Preparing for an UiPath Advance Developer certificate can feel scary and overwhelming for many of us. How do I prepare? How difficult is it? Is this certification relevant for me? Since the beginning of last year, I’ve passed both UiPath professional exams and I would like to share my thoughts and answer some of the questions I had before I got started.
Fast forward and I am now an RPA solutions architect, helping customers build automation, In this blog post, I’ve explained how you can prepare for UiPath Advance developer certification.
In detail, I will cover –
TL;DR:
To summarize, remember the following pointers:
- Book the exam with sufficient time for preparation, probably two weeks before the exams
- If you intend to take it from home, Read the PearsonVUE tips for Online proctored exams
- Take a practice test and know your strength and weaknesses and revise those topics from uipath academy
- UiPath Documentation, Studio properties and UiPath Academy are your best buddies for preparation
- Follow the best practices
- Take notes of Exam topics and focus on those areas as the examination questions would be coming from those topics only.
- No need to prepare for new UiPath Products like DU, Action Center, AI Center etc. The idea here is to gauge your knowledge of Core UiPath products such as “Robot”, “Studio” and “Orchastartor”
- There are many dumps websites available on the Internet, They promise you to pass 100% guaranteed result, But none of them works.
Introduction
Today, Robotic Process Automation has become the new norm for many businesses worldwide that have outsourced many of their back-office services. Not only outsourcing companies but also companies who do not want to outsource for various reasons can now stay competitive and provide cost-effective solutions globally by adopting automation for key processes using the UiPath RPA tool.
With trends and demands for UiPath RPA Professionals, it’s becoming a choice for many developers to prove themself as qualified, trained and experienced in the RPA field.
And “UiPath Advance(UiARD) Certification” helps you to keep yourself ahead in the race, Helping you to join a global community powered by highly qualified RPA professionals that encourage, mentor, motivate, and direct the community members towards greater heights in their career.
Why Should I go for UiPath Certifications?
Let me tell you UiPath releases new features and services every LTS release cycle, while with the hands-on experience you should be able to learn the capabilities of UiPath, But keeping yourself updated with a wider range of topics will give you the extra edge to solve automation problems.
Here is the list of some key benefits of UiPath Certification –
- Certification will help the individual to showcase his competency, and commitment to the profession, build expertise in his professional subject area and helps with job advancement.
- A designation earned by a person gives a kind of assurance to the employer of his competencies in performing a job.
- The time and effort invested in professional certifications often result in increased Salary.
- Having earned one (or more) certifications demonstrates your expertise in the related skill domain and establishes you as a subject matter expert.
- The time and effort invested in professional certifications often result in increased Salary.
- Having earned one (or more) certifications demonstrates your expertise in the related skill domain and establishes you as a subject matter expert.
Which UiPath certification fits me?
There are different certifications that you choose from depending on your role and experience within UiPath.
UiPath offers two Certification levels based on your job role and RPA experience:
- UiPath Certified RPA Associate (UiRPA) – This UiPath RPA Associate Certification course is ideal for anybody with little or no technical knowledge, such as developers, business analysts, RPA architects, solution architects, and more.
- UiPath Certified Advanced RPA Developer (UiARD) – The UiPath Certified Advanced RPA developer course will help professionals to gain knowledge and skills for designing, developing, and managing RPA solutions for an enterprise. This UiPath certification training is ideal for professionals who have 6 months to 1 year of experience in developing RPA solutions and work independently on business-critical automation projects.
| UiPath Certified RPA Associate (UiRPA) | UiPath Certified Advanced RPA Developer (UiARD) |
|---|---|
| Duration: 90min | Duration: 120 min. |
| Price: $150 + tax per attempt | Price: $200 + tax per attempt |
| Assess knowledge and skills related to problem-solving, process identification, and building simple automation solutions with UiPath platform components such as UiPath Studio, Orchestrator, and Robots. | UiPath Advanced RPA Developer Certification is targeted to assess a deeper level of knowledge and skills for designing and independently developing complex RPA solutions in the Robotic Enterprise Framework. |
| Passing Score- 70% | Passing Score- 70% |
| The exam is designed to include the following question types: Multiple-Choice, Drag and Drop, and Simulation-Based. | The exam is designed to include the following question types: Multiple-Choice, Drag and Drop, and Simulation-Based. |
| Pre-requisite - None | Though not a pre-requisite, UiPath Certified Associate RPA Developer (UiRPA) is strongly recommended for those interested in achieving UiARD Certification |
| Products covered on the exam include: • UiPath Studio version 2020.10 • UiPath Robots version 2020.10 • UiPath Orchestrator version 2020.10 | Products covered on the exam include: • UiPath Studio version 2020.10 • UiPath Robots version 2020.10 • UiPath Orchestrator version 2020.10 |
| Minimally Qualified Candidate -> No prior experience with Robotic Process Automation (RPA); however, the MQC has taken and completed UiPath RPA Developer foundational training from UiPath | Minimally Qualified Candidate ->Technically proficient and possesses the knowledge/skills to work independently |
| The UiPath RPA Associate v1.0 Exam contains the following exam sections: • Robotic Process Automation (RPA) Fundamentals • UiPath Studio Overview • UiPath Studio – Variables and Arguments • UiPath Studio – Selectors • UiPath Studio – Control Flow • UiPath Studio – Data Manipulation • UiPath Automation Concepts and Techniques • UiPath Orchestrator Overview | The UiPath Advanced RPA Developer v1.0 Exam contains the following exam sections: • UiPath Studio • UiPath Studio – Activities and Properties • UiPath Studio – Robotic Enterprise (RE) Framework • Selectors • .NET Classes and Objects • Advanced Functions • Error Handling and Troubleshooting • Advanced Orchestrator Functions |
| Reschedule, Cancellation and Retake Policies- · 2 weeks wait before 2nd attempt · 1 – month wait before 3rd and subsequent attempts | Reschedule, Cancellation and Retake Policies- · 2 weeks wait before 2nd attempt · 1 – month wait before 3rd and subsequent attempts |
| Exam Results, Certificates and Badges- · After completing a UiPath Certified Professional exam, Pearson VUE will provide an Exam Score Report. · Successful candidates will be able to download and share their eCertificate and Badge from UiPath Certification Manager (CertMetrics) within five (5) days | Exam Results, Certificates and Badges- · After completing a UiPath Certified Professional exam, Pearson VUE will provide an Exam Score Report. · Successful candidates will be able to download and share their eCertificate and Badge from UiPath Certification Manager (CertMetrics) within five (5) days |
How did I prepare for the examination?
Regardless of exam difficulty, I would say that the Certification exams require more time spent studying and will be very difficult if you have no prior UiPath experience.
- You should start with “Take a practice test” at the UiPath portal to see how good you are scoring, Question will not be as it is or of the same difficulty level, but it will guide you with different topics you should focus on…
- For me, scenario-based questions(selection of dropdowns or identifying the right property sets ) won’t be easy to tell the exact behaviour without hands-on, so try using all the properties from the properties panel to see the difference in behaviour for Input/Output and Selector identification.
- I recommend the UiPath Practice test which has one exam for each certificate, but I find that the best practice exams can be bought over at https://www.udemy.com/ as they get regularly updated with new patterns.
- There are many “SO-CALLED DUMPS SELLING” Websites, But let me tell you that there is no guarantee that the dumps that you will buy will help you to pass the exam, moreover, I have seen the solution provided by those websites are not correct too! BETTER TRUST your study and hands-on experience.
Based on my preparation strategy and feedback from community members who have recently attempted the “Certification” Exam, I have curated UiPath Certified Advanced RPA Developer (UiARD) Cheat Sheets to help and save time during your preparation.
If you have any questions or suggestions on the below topics feel free to ream me for updating the article.
UiPath Certified Advanced RPA Developer (UiARD) Cheat Sheets
These in-depth Cheat Sheets for the UiPath Certified Advanced RPA Developer (UiARD) are detailed and concise and cover every fact you need to know to successfully pass your UiPath certification. They have been compiled according to the latest UiPath exam blueprint.
The exam covers a broad range of topics and to optimize your time we have kept to information that is specific to this certification.
We hope you find the information here useful and if you can answer questions based on these topics you can pass the certification easily.
Topic#1 Background Process Automation
- Background Process Automation with Unattended Robots is started via the Robot Service and run in the Windows Session (Session 0).
- It’s important to know that Session 0 has no User Interface and cannot interact with a user session. When using this type of process on Unattended Robots keep in mind that they run in the name of the user and they inherit its permissions.
- Make sure that the user under which the process runs has access to the needed resources and that the process does not require any type of User Interface. See the Windows Session document for more details on how windows sessions are being handled by the UiPath Robots.
- A Background Process can be transitioned to Foreground with the help of the Use Foreground Activity.
- You can run multiple background processes at the same time. (They should not use UiActivities)
Topic#2 Key concepts based on Logging & Logs
These log fields are present in all execution type logs, such as SQL (if configured), Elasticsearch (if configured), and the default EventViewer Logs:
- Message – The log message.
- Level – Defines the log severity.
- Timestamp – The exact date and time the action was performed.
- FileName – The name of the .xaml file being executed.
- jobId – The key to the job running the process.
- processName – The name of the process that triggered the logging.
- processVersion – The version number of the process.
- windowsIdentity – The name of the user that performed the action that was logged.
- robotName – The name of the robot (as defined in Orchestrator).
Logging Level | Default Logs | User-Defined Logs |
Off | None | None |
Critical | All messages logged with Critical level or higher. | All messages logged with Critical level or higher. |
Error | All messages are logged with an Error level or higher. | All messages are logged with an Error level or higher. |
Warning | All messages are logged with Warning or higher. | All messages are logged with Warning or higher. |
Information | All messages logged with Information or higher. | All messages logged with Information or higher. |
Trace | All messages are logged with Trace level or higher. | All messages are logged with Trace level or higher. |
Verbose | All messages are logged with Trace level and Workflow Tracking logs. | All messages are logged with a Trace level. |
Different types of Logs
- Studio Logs – studio traces are diagnostic log messages generated by the studio, containing information related to its behaviour
- Setup Logs – track events related to installing UiPath Studio. when running the windows installer (UiPathStudio.msi), all errors are logged in the Event Viewer.
- Orchestrator – Diagnostic Logs generated by UiPath Orchestrator regarding its behaviour.
- Robot Logs – Track events related to the robots themselves and their context or the execution of processes.
Default Logs are generated automatically when certain events take place. The events logged by this category are:
- Execution Start is generated every time a process is started (Level = Information)
- Execution End is generated every time a process is finalized (Level = Information)
- Transaction Start is generated every time a transaction within a process is started (Level = Information)
- Transaction End is generated every time a transaction within a process is finalized (Level = Information)
- Error Log is generated every time the execution encounters an error and stops (Level = Error)
- Debugging Log is generated if the Robot Logging Setting is set to Verbose and contains, activity names, types, variable values, arguments etc. (Level = Trace)
For more information check out the Introduction to Logging course on the UiPath Academy website!
Topic#3 Arguments & Invoke Workflows
There are three types of argument directions in UiPath Studio:
- In arguments;
- Out arguments;
- In/Out arguments.
To pass a value from one sequence to another, use the Indirection.
If you create a variable in a workflow and want the value of that variable sent to another workflow, use the Out direction.
Finally, to receive the value of a variable, change it and update the workflow that passed it in, use the In/Out direction.
Topic#4 Input Methods
UiPath recommends the Simulate Type/Click method as it is the fastest of the three and works in the background, but only if you do not need to send special keyboard shortcuts. If this does not work for you, try the SendWindowMessages method and then the Default one, as it is the slowest.
- The input method can be changed at any point from the Properties panel of the selected activity.
- If the SimulateType or SendWindowMessages checkboxes are not selected, then the Default method is applied.
- The Default application simulates a click or type with the help of the hardware driver, while the Simulate Type/Click method uses the technology of the target application. Lastly, the SendWindowMessages works by sending a specific message directly to the target application.
Topic#5 Output or Screen Scraping Methods
- Fulltext is the default method, it is fast and accurate, yet unlike the Native method, it cannot extract the screen coordinates of the text.
- Both these methods work only with desktop applications, but the Native method only works with apps that are built to render text with the Graphics Device Interface (GDI).
- OCR is not 100% accurate but can be useful to extract text that the other two methods could not, as it works with all applications including Citrix. Studio uses two OCR engines, by default: Google Tesseract and Microsoft Modi.
Topic#6 Important Properties
- DelayAfter – adds a pause after the activity, in milliseconds.
- DelayBefore – adds a pause before the activity, in milliseconds.
- TimeoutMS – specifies the amount of time (in milliseconds) to wait for a specified element to be found before an error is thrown. The default value is 30000 milliseconds (30 seconds).
- ContinueOnError – Specifies if the automation should continue, even if the activity throws an error. This field only supports boolean values (True, False). The default value in this field is False. As a result, if this field is blank and an error is thrown, the execution of the project stops. If the value is set to True, the execution of the project continues regardless of any error.
- WaitForReady – Before performing the actions, wait for the target to become ready. The following options are available:
- None – Does not wait for anything except the target UI element to exist before executing the action. For example, you can use this option if you want to retrieve just text from a web page or click a particular button, without having to wait for all UI elements to load. Note that this may have unwanted consequences if the button relies on elements which are not yet loaded, such as scripts.
- Interactive – Waits for the target app to indicate readiness, although some assets may still be loading.
- Complete – Waits for all of the UI elements in the target app to load before actually executing the action.
Topic#7 Define Dictionary, Add Items To Dictionary and Access Items From Dictionary
- The Dictionary<TKey, TValue> is a generic collection class available in the System.Collection.Generics namespace. Here “TKey” denotes the type of key and “TValue” is the type of TValue.
- Look for: System.Collections.Generic.Dictionary<TKey, TValue> in the variable panel when you are creating
- You Initialize default value of empty dictionary with: New Dictionary(Of String, Int32) or var_Dictionary = new Dictionary(Of String, String)
Topic#8 Define List, Add Items To List and Access Items From List
- Create a new variable. Select System.Collections.Generic.List<T>
- You can create a list of Objects by creating a new variable with type System.Collections.Generic.List<System.Object>. The Object class is the root class of the .NET type hierarchy, so the List can hold almost anything.
- You Initialize default value of List with: List(Of Integer) = New List(Of Integer)({10, 20, 30})
Topic#9 Selector
Selectors with wildcards can be used when the object under-identification (attribute value) keeps changing.
- Asterisk (*) – replaces zero or more characters
- Question mark (?) – replaces a single character
A dynamic selector uses a variable or an argument as a property for the attribute of your target tag. This allows the selector to easily identify a target element based on the value of the variable or argument, and not an exact string.
A dynamic selector can be used when the value of an element keeps changing.
Topic#10 Performer and Dispatcher
- The Dispatcher is the process that prepares the initial data and pushes it to the following subprocesses to process it. The Performer subprocess retrieves the transaction items from the Orchestrator Queue and processes them one by one by taking into account the business and application exceptions.
- Similar to the old pattern of producer and consumer, we have Dispatcher and Performer in the UiPath solution.
- The dispatcher/Performer technique helps in splitting the business process into two parts.
- Generally, the dispatcher uploads the queue items to the orchestrator and the performer gets the queue items from the orchestrator and then processes the queue items.
Topic#11 Error, Exception, System Exception vs Business Exception
- Error – it is an unknown issue that cannot be handled since we don’t know when it will come. Usually, errors will come at run time. Mostly coding issues will cause these errors while developing we don’t know if the run time may occur.
- Exception – it is a known issue that we can handle before itself. Usually, we can handle these issues by using try-catch activity. Where you think that the exception can occur that code we should keep in the try block.
- There are two types of exceptions we generally found in UiPath…
- Business Exception
- System Exception
- A System Exception describes an error rooted in a technical issue, such as an application that is not responding.
- System Exception and Application Exception are similar. The only difference is Application Exception describes an error rooted in a technical issue, such as an application that is not responding. Whereas System Exception is thrown by the common language runtime when errors occur that are nonfatal and recoverable by user programs.
- A Business Exception describes an error rooted in the fact that certain data that the automation project depends on is incomplete or missing.
- new UiPath.Core.BusinessRuleException(“this is my reason message”)
- Such a situation is, for example, a project which reads column data from an excel sheet provided by the business and that column is missing in the provided file.
- The most Common System Exception that you will face in UiPath are below: –
- Null Reference Exception
- Unable to communicate with the browser
- Unable to find the element with the selector
- IO.FileNotFoundException
- Core.SelectorNotFoundException
- NullReferenceException
- ArgumentException
- ArgumentNullException
- In UIPATH there are different types of Activities available such as: –
- Rethrow
- Terminate Workflow
- Throw
- Try Catch
Topic#12 UiPath Re-Framework
Robotic Enterprise Framework (REFramework) is a UiPath supplied project template that is used as a starting point for simple, medium and complex business processes. In layman terms, REFramework is a cheat sheet for both experienced and inexperienced developers to quickly build a good best practice project.
Re-framework architecture has four states :
- Init: This is the Initial state, which is used to read and store the config data in a dictionary. Closes all the applications and Opens the required application. If Init passes successfully, then the robot moves to the next state.
- Get Transaction Data: It is a data retrieval mechanism. Used to get the transaction from Queue, Data table, Database, Folder, etc. If it has a new transaction item, it goes to the next state.
- Process Transaction: It is used to Process the transactions fetch from, and get from the previous state. It has a prebuilt SetTransactionStatus workflow that can be used to set the Transaction Status of an item to either Success, Business Exception or Application Exception. If there are no records to process, then the robot moves to the end process state.
- End Process: It ends the robot successfully and then closes all the application and kill the apps.
Topic #13 Queues
A queue is a container that enables you to hold an unlimited number of items. Queue items can store multiple types of data, such as invoice information or customer details.
Queues enable you to create large automation projects underlined by complex logic. For example, you can create a process that collects all invoice information and creates a queue item for each piece of data to store it.
Subsequently, you can create another process that gathers the information from Orchestrator and uses it to perform additional tasks, such as paying the invoices in a different application, postponing their payment according to their due date or value, sending emails to the accounting team every time a bill is paid, etc.
Queue items can go through the following statuses:
Topic #14 Working with SVN/GIT/TFS
Topic #16 Use Invoke Method Activity
The InvokeMethod activity is another way to implement a code which is outside of the standard built-in activities. You can use this activity to invoke a method of a class.
You can use this activity to invoke a method of a class. The class does not need to be part of the workflow or use any of the workflow base classes. The InvokeMethod calls a public method of a specified object or type.
UiPath Certification FAQs
Upon completing most exams, you will receive a preliminary pass or fail notification on the testing screen. However, you may not receive a pass or fail notification on the testing screen Your detailed exam results will be available within five business days of completing your exam in your UiPath CertMetrics Account.
You can access UiPath Certification Manager (CertMetrics) here – https://www.certmetrics.com/uipath
Thanks so much for this.
Could you include links to documentation in the cheat sheet?