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How to allow users to upload files for robots to use

Using the RPA.Assistant library, you can add a user interface to your robots. One of the most useful features is the possibility for the user to upload a file, which is then used by the robot in its tasks.

Example: Providing an Excel file with data to fill a form in a web application

Get the code and run this example in your favorite editor on our Portal!

When run, the robot will:

  • present a form to the user to upload an Excel file
  • open a web browser
  • log into a web application
  • fill a form in the application with the data extracted from the robot file
  • save a screenshot and exit

rpaframework version 22.0.0 or newer is recommended.
rpaframework-assistant version 2.2.2 or newer is recommended.

Run this robot as an assistant in Robocorp Assistant

Follow these instructions to upload the robot to Control Room and set up Robocorp Assistant to execute it on your local machine.

Robot script

*** Settings *** Documentation Insert the sales data for the week and export it as a PDF. ... Collects the input Excel file from the user. Library RPA.Browser.Selenium auto_close=${FALSE} Library RPA.Assistant Library RPA.Excel.Files Library RPA.HTTP Library RPA.PDF *** Tasks *** Insert the sales data for the week and export it as a PDF ${excel_file_path}= Collect Excel file from the user Open the intranet website Log in Fill the form using the data from the Excel file ${excel_file_path} Collect the results Export the table as a PDF [Teardown] Log out and close the browser *** Keywords *** Collect Excel file from the user Add heading Upload Sales Data Add file input ... label=Choose Excel file to upload ... name=fileupload ... file_type=xls,xlsx Add Submit Buttons buttons=Submit default=Submit ${response}= Run dialog height=250 RETURN ${response.fileupload}[0] Open the intranet website Open Available Browser https://robotsparebinindustries.com/ Log in Input Text username maria Input Password password thoushallnotpass Submit Form Wait Until Page Contains Element id:sales-form Fill and submit the form for one person [Arguments] ${sales_rep} Input Text firstname ${sales_rep}[First Name] Input Text lastname ${sales_rep}[Last Name] Input Text salesresult ${sales_rep}[Sales] Select From List By Value salestarget ${sales_rep}[Sales Target] Click Button Submit Fill the form using the data from the Excel file [Arguments] ${excel_file_path} Open Workbook ${excel_file_path} ${sales_reps}= Read Worksheet As Table header=True Close Workbook FOR ${sales_rep} IN @{sales_reps} Fill and submit the form for one person ${sales_rep} Wait Until Page Contains Element firstname END Collect the results Screenshot css:div.sales-summary ${OUTPUT_DIR}${/}sales_summary.png Export the table as a PDF Wait Until Element Is Visible id:sales-results ${sales_results_html}= Get Element Attribute id:sales-results outerHTML Html To Pdf ${sales_results_html} ${OUTPUT_DIR}${/}sales_results.pdf Log out and close the browser Click Button Log out Close Browser

Robot script explained

This example builds on top of the RobotSpareBin Intranet Robot Complete example, which is extensively explained in our Software Robot Developer Beginners' course, so here we will concentrate only on the RPA.Assistant specific part of the implementation.

Settings

*** Settings *** Documentation Insert the sales data for the week and export it as a PDF. ... Collects the input Excel file from the user. Library RPA.Browser.Selenium auto_close=${FALSE} Library RPA.Assistant Library RPA.Excel.Files Library RPA.HTTP Library RPA.PDF

The *** Settings *** section provides short Documentation for the script and imports libraries (Library) that add new keywords for the robot to use. In this case, we will add the RPA.Browser.Selenium library to control the web browser, the RPA.Assistant library to build the UI for the user, and the RPA.Excel.Files to read the uploaded Excel file.

Tasks

*** Tasks *** Insert the sales data for the week and export it as a PDF ${excel_file_path}= Collect Excel file from the user Open the intranet website Log in Fill the form using the data from the Excel file ${excel_file_path} Collect the results Export the table as a PDF [Teardown] Log out and close the browser
  • Insert the sales data for the week and export it as a PDF is the name of the robot's only task.
  • ${excel_file_path}= Collect Excel file from the user: We are creating a variable to hold the path of the file that we collect from the user using the Collect Excel file from the user keyword.
  • Open the intranet website: You guessed it. It opens the RobotSparebin Industries famous intranet website 🙂.
  • Log in logs the user in using the unsafely in-code stored credentials

    Friendly reminder: you should never use credentials directly in your code. See the Use a vault for secrets page for a better solution.

  • Fill the form using the data from the Excel file ${excel_file_path} uses the uploaded Excel file to fill forms on the website.
  • Collect the results takes a screenshot once the operation is completed.

Keywords

*** Keywords *** Collect Excel file from the user Add heading Upload Sales Data Add file input ... label=Choose Excel file to upload ... name=fileupload ... file_type=xls,xlsx Add Submit Buttons buttons=Submit default=Submit ${response}= Run dialog height=250 RETURN ${response.fileupload}[0]

  • The dialog is created automatically under the hood by the RPA.Assistant library. You can start adding inputs without creating the dialog implicitly.

  • We set a heading for the dialog (Add heading).

  • We add a new file input field to our form (Add file input) setting the label, the name and the allowed file types that the input should accept. In our case, we will accept only .xls and .xlsx files.

  • We add a submit button (Add submit buttons) to press once the file was correctly selected.

  • The Run dialog keyword allows us to show the dialog to the user, and to assign the values that the user will enter into the dialog into the result object ${response}, which will contain a property with the name that we assigned to our dialog field (fileupload).

The user can potentially upload more than one file to this field at a time. We are, however, interested only in the first one that is uploaded, so we return ${response.fileupload}[0] from our keyword.

File upload dialog

Last edit: May 17, 2023