since its creation 20 years ago servicenow has grown and blossomed into the massive platform that you see today in those two decades and dozens of versions countless tools and features have been added to a point where it's almost difficult to stay on The Cutting Edge as developers we always try to stay ahead of the curve but that isn't to say a little incentive ever hurt anybody so allow us to sweeten the educational deal you might recall that last year we hosted the hashtag build with AES challenge a worldwide Endeavor for developers to Showcase to us and frankly the community how they were leveraging AES and also provide us with feedback in turn as a prize for being vulnerable and showcasing the product we've sent all the applicants some very exclusive servicenow swag this event was so successful that we have brought it back this year but focusing on 2023's more emergent technology RPA in today's video I will not only be walking you through what RPA is but also how it's useful on the servicenow platform and of course how to enter this Year's hashtag buildwithrpa challenge my name is Lauren mcmenamin I am your developer advocate of the day and without further Ado let's Dive Right In while you might understand it at a high level you might also be asking yourself what really is RPA RPA or robotic process automation is a term non-exclusive to the servicenow platform RPA is a specific type of technology that allows developers like you the ability to create manage and deploy robots into a system that emulate human interaction while this still falls under the category of automation for example it is wildly different from the other forms of automation on servicenow like flow designer for example the easiest way to visualize this is that traditional forms of automation are like robots within the platform doing things behind the scenes that you could do albeit they're doing it a lot faster without having to utilize the systems UI to do so RPA is much more like a robot sitting in your physical desk chair doing the job on your behalf it interacts with servicenow the way you would interact with servicenow albeit with the Breakneck speed that only computers can offer flows kickoff scripts RPA is physically clicking buttons two very different looking forms of automation but if that script or that clicking in the end is both creating an instant for example what's the value in RPA even with all the technological progress made with the rise of the digital age companies are still written with silos you know them I know them every company has got them these ancient monolithic systems that exist solely on-prem and have no API access but of course are way too costly or important to ever really replace all of these types of systems were inaccessible to the web-based servicenow platform before the introduction of RPA flow designer and integration Hub might not have direct access to those systems but RPA Bots can extract that data through keystroking just like you could now on to the servicenow specifics servicenow's RPA solution is comprised of three parts the desktop Design Studio the RPA Hub and both unattended and attended Bots your RPA Journey will always begin with the desktop Design Studio unlike literally everything else in servicenow the desktop design studio is not accessed through the servicenow platform the desktop design studio is a native Windows application that you will utilize to create and manage the pathways that your robots will follow I say this as a Mac User fear not while this might look very different from everything else on the servicenow platform like everything else in the Creator tool set it uses a low code interface for you to design and manage these flows as well once you have created tested and published your flows they are now accessible through RPA Hub this is the on platform part of the RPA solution where you will Design the complete package that these robots will be programmed with it also Sports a very nice customizable workspace so that you can monitor the progress that all of your Bots have made and then as you can probably guess the final piece of the puzzle are the Bots themselves the RPA Hub has transmitted the necessary payload and Pathways to either attended or unattended Bots unattended Bots execute automatically such as at a certain time of day or on some form of schedule and do not require the need for any type of human interaction as the name implies attended bots on the other hand are physically called upon by a user and therefore require human interaction hopefully with this information at your disposal you have the confidence and wherewithal to take on this year's hashtag build with RPA challenge if you're still wishing to learn more however we've got you covered Prana of Vaga the other developer Advocate on the team working on this amazing challenge has compiled an entire playlist of RPA videos and there's tons of new ones as well covering the latest Vancouver features I will make sure to put a link to those down below but also in the upper right hand corner hopefully this video is not mirrored as I am doing this now now if you've made it this far in the video there's no point in burying the lead any further this is now how you enter this year's hashtag build with RPA challenge first and foremost this challenge is running from September 8th to October 13th 2023. the rules of the game are simple as there are only three number one if you happen to currently use RPA at your organization snap a picture or grab a small video of the Bots that you have created if you don't currently use RPA at your company no worries we also have an alternative option more on that in just one second step number two we're gonna have you list two to three ideas of where you think RPA could be employed make at least one of these more of a corporate application and another a more fun personal application as well and then step number three put the screenshot and or video combined with your couple of ideas for what RPA can do and post them onto social media with the hashtag buildwithrpa doing all of this by October 13th will earn you not only an exclusive servicenow shirt but also a badge to sport on your community profile page now back to Step One Part B I guess the alternative option for if you currently do not use RPA in lieu of showing off something that you have at your corporation we're going to be actually having you run through a servicenow lab this lab is aptly titled build with RPA build your first robot with the universal recorder this lab is located on the now learning website and the link to that specific lab will also be provided down below and again in the upper right hand corner after either creating or logging into your now learning account simply click the blue start button in the middle of the page to kick off this lab starting on the aptly named start here tab first click the blue button that says request an instance once that has completed below that under instant status click wake instance as well it's worth noting on average we found that this lab takes around one to three hours for an individual complete but that time to does not factor in the time it takes to actually procure an instance when I personally tested this it took around 10 minutes to procure the instant so factor that into your prep time when you're sitting down to complete this exercise once your instance is deployed and awake be sure to also download your lab guide in your preferred file format before moving on to the next tab clicking the video presentation tab will move you on to the actual meat and potatoes of the lab itself following both this and the accompanying guide will walk you through the entirety of the lab however I also want to highlight that pranaf filmed his entire experience not only walking through the lab but also solving all the individual exercises of the lab itself if you'd like a link to that it'll be down below but also in the upper right hand corner this lab covers all the basic skills of RPA from installing all the correct components to the communications between the Bots and servicenow and combining those talents to ultimately solve the problem of this specific lab we are so phenomenally excited to see what you build on servicenow's RPA product if you have any questions please feel free to leave them in the comments down below and we'll do our best to answer accordingly again the challenge runs between September 8th and October 13th 2023 and be sure to add build with RPA to your entries thank you so so much for joining me here today stay hungry stay humble and I cannot wait to see y'all again cheers