So far we have learned about the basics of RPA and how to organize steps in a workflow using a Flowchart or Sequence. We now know about UiPath components and have a thorough understanding of UiPath Studio. We used a few simple examples to make our first robot. Before we proceed further, we should learn about variable and data manipulation in UiPath. It is not very different from other programming concepts. However, here we will look at the specifics of UiPath data handling and manipulation.

This chapter will mainly deal with data manipulation. Data manipulation is the process of changing data—whether it is adding, removing, or updating it. Before learning about data manipulation, we shall see what variables, collections, and arguments are, what kind of data they store, and what their scope is. We will then carry out various examples of data manipulation. We will also learn to store and retrieve data.

In this chapter, we will cover:

• Variables and the scope of a variable in the workflow
• Collections, how to store data in arrays, and how to traverse them
• Arguments, why we need them, and how to use them
• Clipboard usage
• Data scraping 
• File management with a step-by-step example
• Data table usage with an example