Follow these best practices to ensure reliable, efficient, and maintainable automation when using the Universal Recorder.

General best practices

  • Set DPI scaling to 100% for best compatibility, especially when working with AISense Recorder.
  • Record in a stable environment. Before recording, ensure your environment is stable by closing unnecessary apps and browser tabs.
  • For web automation, ensure your browser zoom is set to 100% in Google Chrome and Microsoft Edge to accurately capture elements.
  • We recommend that you maintain the same environment between recording and execution.
  • Incorporate robust error handling into your automation by enclosing Recorder actions with logic for retries, waits, or fallback actions. This ensures your automation can handle delays and unexpected issues smoothly.
  • After recording, test your automation with a different dataset, environments, and user accounts to ensure reliability. Restart the application to confirm the Recorder still recognizes the elements, verifying your selectors are stable.

Best practices for Recorder configuration and reliability

  • Identify properties that remain static by running your automation multiple times and observing which attributes are consistent. Close and reopen web pages to check for changes in controls, and test bots across different environments for reliability. Be cautious with values combining strings and numbers, as these are often dynamic, revalidate such properties regularly. If the DOMXPath is dynamic, create a dynamic XPath that can be used instead. Use wildcards for better reliability, for example, when a prefix is followed by changing numbers.
  • When using the Set Text action to simulate user input especially in fields that trigger auto complete or similar backend processes, add a small delay between keystrokes. This ensures that all expected functions execute properly.
  • Use ID as a search criteria in Recorder when the UI element you want to automate has a unique and stable ID attribute. A stable and unique element id offers an efficient and reliable way to identify UI elements.
  • Always include DOMXpath in your search criteria when working with web applications, particularly for dynamic elements. The Path property represents an element’s position in the UI hierarchy using numeric or index-based values, which can change frequently if the UI layout is modified, elements are added or removed, or their order changes.
  • The primary search algorithms are Path and DOMXPath. For non-HTML technologies, it’s recommended to use the Path property. For web automation, use DOMXPath and CSS selector. Always include the Path property in the search criteria for non-HTML applications.
  • In unattended mode, physical actions might encounter issues if the application does not render correctly. Use suitable soft actions to achieve your use case reliably.
  • Use * wildcards in window titles when your window title changes in a specific event or a flow, such as file names, user IDs, dates. for example, Invoice - * instead of Invoice - 12345.