Move bots across environments

You can move bots and files, their dependencies, and packages between Control Room instances in a single flow. The promote bot feature simplifies the process by avoiding the multi-step export and import process when moving bots across different Control Room environments (Dev to UAT).

Prerequisites

  • Ensure that you have the Control Room administrator role, or have a Bot Creator or Citizen Developer license with the following permissions:
    • Export bots for the user performing the bot promotion in the source Control Room.
    • All folder level permissions (Run and schedule, Check in, Check out, View content, Clone, and Delete from Public) on the folders containing the bots that you want to promote in the source Control Room.
  • The target Control Room user must have Import bots and Manage packages permission.
  • The target Control Room must have a valid URL.
  • The target Control Room must be accessible from the source Control Room via API, irrespective of where it is located, On-Premises or Cloud or whether it is from the same domain or is from different domains.
  • For Automation 360 Cloud deployments, ensure that the IP addresses of the target Control Room instances are added to the allowed list.

    See Control Room IP addresses for external integrations.

Procedure

  • Add the list of approved target URLs.
    1. Log in to the Control Room as an administrator.
    2. Navigate to Administration > Settings > Security settings > Bot promotion settings and click Next.
    3. Click Edit.
    4. Enter the Control Room URL in the Verified target Control Room URLs field and click the plus icon.
      Note: Only https URLs are accepted. You can add up to 25 target Control Room instances.
      The validated target Control Room URLs will be displayed in the validated URLs field.
    5. Click Save changes.
      Note: You can remove any URL by selecting the delete option in the vertical ellipsis next to the URL.

    See the following video to understand how to add the list of approved target URLs.

  • Move bots across Control Room instances.
    1. Log in to the Control Room either as an administrator or a Bot Creator with the permissions previously described.
    2. Navigate to the Automation > Public tab.
    3. Click Manage bots > Promote.
    4. In the Promote bots and files page, select the bots, files, processes, or forms you want to move and then click Next.
    5. Select dependencies (if any) and click Next.
    6. Select packages and click Next.
      Note: To exclude packages, select the Exclude bot packages check box.
    7. Provide a meaningful name for the promotion.
    8. If some of the files that are being moved are already available in the target Control Room, select one of the following:
      • Skip the bot or file (don't import it)
      • Overwrite the existing bot or file
    9. Click Next.
    10. Select the target Control Room URL from the drop-down.
    11. Enter the Username and API key for the target Control Room to authenticate.
      Note:
      • To prevent authentication errors, ensure that you provide the correct username and API key.
      • If the API key that you generate is long, you can re-use the same and need not generate the API key every time you promote a bot. If the API key expires, you must generate it during bot promotion. Duration of the API key is configured by the admin.

        For details about generating an API key, see Create API key generation role.

    12. Click Promote bots and files.
      • The promoted bots and files appear in the target Control Room.
      • When bots are promoted, they are checked in to the target Control Room. If you choose the overwrite option, their version increments in the targetControl Room.
      Note:
      • Bots and files are promoted from and to the public workspace only.
      • You can promote up to 1000 bots and files including dependencies.
      • You can import, export, or promote the bots with dependencies such as parent and child bots, dependent files such as XLS, CSV, PDF, and WLM Work Item defined. However, the Global Values (GV) and Credential Vaults (CV) that are used in the bots cannot be imported, exported, or promoted.

    See the following video to understand how to move bots across Control Room instances.