Inter-session automation for robotic process automation (RPA) robots

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-11818223-B2
Application number	US-202217583044-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Jan 24, 2022
Priority date	Feb 18, 2020
Publication date	Nov 14, 2023
Grant date	Nov 14, 2023

Abstract

Inter-session automation for RPA is disclosed. A robot or another application or process running in the user session may interact with an application, but one or more attended RPA robots in one or more child sessions perform operations and fetch data that the user session robot will then use to interact with the application in the user session. Attended RPA robots in client sessions may share data through an IPC protocol, by storing data in a persistent data store, such as a spreadsheet, an object-oriented database, a plain text file, another data store or file, etc. The user session robot or another application or process running in the parent session can then read this information and respond accordingly.

First claim

The invention claimed is:

1. A computer-implemented method, comprising:
launching a user process;
launching a first robotic process automation (RPA) robot in a first session;
executing a workflow of the first RPA robot in the first session, by the first RPA robot;
making results of the execution of the workflow of the first RPA robot available to the user process, by the first RPA robot; and
interacting with a user application using the results of the execution of the workflow of the first RPA robot, by the user process, wherein
the user process performs other tasks while waiting for the first RPA robot to complete the execution of the workflow of the first RPA robot.

2. The computer-implemented method of claim 1 , wherein
the interaction with the user application comprises entering information into a form, and
the results of the execution of the RPA workflow comprise data used by the user process to enter the information into the form.

3. The computer-implemented method of claim 1 , wherein the user process comprises an RPA robot.

4. The computer-implemented method of claim 1 , wherein the first RPA robot is visible in a window associated with the first session.

5. The computer-implemented method of claim 1 , wherein the first RPA robot is not visible.

6. The computer-implemented method of claim 1 , wherein the user process waits for the first RPA robot to complete the execution of the workflow of the first RPA robot.

7. The computer-implemented method of claim 1 , further comprising:
launching a second RPA robot in the first session or a second session;
executing a workflow of the second RPA robot in the first session or the second session, by the second RPA robot; and
making results of the execution of the workflow of the second RPA robot available to the user process, by the second RPA robot.

8. The computer-implemented method of claim 1 , wherein the first session and the first RPA robot are launched by the user process.

9. The computer-implemented method of claim 1 , further comprising:
automatically closing the first RPA robot and the first session after the first RPA robot completes execution of the workflow of the first RPA robot.

10. The computer-implemented method of claim 1 , wherein
the user process comprises a user process RPA robot, and
the user process RPA robot and the first RPA robot collectively complete execution of a larger workflow that includes the workflow of the first RPA robot.

11. The computer-implemented method of claim 1 , wherein the user process is not directly accessible by the first RPA robot.

12. A computer-implemented method, comprising:
executing a workflow of a first robotic process automation (RPA) robot in a session, by the first RPA robot;
making results of the execution of the workflow of the first RPA robot available to a user process RPA robot, by the first RPA robot; and
interacting with an application on a computing system using the results of the execution of the workflow of the first RPA robot, by the user process RPA robot, wherein
the user process RPA robot performs other tasks while waiting for the first RPA robot to complete the execution of the workflow of the first RPA robot.

13. The computer-implemented method of claim 12 , wherein
the interaction with the application on the computing system comprises entering information into a form, and
the results of the execution of the RPA workflow comprise data used by the user process RPA robot to enter the information into the form.

14. The computer-implemented method of claim 12 , wherein the user process RPA robot performs other tasks while waiting for the first RPA robot to complete the execution of the workflow of the first RPA robot.

15. The computer-implemented method of claim 12 , further comprising:
commanding the first RPA robot to execute the workflow of the first RPA robot via Inter-Process Communication (IPC), by the user process RPA robot; and
receiving the results of the execution of the workflow of the first RPA robot, by the user process RPA robot.

16. The computer-implemented method of claim 12 , wherein the user process RPA robot and the first RPA robot collectively complete execution of a larger workflow that includes the workflow of the first RPA robot.

17. The computer-implemented method of claim 12 , wherein at least one process accessible by the user process RPA robot is not directly accessible by the first RPA robot.

18. A computer-implemented method, comprising:
executing a workflow of a first robotic process automation (RPA) robot in a client session, by the first RPA robot;
making results of the execution of the workflow of the first RPA robot available to a user process RPA robot, by the first RPA robot; and
interacting with an application on a computing system using the results of the execution of the workflow of the first RPA robot, by the user process RPA robot, wherein
the user process RPA robot and the first RPA robot collectively complete execution of a larger workflow that includes the workflow of the first RPA robot, wherein
the user process RPA robot performs other tasks while waiting for the first RPA robot to complete the execution of the workflow of the first RPA robot.

19. The computer-implemented method of claim 18 , further comprising:
commanding the first RPA robot to execute the workflow of the first RPA robot via Inter-Process Communication (IPC), by the user process RPA robot; and
receiving the results of the execution of the workflow of the first RPA robot, by the user process RPA robot.

20. The computer-implemented method of claim 18 , wherein
the interaction with the application comprises entering information into a form, and
the results of the execution of the RPA workflow comprise data used by the user process RPA robot to enter the information into the form.

21. The computer-implemented method of claim 18 , wherein at least one process accessible by the user process RPA robot is not directly accessible by the first RPA robot.

Assignees

• Uipath Inc

Inventors

• Hall Andrew
• Tai Alison

Classifications

• H04L67/133

  Protocols for remote procedure calls [RPC] · CPC title

• H04L67/146 Primary

  Markers for unambiguous identification of a particular session, e.g. session cookie or URL-encoding · CPC title

• H04L67/12 Primary

  specially adapted for proprietary or special-purpose networking environments, e.g. medical networks, sensor networks, networks in vehicles or remote metering networks · CPC title

• H04L67/01

  Protocols · CPC title

• H04L67/02

  based on web technology, e.g. hypertext transfer protocol [HTTP] · CPC title