Create Sales Orders – Automatic Extraction (VII): Intelligent RPA Bot – Version 1

Hi guys, I am glad to share with you that a new bot has been released for automating sales order creation from unstructured data in Fiori app Create Sales Orders – Automatic Extraction 👏. The bot is available in SAP Intelligent Robotic Process Automation (RPA) Factory.

Briefly, in this blog, I’m going to share with you:

• Purpose to design this bot
• Prerequisites for using the bot
• How to start the bot
• How to disable the bot
• How to cancel a running job

Purpose

Why

Sales order processing plays a key role in the order-to-cash process for enterprises. In B2B scenarios, internal sales representatives often get order requests from files that contain unstructured data, like PDF attached in emails. Then they have to create sales orders manually in the system based on the received PDF. This is time-consuming and error-prone.

Who

Internal sales representatives.

How

The bot monitors incoming emails, collects order files that contain unstructured data, and uploads the files to the Fiori app. After processing by the Fiori app, the bot notifies salesperson of the sales order requests that have been created, or returns error messages if such creation fails.

Bot processing details:

1. The bot scans your outlook inbox (based on the email account preconfigured for bot scan) and searches within the subject of all unread emails for the preconfigured key word(s).
2. If the key word is found, the bot downloads attached PDF files from the emails to a local folder.
3. The bot opens the Create Sales Orders – Automatic Extraction app in Chrome using the preconfigured account and password (Fiori launchpad access), and uploads the files one by one.
4. After all files have been uploaded, the bot closes the app and sends a log to the email account preconfigured for receiving bot notifications.

Note: When the bot attempts to create sales order requests in the Fiori app, user operations may cause bot errors. We strongly recommend running the bot on a separate PC or server.

Prerequisites for Using the Bot

Fiori App: authorization to access Create Sales Order Automatic Extraction

Create sales order automatic extraction

You can refer to Create Sales Orders – Automatic Extraction for more information about this App.

Desktop Agent: Local software to run bot. ( macOS not supported yet).

You can access  SAP Software Download Center and search for ‘robotic’.

Desktop Agent

Google Chrome: Chrome is recommended and ‘SAP intelligent RPA Chrome extension’ is required. you can find it in Chrome webstore https://chrome.google.com/webstore/category/extensions. If you cannot find it in Chrome extension, please try Extension for SAP Intelligent RPA. And don’t forget to activate it on your chrome after installing.

SAP Intelligent RPA Account: Account to schedule/configure/monitor bot. 

Environment Setup & Bot Configuration

Please download the bot from the cloud store of your Intelligent Robotic Process Automation Factory, and there are guidelines for bot deployment (including configuration and test scripts).

To know more about SAP Intelligent Robotic Process Automation Factory, refer to the following:

• SAP Intelligent RPA Factory User Guide
• SAP Best Practices for SAP Intelligent Robotic Process Automation integr.‎
• SAP Note 2788996

How to start the bot

There are two types of triggers that are frequently used.

• Attended – run the bot manually on the desktop agent.
• Scheduled – run the bot with scheduled frequency automatically.

Trigger with ‘Attended’

Open ‘Desktop Agent’ on your local PC, and click ‘Project’ at the bottom. You will be able to see the bots configured under your agent. If not there, please check your agent and environment settings. Click ‘Start’ to start your bot.

After the bot is started(desktop agent icon in toolbar becomes purple

), a task item is generated on your desktop agent. Click it to run the bot.

Trigger with ‘Scheduled’

If the trigger type is ‘Scheduled’, the system automatically runs the bot as scheduled.

Note: With both trigger types, the bot would open the Fiori app in the foreground, not in the background.

How to Disable Scheduled Bot

Log on to the your SAP Intelligent Robotic Process Automation Factory. Choose the target environment

In the ‘Trigger’ panel, choose ‘Triggers’.

Disable the unwanted trigger.

How to Cancel Running Job

Occasionally, a bot cannot properly complete a job but keeps running. To cancel the job, log on to the Factory, click ‘Monitoring’, and you will see all running jobs. In the list page, choose the one you want to cancel and click ‘Cancel jobs’.

What’s More

There is an exciting news. Recently, we enhanced this bot to automate converting sales order request to sales order. Please refer to Create Sales Orders – Automatic Extraction (VII): Intelligent RPA Bot – Version 2 for more details.

Hope you get something new from here, and we will continue updating this blog. If you have any questions or ideas, please feel free to contact us.

• Exchange knowledge: SAP Community | Q&A | Blog
• Learn more: Help Portal | openSAP
• SAP Intelligent RPA： SAP Intelligent RPA Factory User Guide
• Sales order from unstructured data: Create Sales Orders – Automatic Extraction
• Video: Sales Order Automation with AI