Robotic Process Automation

Generate Yearly Report

Process Definition Document (PDD)

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Generate Yearly Report – ACME Systems Inc. – Process Definition Document
 Document History

Date Version Role Name Organizatio Function Comments

n

1.0 Author Jane Doe UiPath Business Initial PDD

Analyst

1.1 Author John Doe UiPath Solution Revised PDD based on

Architect latest process updates

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Generate Yearly Report – ACME Systems Inc. – Process Definition Document
Contents
1. Introduction 4
1.1 Purpose of the document 4
1.2 Objectives 4
1.3 Process key contacts – Team Charter 4
1.4 Pre-requisites for automation 5
2. As IS process description 6
2.1 Process Overview 6
2.2 Applications used in the process 7
2.3 Process Walk-Through recordings 7
2.4 High Level AS IS 8
2.5 Low Level As IS 8
2.6 Detailed AS IS Process Steps 8
3. Solution 8
3.1 Detailed Process Map 8
3.2 Design Details 8
3.2.1 System Interface 8
3.2.2 RPA Module Level Design 8
3.3 Detailed Solution Design 9
3.4 Reporting 9
4. Scope 10
4.1 In Scope for RPA 10
4.2 Out of Scope for RPA 10
4.3 Business Exceptions Handling 10
4.3.1. Known Exceptions 11
4.3.2. Unknown Exceptions 12
4.4 Application Error and Exception Handling 12
4.4.1. Known Errors or Exceptions 13
4.4.2. Unknown Errors and Exceptions 15
5. User Acceptance Test Scenarios 15
6. Other Requirements and Observations 15
6.1 Additional sources of process documentation 15
6.2 Change/Improvement details 16
7. Document Approval 16
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Generate Yearly Report – ACME Systems Inc. – Process Definition Document
 1. Introduction

1.1 Purpose of the document

The Process Definition Document outlines the business process chosen for automation using UiPath
Robotic Process Automation (RPA) technology.

The document describes the sequence of steps performed as part of the Generate Yearly Report
process, the conditions, and rules of the process prior to automation and how they are envisioned to
work after automating it, partly or entirely. This specifications document serves as a base for
developers, providing them the details required for applying robotic automation to the selected
business process.

1.2 Objectives
The business objectives and benefits expected by the Business Process Owner after automation of
the selected business process are:

➢ Deliver faster processing.

➢ Reduce processing time per item.
➢ Leverage automation to improve the overall performance and reliability of the department.

The process that has been selected for RPA is part of the larger Reporting process conducted within
the Finance and Accounting department.

1.3 Process key contacts – Team Charter

The specifications document includes concise and complete requirements of the business process
and it is built based on the inputs provided by the process Subject Matter Expert (SME)/ Process
Owner.

The Process Owner is expected to review it and provide signoff for accuracy and completion of the
steps, context, impact and complete set of process exceptions.

The names have to be included in the table below.

Role Name Contact details Notes Backup

Person
(email, phone)

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Generate Yearly Report – ACME Systems Inc. – Process Definition Document
Process SME / Point of contact for questions
Process related to process details &
exceptions
reviewer
Process Point of contact for questions
Reviewer related to process details &
exceptions

Process Escalations, Delays etc.

Owner/
Approver for
production

Business Analyzes the process, collects

Analyst and documents the step by step
requirements for automation.
Develops process maps used for
automation.

Technical Evaluates the process, break it

Solution down intro projects and assigns
Architect to the team. Owner of the
technical solution, reusable
components. In charge of
defining the Architecture of the
RPA development solution.
Guardian of the end to end
performance of the agreed
solution.

RPA Developer Specialized developer, automates

and tests the business process
based on the requirements
provided by business. Documents
the details of the automated
process with DSD

Project Validates with the project team

Manager all the basic requirements and
limitations for the RPA
deployment

1.4 Assumptions
<Here mostly we specify which are the assumptions that we start from>

For example, if the automation relies on a construction of an API, by the customer’s team we can
suppose the following

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Generate Yearly Report – ACME Systems Inc. – Process Definition Document
 - The API is created by the <TeamName> and available to the UiPath team during the
development period, with at least 7 working days overlapping period between the API
availability and development period
- The information of the API requests is provided by the <TeamName> to the UiPath team,
including but not only: endpoint, body, request format or authentication, status code

1.5 Pre-requisites for automation

1. Filled in Process Definition Document.

2. Test Data to support development to cover all the described automation branches.
3. User access and user accounts creations (licenses, permissions, restrictions to create
accounts for robots).
4. Credentials (user ID and password) required to logon to machines and applications.
5. Dependencies with other projects on the same environment.

2. As IS process description

2.1 Process Overview

General information about the process selected for RPA prior to automation.

# Item Description

1 Process full name Generate Yearly Report

2 Process Area Reporting

3 Department Finance and Accounting

4 Process short description Download all the monthly reports for a specific vendor and
generate a yearly report.
(operation, activity,
outcome)

5 Role(s) required for System 1 User

performing the process

6 Process schedule and Yearly, in mid-January

frequency

7 # of items processes 7-5 vendors

/month

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Generate Yearly Report – ACME Systems Inc. – Process Definition Document
8 Average handling time 15 min/vendor
per item

9 Peak period (s) -

10 Transaction Volume -
During Peak period

11 Total # of FTEs supporting 12 1

this activity

12 Expected increase of -
volume in the next
reference period

13 Level of exception rate Between 1 and 3 monthly reports for each vendor could be
missing. Those months are to be ignored.

12 Input data Vendor Tax ID

13 Output data Yearly report – excel file:

- See section 3.5 Reporting

*Add more table rows if necessary to include relevant data for the automation process. No fields should be left empty. Use “n/a” for the
items that don`t apply to the selected business process.

2.2 Applications used in the process

The table includes a comprehensive list all the applications that are used as part of the process
automated, at various steps in the flow.
# Application System Thin/ Version Interface Environment/ Comments
name & version Thick
Languag Access method (Include URLs)
client
e

1 IE En Thick To Web Foreground

Client complete

2 ACME System En Thick To Web Foreground

1 Client complete

3 Excel En Thick To Client Background

Client complete
*Add more table rows to include the complete list of applications.

2.3 Process Walk-Through recordings

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Generate Yearly Report – ACME Systems Inc. – Process Definition Document
The link(s) for the video recording(s) of the performed walk-through of the process should be added
in here.
Recording Description Path Date Last Updated

Recording of the process Recordings can be found in the link

provided below:

Other relevant documents

received from SME (payment
notification, Excel Tracker, etc).

2.4 High Level AS IS

High Level As-Is Process Map:
This chapter depicts the As Is business process at a High Level to enable developers to
have a high-level understanding of the current process.

2.5 Low Level As IS

This chapter depicts the As-Is business process in a Low-Level approach to enable developers to have
a deeper understanding of the current process.

Step Description
1.1 Open the ACME System 1 Web Application.
1.2 Log in to System 1. Required input data: email and password.
1.3 Access the Dashboard - the central location, where the user can pick a specific menu item.
1.4 Access the Work Items listing to view all the available tasks to be performed (Output data: list
of tasks).
1.5 For each activity of type WI4, perform the following steps:
1.5.a Open the Details page of the selected activity to retrieve the Vendor Tax ID (Output data: Tax
ID).
1.5.b Go back to the Dashboard and access the Download Monthly Report section in the Reports
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Generate Yearly Report – ACME Systems Inc. – Process Definition Document
 menu.
1.5.c Fill in the Vendor Tax ID and download all the monthly reports for previous year
1.5.d Group the downloaded monthly reports into a single Excel file with the naming convention
“Yearly-Report-[Year]-[Tax ID].xlsx”.
1.5.e Upload the resulting yearly report file in the “Upload Yearly Report” section in the Reports
menu.
1.5.f Fill in the Vendor Tax ID, set the year, and select the file on your hard drive. This will return a
unique upload ID. Output: Upload ID.
1.5.g Go back to the Work Item Details page and select Update Work Item.
1.5.h Set the status to “Completed”. Add the following comment: “Uploaded with ID [Upload ID]”.
1.6 Continue with the next WI4 Activity.

2.6 Detailed AS IS Process Steps

See doc embedded.

ACME System 1 -
Step by Step.docx

3. Solution

3.1 Detailed Process Map

3.2 Design Details

3.2.1 System Interface

Due to the fact that the applications used in this process could be Shared by multiple processes, a
library with reusable components will be created for the UI Interactions with each one of the
applications. The best practices, naming conventions, etc. for creating such a library can be found
here:

We should create one library for each one of the applications. See the Solution Design Table for
more details.

3.2.2 RPA Module Level Design

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Generate Yearly Report – ACME Systems Inc. – Process Definition Document
A high-level overview of the code structure of the process meant to help the developers.

Module Description Input Output

Dispatcher This process will run <to complete>:

Process Init:
 Open website
 Login ACME
GetSetTransactionData:
 N/A
Process:
 Retrieve all activities of type WI4 and add
them to the queue
End State:
 Close ACME
Performer This process will run <to complete>:
Process Init:
 Open website
 Login ACME

GetSetTransactionData:
 Get from the queue a transaction item with
all the required information for WI4
Process:
 Retrieve Vendor Tax ID
 Download monthly reports
 Merge monthly reports into a yearly report
 Upload yearly report
 Update item
End State:
 Close ACME

3.3 Detailed Solution Design

A detailed explanation of the main workflows that need to be developed for this automation.
Information mostly destined to the RPA Developer:

Acme4 Solution
Design.xlsx

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Generate Yearly Report – ACME Systems Inc. – Process Definition Document
 3.4 Reporting

The robot will rely for reporting onto the Orchestrator logs.

4. Scope
4.1 In Scope for RPA
All steps (1-5.12) are in scope of RPA
4.2 Out of Scope for RPA
There are no steps which are not in scope for RPA.

4.3 Business Exceptions Handling

The Business Process Owner and Business Analysts are expected to document below all the business
exceptions identified in the automation process. These can be classified as:

Known Unknown

Previously encountered. A scenario is New situation never encountered before.

defined with clear actions and
workarounds for each case.
It can be caused by external factors.
Cannot be predicted with precision,
however if it occurs, it must be
communicated to an authorized person
for evaluation.

4.3.1. Known Exceptions

The table below reflects all the business process exceptions captured during the process evaluation
and documentation. These are known exceptions, met in practice before. For each of these
exceptions, define a corresponding expected action that the robot should complete if it encounters
the exception.

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Generate Yearly Report – ACME Systems Inc. – Process Definition Document
 No Exception name Step Action to be taken

Send email to exceptions@acmetest.com

1 Can not login to ACME with subject: “..”
“Hello,
The username or the email is incorrect. Please check
and restart
Thank you”

No activity of type WI4 exists Stop process

2
.

4.3.2. Unknown Exceptions

For all the other unanticipated or unknown business (process) exceptions, the robot should:

Send an email to exceptions@acme-test.com with the following:

Subject: Unknown Business Rule Exception
Body:
“Hello,
The following business rule exception has appeared: {Error body}. Please check!
Thanks”

4.4 Application Error and Exception Handling

A comprehensive list of all errors, warnings or notifications should be consolidated here with the
description and action to be taken, for each, by the Robot.

For known and unknown application exceptions, an email will be sent to the predefined distribution
list. This email will be having the following template (also do see an example):

Errors identified in the automation process can be classified as:

Area Known Unknown

Technology/ Experienced previously, action plan New situation never encountered before
or workaround available for it. or may happened independent of the
Applications
applications used in the process.

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Generate Yearly Report – ACME Systems Inc. – Process Definition Document
 4.4.1. Known Errors or Exceptions
The table below reflects all the errors identifiable in the process evaluation and documentation.

For each of these errors or exceptions, the robot will retry the transaction for a maximum of 3
times before performing the corresponding action.

A Error name Step Actions to be taken

E
#

Send email to exceptions@acmetest.com

1 No reports available
for a specific Tax ID “Hello,
for any months Can not download reports for tax id {TaxID}.
Thank you”
Send email to exceptions@acmetest.com
2 Upload yearly report
“Hello,
Can not upload reports for tax id {TaxID}.
Thank you”

For other general purposes, the following template can be used:

4.4.2. Unknown Errors and Exceptions

For all the other unanticipated or unknown application exceptions/errors, the robot should:
Send an email to exceptions@acme-test.com with the following:
Subject: Unknown System Exception
Body:
“Hello,
The following system exception has appeared: {Error body}. Please check!
Thanks”

5. User Acceptance Test Scenarios

6. Other Requirements and Observations

6.1 Additional sources of process documentation

If there is additional material created to support the process automation please mention it here,
along with the supported documentation provided.
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Generate Yearly Report – ACME Systems Inc. – Process Definition Document
 Additional Process Documentation
Video Recording of the process Insert any relevant comments
[Optional]
Process Steps Details Insert any relevant comments
Process Detail Map Insert any relevant comments
Other documentation Insert any relevant comments
(Optional)
Email templates
Site mapping IDs

6.2 Change/Improvement details

Use this section to detail the list the change or improvement opportunity in the To-Be Process.

Important aspects to be mentioned: what is the initiative, expected outcome, expected completion
date, contact person for details, and if will impact the current automation request.

# Initiative name and Expected Process Step(s) Does it impact the current Expected Contact
Outcome/Benefits where it is automation request? How? completion date person for
identified more
details

7. Document Approval
This document requires serial approval (sign off) from the roles defined in the table below.
Changes to the requirements must be documented in an updated version (i.e. v 2.0) and requires a
new signature flow.

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Generate Yearly Report – ACME Systems Inc. – Process Definition Document
Version Flow Role Name Organization Approval
Date:
(Dept.)

1.0 Document Business Jane Doe UiPath

prepared by Analyst

1.0 Solution prepared Technical John Doe UiPath

by Solution
Architect

1.0 Document Process

Approved by: Owner

1.0 Document Developer UiPath

Approved by:

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Generate Yearly Report – ACME Systems Inc. – Process Definition Document