RPA - UiPath Custom Activity

An activity is the building block of a process automation. UiPath Studio comes with various built-in Core Activities, as well as dedicated activities (PDF, mail, Excel) you can install through the Package Manager, depending on your needs. You can read The UiPath Activities Guide for more details and examples, as well as how to Manage Activities Packages. Additionally, you can create custom activities to better automate processes based on your needs. There are two major steps required to create a custom activity: 1. Writing the custom activity code. 2. Adding the external assembly (.dll) in UiPath. Note that the following components are required to create a custom activity: • Microsoft Visual Studio with the .NET desktop development workload installed. • NuGet Package Explorer. You can write the code for your custom activity either deriving from CodeActivity or NativeActivity. The two activities look rather similar, but there are differences. You can view an example of a detailed NativeActivity here. CodeActivity provides an Execute method that can be overridden to have your implementation. It also provides access to tracking, variables, and arguments. You can use the CodeActivity for the following: • Simple custom activities. • Synchronous activities. • Execution in a single pulse of execution. • Schedule other activities. • Use advanced WF Runtime features. NativeActivity provides all the features of the CodeActivity, but also lets you abort the execution of the activity, cancel child activity execution, schedule activities, use bookmarks, as well as activity actions and functions. You can use the NativeActivity for the following: • Complex custom activities. • Running long custom activities. • Execution in multiple pulses of execution. • Schedule other activities. • Use advanced WF Runtime features. Note: Only use CodeActivity to create activities that do not require capabilities of WF Runtime.