Review this FAQ to learn general concepts about WLM.

General

What does the WLM capability help me do?
Workload Management (WLM) enables you to efficiently manage and distribute high volumes of work items across multiple devices. It ensures tasks are prioritized, processed efficiently, and meet defined service-level agreements (SLAs).
What are work items?
Work Items are individual units of work (for example, a single invoice, one customer record, one loan application) that reside in a workload queue and are processed by the automation. Each work item contains the data necessary for the automation to complete its task.
How do I ensure data security in WLM?
  • Implement role-based access control (RBAC) by assigning appropriate permissions to users and roles (for example, only WLM administrator can manage queues, only specific roles can consume items).

    For more details, see WLM: User roles and permissions.

  • Use Credential Vault for secure storage and access of sensitive credentials used by automations.

    For more details, see Credentials and lockers in the Credential Vault.

Can I integrate WLM with external systems such as BPM and ERP?
Yes, WLM can be integrated using Automation Anywhere public APIs. External systems can then do the following:
  • Insert work items into queues.
  • Query queue status and work item details.
  • Retrieve processed results.

This integration facilitates end-to-end process orchestration across different platforms. For more details, see Control Room APIs.

Workload queues

What are workload queues?
Workload queues are central repositories in the Control Room where work items are stored. They enable prioritization, load balancing, retry mechanisms, and real-time status tracking of work items.
How do I create a workload queue?
In the Control Room, follow these steps:
  1. Navigate to Manage > Queues.
  2. Click Create queue.
  3. Define the queue name, and specify the columns or structure for your work items.

You can also define prioritization rules and retry settings here. For more information, see Create standard queues.

What types of files can I upload to populate a workload queue?
You can typically upload CSV (.csv) files directly to populate queues. The headers of these files can automatically define your queue columns. You can also use Workload package Insert work item action or APIs to insert work items from various other sources.
For more details, see Using Insert work item action.
Can I set priorities for different tasks or work items in WLM?
Yes, you can configure prioritization rules for each queue. You can sort work items based on the values in any of the defined columns (for example, sort by Due date ascending, Priority level descending). It ensures high-priority tasks are processed first.

For more details, see Actions allowed on view queue page.

What happens if a work item fails during processing?
If an automation encounters an error, the work item is marked as Failed. Based on the queue's configuration, the work item can be automatically retried after a specified delay for a defined number of attempts. If maximum retries are reached, it remains Failed for human review.

For more details, see WLM work item lifecycle and Work item status and actions.

How do I reprocess failed work items?
  • Automatic retry: If auto-retry is configured, WLM will automatically re-process the Failed work items.
  • Manual retry: A queue owner can manually select Failed work items in the Control Room and change their status back to New to trigger a re-processing by an automation, often after a human review has investigated and resolved the underlying issue.

Devices and device pools

What are device pools?
Device pools are logical groupings of devices. When an automation is deployed to a device pool, WLM automatically distributes work items to any available device within that pool, ensuring optimal resource utilization and scalability.
What is the role of devices in WLM?
Devices are the execution agents. They are the machines (physical or virtual) where the automations actually run to process the work items assigned by the WLM setup.
Can I use the same device pool for multiple queues?
Yes, you can use the same device pool for multiple queues. This is a common and efficient practice, as it enables your shared device pool to pull work from any of the associated queues based on overall priority and availability.
How does WLM decide which task or automation executes first if multiple queues share a device pool?
The WLM setup considers the priority settings within each queue and then the overall priority configuration across all queues sharing the device pool. It aims to pull the highest-priority work item from any of the associated queues for the next available device.
How do I scale my WLM setup to handle increased workload?
You can scale by adding more devices to the device pool associated with your queues. The WLM setup will automatically detect the new capacity and distribute work items across all the available devices.

For more information about device pool, see About device pools.

Monitoring and troubleshooting

How do I monitor the performance of workload queues?
The Control Room provides a real-time Automation Command Center (ACC) dashboard (Home > Monitoring). You can view automation run count (New, In Progress, Completed, Failed) and export data to CSV file.
My work item is stuck in the New status and not being processed. What should I do?
Review the following common causes and take the appropriate action based on the cause:
  • There is no available device in the associated device pool.
  • The automation is not deployed to the correct device pool.
  • The Run as user for the device does not have the permissions to consume work items from the queue.
  • The queue is paused.
  • Devices are offline or the Bot Agent service is stopped.
  • There might be network connectivity issues between the device and Control Room.
  • There are no active schedules or triggers for the automation (though WLM often handles this implicitly when deployed to a device pool).
Why are my work items going directly to the Failed status without being retried?
  • Check the queue configuration in the Control Room. The maximum retries value might be set to 0.
  • The automation might be explicitly marking the item as Failed, without allowing retries based on its internal logic.
Can I prevent an automation from processing work items during a specific downtime (for example, system maintenance)?
  • You can pause a queue from the Control Room during the downtime. An automation will stop pulling new items. When maintenance is completed, you can resume the queue.
  • Alternatively, the automation logic can include a check for the current time and pause its own processing or defer work items if it falls within a known downtime window.

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