reference which can be later used for checking status of a transaction item in orchestrator easily.

Add Transaction Item:

Adds a new item to the queue, sets the status to in-progress, starts the transaction and returns a queue item.

Bulk add queue items:

Adds a collection of items from datatable to queue. Item status is new once added. Cannot add reference to queue item.

Commit Type-

AllorNothing(if there are any errors while adding the any item to the queue, then no item will be added to the queue and return rows which caused error)

ProcessAllIndependently (each item is added independently and returns a list of items that caused error)

Output is Datatable which contains rows that caused errors.

Sequence vs Flowchart vs State machine:

Sequence contains an ordered collection of child activities that it executes in order.

Flowchart specifies a unique StartNode that is executed when the workflow starts and uses a network of linked Node to create arbitrary loops or to divert the flow of execution to anywhere else in the workflow at any given time.

State Machine consists of a finite number of states. Based on the current state and a given input the machine performs state transitions and produces outputs. It has a StartNode from which the workflow starts and moves onto different states.

The main components of a state machine are state, final state and transition.

State has entry, exit and transition(has a trigger, condition and action)

Final state has only entry since the flow terminates at this state.

We hope you enjoyed the article!!

You can connect with Kishori Afzulpurkar, she is always happy to help. 🙂

Thank you!!