Introduction

This guide is intended for developers interested in extending automation capabilities beyond the current features and functions supported in UiPath products.

What's an Integration?

An integration is a solution that enables the inbound (to UiPath) or outbound (from UiPath) automation between UiPath and a 3rd party technology. Currently, there are two types of integrations that we'll discuss in this guide: Connector and Activity.

Connector (inbound)

A connector is an inbound automation solution that resides outside of the UiPath product platform. The purpose of a connector is to establish an authenticated connection between a 3rd party technology and the Uipath Orchestrator API so that you can invoke or retrieve information about UiPath Orchestrator resources from within your application (e.g. start a job, add a Queue item, etc.).

Activity (outbound)

An activity is an outbound automation solution that enables a UiPath Robot to interact with a 3rd party technology. The purpose of an activity is to instruct a robot to execute a specific action (e.g., button click, retrieving records, sending a email, etc.).

An activity is distributed via an activity package in UiPath Studio. Each activity package includes a collection of activities that target a single, 3rd party technology. UiPath Studio comes with various built-in core activities, and integration activity packages that you can install through the Package Manager (for more information, see Managing Activities Packages in the Studio Guide).

From an integrations perspective, each activity package includes a unique scope activity that's used to establish or facilitate an authenticated relationship with the 3rd party technology. All other activities in the package are dependent on the scope activity.

What Integration Is Right for Me?

Your integration is dependent on your business/technical objectives. The table below provides a high-level summary of both integration types and when/how you can use them. In some cases, you may want to develop a two-way integration to enable both inbound (connector) and outbound (activity) automation.

	Connector	Activity
Objective	Access UiPath resources from outside the UiPath product platform.	Instruct a robot to execute simple to complex actions against a 3rd party technology.
Purpose	If you want to invoke or retrieve information about a UiPath Orchestrator resource from within a 3rd party technology (e.g. start a job, add a Queue item, get environment status, etc.). For example, when an event occurs inside a software application (e.g., a new ticket is created in an issue management system) a connector can trigger a robot to run the business process that follows the event (e.g., respond to or escalate ticket based on its category, content, etc.)	If you have repetitive or manually time-consuming tasks that you want to be free from performing; giving you time to focus on more creative and strategic thinking. A combination of activities can be used to create comprehensive workflows in UiPath Studio. These workflows represent the processes a human and/or multiple systems normally follow to complete a given task.
Examples	Salesforce Appian	Bizagi Oracle