Discovering an RPA bot as a custom skill
In watsonx Orchestrate, you can build custom skills by discovering them from resources of an in-product app or by importing them from OpenAPI files.
Entitled with the Standard edition, you can discover RPA bots and import them as custom skills to the platform.
General considerations for IBM Robotic Process Automation (RPA)
Before you start developing bots in IBM RPA, you must comply with the following requirements and resources:
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Publish scripts from IBM RPA Studio 23.0.4 or later. For instructions, see Publishing a script
.
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Review the scripts' inputs and output variables.
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Add a user with the following permissions:
- Manage projects
- Manage bots
- Invoke bots
- Manage scripts
- Use studio application
- Manage connections
For instructions, see Creating users
.
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Add a credential to unlock the computer that you want to run the bot. For instructions, see Creating a credential
.
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Add a computer to run the bot. Also, comply with the following settings:
- The computer must have a credential that is bound to it.
- The Queues runtime percentage value must be greater than zero. For instructions, see Creating a computer
Note: The computer must have an IBM RPA client installed from a version greater than 23.0.0. -
Add a computer group. For instructions, see Creating a computer group
.
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Add the following domain to the bot callbacks allowlist in IBM RPA:
*.watson-orchestrate.ibm.com
For instructions, see Creating an OpenAPI callback allowlist
.
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Create a Project. For instructions, see Creating projects
.
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Create a Bot. For instructions, see Creating bots
.
General considerations for watsonx Orchestrate
Discover an existent RPA bot and import it as a custom skill to the platform by taking the following steps:
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Go to the Skill studio.
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Click Create > Import API.
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In the From an app tab, click IBM Robotic Process Automation (RPA).
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Connect to IBM RPA to discover and add custom skills from a bot.
Figure 1. The step to connect to an IBM RPA account to discover skills and an example of a skill from a bot. For instructions, see Connecting to IBM RPA.
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Enhance the custom skill with input and output labels and description and phrases. For instructions, see Enhancing and publishing skills.
Note: IBM watsonx Orchestrate does not support IdP-routed authentication, from IBM RPA side configuration, for establishing a connection between watsonx Orchestrate and IBM RPA. IBM watsonx Orchestrate supports local login method. The connections to the watsonx Orchestrate instance must be local to the RPA tenant, and not created through an IdP route.
What to do next
Use the skills through the legacy chat or the AI chat. Refer to the proper section based on the chat that you want to use to run your skills:
- Run skills in the legacy chat by adding them to a skill set. For more information, see Using the legacy chat.
- Run skills in the AI chat through AI assistants. For more information, see Using the AI chat.