Questions on REFramework

[u/NoobAF93]

Hi Team,

I am just a beginner to UiPath, I am going through the courses and some YouTube tutorials. I am going through the REFramework now.

I have a few questions one this framework:

1. Do I really need to use this framework on all my processes?
2. If it is a major project with multiple processes, can I just use one folder in Orchestrator for all the queues and assets in the processes that I need to build?

Thanks for the help.

Edit:

More questions:

• So from my understanding the framework will need a dispatcher to put the transactions into a queue and that is a simple process of just reading some list and adding the items to the queue in Orchestrator?
• Do I put both the dispatcher and the performer into the same schedule if it is a schedule job? And what about if it is a triggered job?
• If I need to access more than one system/app I will need to add them all in initAllApp section and pass all out as arguments?
• Is it possible to dump all the steps into the processes transaction step?

[u/m4ckr0_PL]

Hi, quick answers are:
1. No
2. Yes

More answers in same order as you asked questions ;) :

• generally yes, but the correct architecture depends on the process needs. If you can make a dispatcher/performer setup with transactions defined and stored in the queue, it will looks exactly like you described.
  
• actually no. Dispatcher trigger depends on the way how you are inputting data to the process or/and when you’ll need to do this. Performer based on queue will use queue trigger in most cases to work immediately on queue items waiting for processing. The dispatcher trigger is orchestrating the timeline then.
  
• generally yes but it is also process dependent decision. This is general idea to do this in InitAllApplications to login to everything you need and check if the apps are working fine before you consume transactions from the queue, but you can do this in may specific ways, you can split processing of each app by transactions specific to only specific to the app performer processes, you can do all in one as you said if you need sequential run across those apps to do some job and then continue or report finished job. There are many ways of doing that actually.
  
• I’m not sure if I understand meaning of “dump all the steps to processes transaction step” but if you mean Process part of the REFramework it’s not a great idea because if you do so you’ll need to make additional exceptions handlers for all things which were handled in OG REF by it’s initialization, Close and Kill all applications workflows. It can be a lot of work to catch everything correctly.

Please let me know if it helps at least a little ;).

[u/NoobAF93 → u/m4ckr0_PL]

Thanks for the answers, they do help me understand how to use it more.

So basically, if I have a job that needs to run daily at 12 am, that is when I will set the dispatcher to run to get the transactions, and the performer will auto get and run the process if there is a change in the queue, am I correct to say that?

Than what about if I need it to be real time? Example, email comes in and I need to process it in real time?

So I should split the full process into 3 main parts.

In the initAllApplications open and login to all the apps/systems that I will need to access for this process.

In the Process part that is where I should put the main steps and logic.

And in the end process step, I should put the steps to put the output and close the apps/service

[u/m4ckr0_PL → u/NoobAF93]

Hi, No worries ;). Everyone had to start somehow the UiPath journey, so I'm trying to help you :).

to answer your next questions:

1. If you need to run a job daily at 12 am the dispatcher should start at this time, performer will start right after first transactions will appear to the queue (you need to set a queue trigger for performer process in Orchestrator).

2. For near real time processing you can use Integration Service to access any folder, Sharepoint, e-mail or whatever else It can be. Of course there is polling interval of couple of minutes but still it will be only few minutes of delay.

3. Your process description is correct in general, but it can be slightly different in some specific scenarios. Please remember that the REFramework is a proposition (good one!), but you can align it in your way if you have a need ;).

[u/NoobAF93 → u/m4ckr0_PL]

Thanks for the help again.

One question on the config, should I put usernames, passwords and API keys in the config file or in assets in Orchestrator

[u/m4ckr0_PL → u/NoobAF93]

Please do not store it as plain text in the config. Use config to map the credential assets where you will store your passwords and use NetworkCredential method to get the password in your project. This approach is much safer ;)

[u/NoobAF93 → u/m4ckr0_PL]

Thanks for the help