How to allow users to upload files for robots to use
Using the RPA.Dialogs 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
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
rpaframeworkversion14.1.1or 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.Dialogs
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 ${excel_file_path}
Collect the results
Export the table as a PDF
[Teardown] Log out and close the browser
*** Keywords ***
Collect Excel file from the user
Add heading Upload Excel File
Add file input
... label=Upload the Excel file with sales data
... name=fileupload
... file_type=Excel files (*.xls;*.xlsx)
... destination=${OUTPUT_DIR}
${response}= Run dialog
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}
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.Dialogs 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.Dialogs
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.Dialogs 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 ${excel_file_path}
Collect the results
Export the table as a PDF
[Teardown] Log out and close the browser
Insert the sales data for the week and export it as a PDFis the name of the robot's only task.${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 theCollect Excel file from the userkeyword.Open the intranet website: You guessed it. It opens the RobotSparebin Industries famous intranet website 🙂.Log inlogs the user in using the unsafely in-code stored credentialsFriendly 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 ${excel_file_path}uses the uploaded Excel file to fill forms on the website.Collect the resultstakes a screenshot once the operation is completed.
Keywords
*** Keywords ***
Collect Excel file from the user
Add heading Upload Excel File
Add file input
... label=Upload the Excel file with sales data
... name=fileupload
... file_type=Excel files (*.xls;*.xlsx)
... destination=${OUTPUT_DIR}
${response}= Run dialog
RETURN ${response.fileupload}[0]
- The dialog is created automatically under the hood by the
RPA.Dialogslibrary. You can start adding inputs without creating the dialog implicitly. - We set a heading for the dialog (
Add heading). - We add a new file input field to our form (
Add file input) setting the label, the name, the allowed file types that the input should accept, and the directory where the uploaded files will be stored.
In our case, we will accept only .xls and .xlsx files, and we want files to be stored in a folder called output in the root of our robot.
- The
Run dialogkeyword allows us to show the dialog to the user, and to assign the values that the user will enter into the dialog into the result object${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.
