Resilient RPA Automation

Designed and implemented a resilient Power Automate Desktop solution to automate a large-scale web uplift process. By incorporating structured exception handling, retry logic, and audit write-back, I automated 3 months of manual labor into an unattended, 22,000-record execution.

Fig 1.0: 1:35 execution clip demonstrating UI interaction and state updates.

View Architecture

Fig 1.1: High-level view of the resilient retry logic and audit loop.

The Problem

Time Scale & Volume: 22,000 records required record-by-record execution in a web-based wizard. This required sustained manual input from April to July every year (approx. 3 months of full-time capacity).

Operational Bottleneck: The team was stuck in data-entry mode for a quarter of the year before they could focus on higher-value operational work.

Risk: High-volume repetitive input increased cognitive fatigue, leading to a high risk of human error and context-switching fatigue between Excel and the web.

The Solution

In-Memory Optimisation: Instead of the bot clicking cell-by-cell in Excel, I used the 'Read from Excel' action to pull all 22,000 records into a DataTable variable. This reduced data retrieval time from minutes to seconds and prevented Excel-app crashes.
State-Aware Logic: Implemented status-based conditional processing (the bot checks the status and skips a record if already marked ‘uplifted’), allowing for idempotent re-runs.
Resiliency Subflow & Retry Mechanism: Designed a dedicated retry & exception-handling subflow. Introduced 3-attempt retry logic governed by an attempt <= 3 counter and a keepTrying flag to handle web latency or UI timeouts.
Audit Loop: Wrote success/failure outcomes, error notes, and timestamps back to the source Excel file for full auditability.

The Logic Layer

Variable Setting, Flow Stopping, & Skip Loop Logic

Error Handling

Business Impact

Massive Time Recovery

Reclaimed 3 months of manual inputting, freeing up the team for Financial Year-End operational priorities much earlier in the cycle.

Error Elimination

Completely removed the risk of human error and data mismatches caused by context-switching and cognitive fatigue.

Unattended Reliability

Enabled safe, controlled, and repeatable execution across 22,000 records that can be reliably run overnight without human supervision.

Total Transparency

Provided a full traceability trail via the automated Excel audit log, allowing for seamless management review and compliance tracking.