Robotic Process Automation (RPA) Spoke

  • Release version: Yokohama
  • Updated January 30, 2025
  • 5 minutes to read
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    Summary of Robotic Process Automation (RPA) Spoke

    The Robotic Process Automation (RPA) Spoke for ServiceNow enables flow designers to integrate with the RPA Hub, allowing seamless management and orchestration of attended and unattended automation processes. It provides a comprehensive set of actions and subflows to assign users, manage work items, trigger and control bot processes, and handle process jobs directly within ServiceNow workflows.

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    Key Features

    • Work Item Management: Add, update, and fetch work items in queues with support for sensitive data encryption and content size limits, enabling secure and efficient data handling between ServiceNow and RPA workflows.
    • User Assignment: Assign or unassign users to attended automation processes or robots, facilitating dynamic user-robot interactions and access control.
    • Bot Process Lifecycle Control: Change lifecycle stages (Build, Published, In Maintenance) of bot processes and manage their execution status, ensuring proper version control and maintenance workflows.
    • Process Job Handling: Fetch created jobs, execution statuses, and manage bots by starting or stopping processes with options for graceful stopping and handling robots in various lifecycle statuses.
    • Process Parameter and Package Management: Update process parameters and verify package version hash codes to maintain integrity and configuration consistency of automation packages.
    • Subflows for Common Tasks: Predefined subflows automate tasks such as importing package attachments, starting, and stopping bot processes, with detailed job and robot status feedback.

    Practical Benefits for ServiceNow Customers

    • Integrate RPA seamlessly into ServiceNow flows to automate repetitive tasks and improve operational efficiency.
    • Securely handle sensitive work item data with built-in encryption support.
    • Gain fine-grained control over bot process lifecycle and user assignments to ensure automation governance.
    • Monitor and manage bot execution statuses and jobs within ServiceNow, enabling proactive troubleshooting and management.
    • Leverage subflows to simplify complex RPA operations, reducing development time and increasing reliability.

    With Robotic Process Automation, your flow designers can use actions to assign and unassign users to and from an attended automation process, add work items to a queue, update work items, fetch process jobs, get the status of a process job, and trigger a bot process.

    Table 1. RPA actions
    Action Description Action inputs Action outputs
    Add WorkItem to Queue Action Adds WorkItem in a specified queue in the RPA Hub application and returns the WorkItem ID.
    • Queue Name: Record
    • Name: String
    • Content: String
    • Type: String
    • Priority: String.Choice
    • Stage: String
    • SLA: Date/Time

    The maximum limit for Content field (Request Content and Response Content) is 8000 characters.

    If the Is Work Item Name Sensitive check box on the associated work queue form is selected, the data in the Request Content field is encrypted. Sensitive data with encryption is stored in the work item, so that it can be passed to the RPA Desktop Design Studio or robots.
    • Action Status: Object
    • WorkItemID: GUID
    • IsNameExists: Boolean
    • status: String
    • message: String
    Assign User to Attended Automation Process Action Assigns a user to the attended automation process.
    • Process Name: Record
    • Username: Record
    • Action Status: Object
    • status: String
    • Message: String
    Assign User to Attended Robot Action Assigns a user to the attended robot. Username: Record
    • Action Status: Object
    • status: String
    • Message: String
    Change Life Cycle Stage Status of a Bot Process Action Changes the life cycle stage status of a bot process that is not retired.

    If a bot process is in Build life cycle stage status, if you have the required role, you can update it to Published state, but you cannot update it to In Maintenance.

    If a bot process is in Published life cycle stage status, if you have the required role, you can update it to In Maintenance state, and vice versa.
    • Process name: Record
    • Life cycle stage status: Choice
    • result: String
    • message: String
    • Action Status: Object
    Fetch Created Jobs Action Fetches the process jobs in RPA Hub.
    • Process Number: String
    • Robots: Array[String]
    • Action Status: Object
    • Result: String
    • Jobs: Array[String]
    • startedRobots: Array[String]
    • pendingRobots: Array[String]
    Fetch Execution Status Action Fetches the execution status of a specific process job in RPA Hub. Process Job Number: String
    • Action Status: Object
    • ProcessJob: Object
      • Process Name: String
      • Robot Name: String
      • State: String
      • Started At: Date/Time
      • Completed At: Date/Time
      • Message: String
    • status: String
    • message: String
    Fetch Work Item Status Action Fetches the status of specific work queue items, asynchronously. Work Queue Item ID: GUID
    • Action Status: Object
      • Code: Integer
      • Message: String
    • WorkItem: Object
      • sysId: String
      • name: String
      • type: String
      • priority: String
      • status: String
      • lockedBy: String
      • additionalComments: String
      • requestContent: String
      • responseContent: String
      • deferredTill: Date/Time
      • sla: Date/Time
      • created: Date/Time
      • startedOn: Date/Time
      • completedOn: Date/Time
      • lastStartedTime: Date/Time
    • status: String
    • message: String
    Start Process Action Triggers a specific bot process in RPA Hub and returns the status.
    • Process Name: Record
    • Robots: Array[String]

      Ignore an entry in this field if a robot pool is assigned to the bot process.

      When invoking the Start Process Workflow Studio action, the robots that are in the In Maintenance life-cycle stage status are treated as failed robots.
    • Action Status: Object
    • Result: String
    • Robots: Array[String]
    • Process: String
    • Failed Robots: Array[Object]
    Stop Process Action Stops a bot process. If Graceful Stop is enabled, this action gracefully stops the bot process.
    • Result: String
    • Action Status: Object
    • Robots: Array[String]
    • Process: String
    • Failed Robots: Array[Object]
    Unassign User from Attended Automation Process Action Unassigns the user from the attended automation process.
    • Process Name: Record
    • Username: Record
    • status: String
    • message: String
    • Action Status: Object
    Unassign User from Attended Robot Action Unassigns the user from the attended robot and retires the attended robot. Username: Record
    • Action Status: Object
    • Status: String
    • Message: String
    Update Process Parameter Action Updates the Value field for the process parameter.
    • Process: Record
    • Parameter Name: String
    • Value: String
    • status: String
    • Action Status: Object
    • message: String
    Update WorkItem Action Updates work queue items.
    • Queue Name: Record
    • WorkItemID: String
    • Stage: String
    • DefferedTill: Date/Time
    • Name: String
    • Priority: Choice
    • Status: Choice
    • Request Content: String
    • Type: String
    • Remarks: String
    • SLA: Date/Time
    • Response Content: String

    The maximum limit for Request Content and Response Content fields is 8000 characters.

    If the Is Work Item Name Sensitive check box on the associated work queue form is selected, the data in the Request Content field is encrypted. Sensitive data with encryption is stored in the work item, so that it can be passed to the RPA Desktop Design Studio or robots.
    • IsNameExist: True/False
    • Status: String
    • Message: String
    • Action Status: Object
    Verify HashCode of a Package Version Verifies the HashCode of a package version in RPA Hub to validate the HashCode of the manually uploaded automation zip file with the associated package version record.

    For more information about verifying the HashCode of a package version, see Verify the HashCode of a package version in RPA Hub .

    		 Package Version: Record
    • Action Status: Object
    • Message: String
    • isAttachmentValid: True/False
    Table 2. RPA subflow
    Subflow Description Subflow inputs Subflow outputs
    Import Package Version Attachment Subflow Imports the package version attachments automatically for a package version. To automatically migrate the package attachment (automation zip file) from a lower (non-production) to a higher (production) environment.

    For more information about importing a package version attachment in RPA Hub, see Import a package version attachment in RPA Hub.
    • Email: Email
    • Package Version: Record

    After the attachment is uploaded successfully or if an error occurs while uploading the attachment, an email notification (if email is provided as an input) is sent to the user who performs this import attachment action.
    Start Process Subflow Triggers a specific bot process in RPA Hub. Returns process job details.
    • Process Name: Record
    • Robots: Array[String]

      Ignore an entry in this field if a robot pool is assigned to the bot process.

      If a process job is not in the Running status, the robot that is associated with the process job is treated as Failed in the Start Process subflow output.
    • Failed Robots: Array[Object]
    • Stopped Robots: Array[String]
    • Pending Robots: Array[String]
    • Process Jobs: Array[String]
    • Result: String
    • Message: String
    Stop Process Subflow Triggers a specific bot process to stop in RPA Hub. Returns robots details and process job status. If Graceful Stop is enabled, this subflow gracefully stops the bot process.
    • Graceful Stop: True/False
    • Process Name: Record
    • Robots: Array[String]
    • Failed Robots: Array[Object]
    • Stopped Robots: Array[String]
    • Pending Robots: Array[String]
    • Process Jobs: Array[String]
    • Message: String
    • Result: String