Record automation execution

Automations enable you to perform complex business tasks swiftly and securely. If any of the scheduled automations fail or encounter an issue, identifying the errors can impact the productivity. Recording an automation can help you review and resolve any errors that might have caused any runtime failure.

Note: Functionality to record an automation execution requires the Enterprise Platform license. For more information about supported version for this feature, see Enterprise Platform.

If you have the Enterprise Platform license, the record automation execution functionality is enabled by default for On-Premises users.

Overview

Organizations can have multiple automations managing various tasks on a daily basis, and it can get difficult to monitor each and every one of them constantly. When you update Bot Agent to the latest version, all the automations that are initiated in the Control Room are recorded by default.

Although administrators can delete any of the unimportant recordings to free up the storage space on database, they can select one of the following preferences for recording automation executions:
Note: The option that an administrator selects will be the default selection for all other users in the Run Task Bot and Schedule Task Bot screens. However, users can change these settings while deploying the automation.

Run a bot | Schedule a bot

  • Only failed executions: Recording will be stored only when the automation execution fails.
  • All bot executions: Recording is stored irrespective of whether the execution is successful or failed.

Considerations

When recording automation, keep in mind that recordings might be impacted in the following cases:
  • Automation recording can impact the system performance such as CPU usage, RAM performance, storage and so on based on the type of Bot execution recording option that is selected.
    Consider a scenario where there are 15 Control Room users who can execute automations. The Control Room is installed on a system that has the following hardware configurations:
    • RAM - 64 GB
    • Processor Cores - 8
    • Total storage - 200 GB
    When these 15 users execute the automations concurrently for three different settings of the Bot execution recording feature, there will be an impact on the available hardware resources.
    • Disabled: If the feature is disabled and all the automations lasted for 36 minutes, the average CPU usage would be 12%, RAM usage would be 14%. Also 77% of the total storage space will be available.
    • Only failed executions: Enabling this feature increases the resource usage moderately. The execution duration extends by 16.7%, and there is a notable increase in CPU usage by 258.3% and RAM usage by 22.2%. Additionally, available storage space decreases by 16.2%.
    • All bot executions: Enabling this feature results in a significant increase in resource usage. The execution duration is extended by 38.9%, and CPU usage increases significantly by 583.3%, while RAM usage increases by 22.2%. The available storage space is considerably reduced by 48.1%.
  • A total of 100 MB of storage space is available for automation recordings.
  • CPU overhead for encoding the last 5 minutes of automation recording might impact the execution time of the next automation if the execution time and the scheduled frequency are less than 5 minutes.
  • Automation recording might fail for deployments that are based on multi-user sessions (for example, with 5 user session system with back-to-back deployment).
  • While the automation encoding or uploading is in progress and the associated user session is closed or logged-off, the automation recording might fail.
  • When the device is in locked state or the device window is in minimized state, the automation recording might fail.

    The screen capture command might also fail in such instants and the automation must be executed again.

  • The duration for retaining the recordings depend on the default or custom values set in the Storage details field. The recorded files will be auto-deleted when the duration of the stored recording exceeds the value set in the Storage details field.

    For example, if you have set the timeline as 10 days, the recordings older than 10 days will be auto-deleted.

Resources

  • Watch the following video to learn the benefits of recording an automation:

  • Learning course: Recording automation execution