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Recorder package

  • Updated: 2022/04/14
    • Automation 360 v.x
    • Build
    • RPA Workspace

Recorder package

Recorder package captures a series of tasks in a process and then automates them. You can automate your business applications (for example, desktop, Web, SAP, and Java applications) using the Recorder to capture actions performed on application objects such as a text box, button, table, radio button, combo box, and list view.

You can use two recorders in Automation 360, the Universal Recorder and AISense Recorder.

When to use Universal Recorder and AISense Recorder

Universal Recorder
Use Universal Recorder when you want to record interactions such as click, read, or write with user interface objects on your business application. After you have captured the object, you can specify your requirements in terms of the action to be performed on that object.

For example, if you capture a hyperlink, you can select an action to click the link or to retrieve the link text. Similarly, if you capture a table object, you can specify to either retrieve the total number of rows from a table object or retrieve each row one by one and perform any actions on it. This is the most reliable form of automation because it is performed on user interface objects rather than coordinates, images, keystrokes and so on.

AISense Recorder
Use AISense Recorder when you are building and automating your bots on applications that are exposed over Citrix or accessed over RDP. You can also reduce the time spent on building and automating your bots for legacy applications where object-based automation is difficult.

The recorder's resiliency to screen resolution, browsers, and user interface alterations reduces limitations and obstacles when recording tasks across your business applications.

Capture action

Use the Capture action to capture an interaction with a user interface (UI) object. This action enables you to add a single interaction when you are building a bot.
Note: The Capture action replaces the Object Cloning command from Version 11.3.

Using the Capture action

You can capture and automate objects inside a cross-domain IFrame that has multiple IFrames with same frame source and IFrames that are loaded dynamically during runtime in Google Chrome and Microsoft Edge Chromium browsers. After you have captured an object inside a cross-domain IFrame, the frame path is stored in the FrameDOMXPath property, by default.

The new FrameDOMXPath property identifies the frame in which the object is located. You must select this property to run the bot successfully to automate objects on a cross-domain IFrame.
Note: If you clear the FrameDOMPath property from the search criteria, the Recorder fails to identify the frame.
Important: In the Google Chrome browser, you can capture and automate objects inside a cross-domain and use multiple frames with the same frame source.
When you are automating a web page on a Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge Chromium, or Mozilla Firefox browser, you can capture the pop-up windows, alert dialog boxes, confirmation dialog boxes, and prompt dialog boxes that appear.
Recommendation: When you want to automate an alert dialog box on a web page, we recommend that you add a delay before the Recorder > Capture action because sometimes, the alert dialog box appears after a delay on the application window.

You can automate web Java applications running on Microsoft Edge Chromium with IE mode.

Object properties

When you select an object to capture, the Universal Recorder collects data on the object's properties in order to identity the object during run time. You can do the following with the object properties:
  • Verify that the captured object properties match your intended object.

    For example, when capturing a table from a website, ensure the Control Type and HTML Tag values are TABLE.

  • Retrieve a property value. Use the Get property action and enter the name of the property in the Property name field or select an object property from the list of available properties. The list includes suggested property values from the search criteria in the Object Properties table. To select an object property from the list of properties, move the mouse pointer to the right of the Property name field and click the arrow.

    For example, to retrieve the text of a link, use the Get property action and enter HTML InnerText in the Property name field or select HTML InnerText from the list of properties.

  • You can select a combination of properties for the bot to search the object in your business application window uniquely.

The search algorithm for the Recorder package ensures that when you run a bot an object is captured only if its properties match the exact search criterion that you selected in the Object properties table. If the properties of the object do not match the search criterion exactly, then the bot fails with an error message. However, if the search criterion includes a wildcard character, then the bot captures the first object that matches the criterion.

For example, to capture a text box from an application that has three text boxes named firstname1, firstname2, and firstname3, if you select HTML name as the search criterion, enter the value firstname in the HTML name field, and run the bot, then the bot fails with an error message because a text box with the HTML name firstname does not exist. However, in the HTML name field, if you enter firstname*, and run the bot, then the bot captures the first text box that matches the criterion.

Note: This functionality is available for the bots you create using the 2.4.0-20211016-070100 version of the Recorder package starting from Automation 360 v.23. If you have created bots using a previous version of the Recorder package, you must recapture the objects to use this functionality.

Actions performed on captured objects

After capturing the object, specify the action for the bot to perform on the object at run time. For example, when you capture a hyperlink, you can select to click the link or to retrieve the link text. To see table of all objects and possible actions, see Actions performed on objects captured with Universal Recorder.
Note: If you encounter an error when running a bot that captures an object from Internet Explorer and the error message is about Google Chrome, see Your Chrome Plug-in is either not installed or disabled (A-People login required.

Background processing

Background processing enables an automation that involves interacting with an application in the foreground (such as mouse clicks) to run in the background. We recommend that you use the option to run in background to increase the visibility of the target object and improve bot accuracy. The following actions support background processing:
  • Click
  • Set Text
  • Get Text

Secure recording

When secure recording mode is enabled, bots do not display the target object images after capture. This ensures that sensitive data is not shown.
Note: Although the bots do not display the target images after capture, the images are still stored in the Control Room because they are required to run the bots.

When you record a task in secure recording mode, the Preview window temporarily shows an image of the captured area. This image is hidden after you navigate away from the Bot editor window or refresh it.

A user with admin privileges must enable this setting. See Settings.

Proxy support

If your device is configured with a proxy, all outbound requests from this package are routed through the proxy server. See Connect Bot agent to a device with a proxy.

Use cases on how to use recorder

Use these example tasks to become familiar with the use of the recorder in building bots.

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