Robot access control and governance for robotic process automation

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-2022011732-A1
Application number	US-202016924499-A
Country	US
Kind code	A1
Filing date	Jul 9, 2020
Priority date	Jul 9, 2020
Publication date	Jan 13, 2022
Grant date	—

Abstract

Robot access control and governance for robotic process automation (RPA) is disclosed. A code analyzer of an RPA designer application, such as a workflow analyzer, may read access control and governance policy rules for an RPA designer application and analyze activities of an RPA workflow of the RPA designer application against the access control and governance policy rules. When one or more analyzed activities of the RPA workflow violate the access control and governance policy rules, the code analyzer prevents generation of an RPA robot or publication of the RPA workflow until the RPA workflow satisfies the access control and governance policy rules. When the analyzed activities of the RPA workflow comply with all required access control and governance policy rules, the RPA designer application may generate an RPA robot implementing the RPA workflow or publish the RPA workflow.

First claim

1 . A computer program for performing robot access control and governance for robotic process automation (RPA) embodied on a non-transitory computer-readable medium, the computer program configured to cause at least one processor to:
read access control and governance policy rules for an RPA designer application; analyze activities of an RPA workflow of the RPA designer application against the access control and governance policy rules; when one or more analyzed activities of the RPA workflow violate the access control and governance policy rules, prevent generation of an RPA robot or publication of the RPA workflow until the RPA workflow satisfies the access control and governance policy rules; and when the analyzed activities of the RPA workflow comply with all required access control and governance policy rules, generate an RPA robot implementing the RPA workflow or publish the RPA workflow.

2 . The computer program of claim 1 , wherein the analysis of the activities of the RPA workflow comprises verifying whether one or more libraries to be accessed in an RPA workflow activity are included in a whitelist or not included in a blacklist.

3 . The computer program of claim 1 , wherein the computer program is further configured to cause the at least one processor to:
determine a link to a file comprising the access control and governance policy rules from a registry entry of a computing system and download the file using the determined link; or download the governance policy rules from a conductor application.

4 . The computer program of claim 1 , wherein the access control and governance policy rules comprise controls on which applications and/or universal resource locators (URLs) may and/or may not be automated, controls on what activities may and/or may not be used in the RPA workflow, controls on what packages may and/or may not be used for the RPA workflow, or a combination thereof.

5 . The computer program of claim 1 , wherein the access control and governance policy rules are enforced at design time.

6 . The computer program of claim 1 , wherein the access control and governance policy rules are defined for the RPA designer application based on an organization, a role, a group, an individual developer, or a combination thereof.

7 . The computer program of claim 1 , wherein the access control and governance policy rules cannot be modified by a user of the RPA designer application as enforced by an operating system of a computing system on which the RPA designer application is executed.

8 . The computer program of claim 1 , wherein the access control and governance policy rules are implemented via an installation script for the RPA designer application.

9 . The computer program of claim 1 , wherein the computer program is further configured to cause the at least one processor to:
display a package management interface comprising packages that may be accessed by the activities of the RPA workflow; and prevent a user of the RPA designer application from modifying the permitted packages or adding new packages that are not permitted based on the access control and governance policy rules.

10 . The computer program of claim 1 , wherein the computer program is further configured to cause the at least one processor to:
display a code analyzer settings interface that lists the access control and governance policy rules; and prevent a user of the RPA designer application from modifying the access control and governance policy rules.

11 . The computer program of claim 1 , wherein the access control and governance policy rules comprise one or more application and/or universal resource locator (URL) restrictions, one or more package restrictions, one or more activity restrictions, one or more activity property requirements, or a combination thereof.

12 . A computer-implemented method for performing robot access control and governance for robotic process automation (RPA), comprising:
analyzing activities of an RPA workflow of an RPA designer application against access control and governance policy rules, by a code analyzer; and when one or more analyzed activities of the RPA workflow violate the access control and governance policy rules, preventing generation of an RPA robot or publication of the RPA workflow until the RPA workflow satisfies the access control and governance policy rules, by the code analyzer.

13 . The computer-implemented method of claim 12 , further comprising:
when the analyzed activities of the RPA workflow comply with all required access control and governance policy rules, generating an RPA robot implementing the RPA workflow or publish the RPA workflow, by the RPA designer application.

14 . The computer-implemented method of claim 12 , further comprising:
determining a link to a file comprising the access control and governance policy rules from a registry entry of a computing system, by the RPA designer application and downloading the file using the determined link, by the RPA designer application; or downloading the governance policy rules from a conductor application, by the RPA designer application.

15 . The computer-implemented method of claim 12 , wherein the access control and governance policy rules comprise controls on which applications and/or universal resource locators (URLs) may and/or may not be automated, controls on what activities may and/or may not be used in the RPA workflow, controls on what packages may and/or may not be used for the RPA workflow, or a combination thereof.

16 . The computer-implemented method of claim 12 , wherein the access control and governance policy rules cannot be modified by a user of the RPA designer application as enforced by an operating system of a computing system on which the RPA designer application is executed.

17 . The computer-implemented method of claim 12 , further comprising:
displaying a package management interface comprising packages that may be accessed by the activities of the RPA workflow, by the RPA designer application; and preventing a user of the RPA designer application from modifying the permitted packages or adding new packages that are not permitted based on the access control and governance policy rules, by the RPA designer application.

18 . The computer-implemented method of claim 12 , further comprising:
displaying a code analyzer settings interface that lists the access control and governance policy rules, by the designer application; and preventing a user of the RPA designer application from modifying the access control and governance policy rules, by the RPA designer application.

19 . The computer-implemented method of claim 12 , wherein the access control and governance policy rules comprise one or more application and/or universal resource locator (URL) restrictions, one or more package restrictions, one or more activity restrictions, one or more activity property requirements, or a combination thereof.

20 . A computer program for performing robot access control and governance for robotic process automation (RPA) embodied on a non-transitory computer-readable medium, the computer program configured to cause at least one processor to:
determine a link to a file comprising access control and governance policy rules from a registry entry of a computing system and download the file using the determined link, or download the governance policy rules from a conductor application; read the access control and governance policy rules for an RPA designer application from the downloaded fil

Assignees

• Uipath Inc

Inventors

• Hall Andrew

Classifications

• G06F21/6218 Primary

  to a system of files or objects, e.g. local or distributed file system or database · CPC title

• G05B2219/39059

  Sensor adaptation for robots by software · CPC title

• G05B19/0426 Primary

  Programming the control sequence · CPC title