How to Build an RPA Bot with Robot Framework and Compare It to AI Agents

RPA Overview

Robotic Process Automation (RPA) uses software robots, often called "digital employees," to mimic and integrate human interactions with digital systems. It is typically applied to repetitive, rule‑based, high‑frequency tasks, freeing employees for higher‑value work and reducing costs.

Typical RPA Scenarios

Data entry and integration : batch‑automated data capture from multiple systems into a single database.

Financial process automation : invoice verification, periodic reporting, bulk tax filing.

Customer relationship management : auto‑collecting, organizing, and responding to customer feedback; marketing email generation; e‑commerce order handling.

Procurement and supply‑chain : automated purchase request handling, information gathering, order generation.

Human‑resources : bulk resume screening, onboarding/off‑boarding workflows, attendance tracking.

IT operations : system monitoring, fault remediation, software deployment, version upgrades, security patching.

Technical Characteristics of RPA

Non‑intrusive : operates at the UI layer without requiring deep integration or custom APIs.

Automation : executes repeatable, rule‑driven tasks automatically.

Programmable : scripts can control keyboard/mouse actions, web browsing, file handling, and software operations.

Low‑code / no‑code : many platforms provide visual designers to lower the development barrier.

Intelligent extensions : OCR, AI models, and other intelligent components can be added to handle unstructured data.

Integrable : RPA tasks can be triggered by other applications and can call external APIs when needed.

Because RPA works at the UI level, it has high UI‑layer coupling; a major UI change can break the robot. AI‑enhanced RPA mitigates this issue by adding perception and reasoning capabilities.

RPA vs. BPA (Business Process Automation)

RPA focuses on automating specific, repetitive tasks with low integration effort, while BPA aims to automate end‑to‑end business processes across departments, requiring extensive process analysis and deep system integration.

RPA vs. AI Agent

AI Agents are also automation robots but are built on large language models (LLMs) and excel at tasks requiring natural‑language understanding, reasoning, and decision‑making. RPA excels at deterministic, rule‑based tasks, whereas AI Agents handle intelligent, inference‑heavy scenarios.

Building an RPA Bot

The example task automates a sales‑data workflow: download an Excel file, log into an internal web app, submit each row as a form, capture a screenshot, and generate a PDF report.

Tools used :

Robot Framework : a generic open‑source automation framework.

RPA Framework : an extension library for Robot Framework that provides ready‑made keywords for RPA tasks.

The robot is defined in a .robot file. Below is the core script (the full file is available in the original source):

*** Tasks ***
Insert sales data and export to PDF.
    Download sales data
    Open internal app URL
    Log in
    Submit each row from Excel
    Capture final screenshot
    Export performance summary to PDF
    [Teardown] Log out and close browser

*** Keywords ***
Download sales data
    Download https://robotsparebinindustries.com/SalesData.xlsx overwrite=True

Open internal app URL
    Open Browser https://robotsparebinindustries.com/ chrome

Log in
    Input Text username maria
    Input Text password thoushallnotpass
    Submit Form
    Wait Until Page Contains Element id:sales-form

Fill single sales record
    [Arguments]    ${sales_rep}
    Input Text firstname ${sales_rep}[First Name]
    Input Text lastname ${sales_rep}[Last Name]
    Input Text salesresult ${sales_rep}[Sales]
    Select From List By Value salestarget ${sales_rep}[Sales Target]
    Click Button Submit

Submit Excel rows
    Open Workbook SalesData.xlsx
    ${sales_reps}=    Read Worksheet As Table header=True
    Close Workbook
    FOR    ${sales_rep}    IN    @{sales_reps}
        Fill single sales record ${sales_rep}
    END

Capture final screenshot
    Screenshot css:div.sales-summary ${OUTPUT_DIR}/sales_summary.png

Export performance summary
    Wait Until Element Is Visible id:sales-results
    ${sales_results_html}=    Get Element Attribute id:sales-results outerHTML
    Html To Pdf    ${sales_results_html}    ${OUTPUT_DIR}/sales_results.pdf

Log out and close browser
    Click Button Log out
    Close Browser

Running the RPA Bot

The robot can be executed in three ways:

Directly from an IDE such as VS Code with the RPA Framework extensions installed.

Using the open‑source rcc command‑line tool on a local machine.

Uploading to the cloud‑hosted Control Room (a paid service) for scheduled execution.

When run locally, the console shows each step, and the generated PDF and screenshot confirm successful automation.

In the next part of the series, the integration of large‑language‑model (LLM) generative AI capabilities with RPA will be explored.