What was learned from building a basic bot

The "Build a basic Bot" tutorial covers the fundamentals of Automation Anywhere and how to create a bot.

The following are takeways from creating a basic Task Bot.

Recorders

The Web Recorder used in this tutorial records web pages and captures all the clicks and text entries. Including the Web Recorder, there are four methods for recording tasks:
Web Recorder
Records web-only tasks. If website controls on a page change location, the task adjusts to run without error. If the properties of the web controls change, the automation task can be updated to ensure that the task runs successfully.
Tip: Web Recorder only works with Internet Explorer. Automate web applications with other browsers such as Google Chrome or Microsoft Edge using Workbench.
Screen Recorder
Record tasks that run on the same machine where the task is created by recording mouse clicks and keyboard operations. Screen recorder might be referred to as standard recorder in some legacy topics.
Important: The Screen Recorder is the most basic recorder. Recorded tasks depend on the UI location and screen resolution. If conditions change related to the target application, recorded tasks might not work.
Smart Recorder
Captures common UI objects used in both Windows-based and web-based applications. The objects include common UI controls such as buttons, text fields, and combo boxes. Some of the related technologies include HTML, .Net, WPF, Java, Flex, and Silverlight. The UI objects are saved as a set of Object Cloning commands.
Tip: The Smart Recorder captures automated web application, but it is strongly recommended to use the Web Recorder to capture web-based content.
Workbench
Create tasks manually. Assign relevant actions to the task using the commands provided in the editor.

Understand the Workbench

When a recorder finishes, it saves the recorded steps as commands in a task file. Specific recorders output only the following commands:

  • Web Recorder: Web Recorder commands
  • Smart Recorder: Object Cloning commands
  • Screen Recorder: Insert Keystrokes, Insert Mouse Moves/Clicks/Scroll commands

To edit an existing task, double-click its name or right-click the name and select Edit. The Workbenchscreen shows a list of each line created by the recorder. Each line represents one recorded step. Edit a single step to enhance its function. Edit tasks in the Workbencheditor to modify the recorded commands to make a fully-featured Task Bot.

Use the Workbench editor to modify and update a Task Bot. The Workbench provides the tools to do things, for example:
  • Drag and drop commands from the Command tab to the Actions List.
  • Move steps inside flow control statements, for example, moving steps into a loop.
  • Add and manage variables.

Understand the basic Task Bot

You must understand the Task Bot created in this exercise. It contains static data that was captured using the Web Recorder.

  1. The first two Actions List items are for the more generic task of adding users to this website.
  2. Actions List items 3 through 9 are steps that type static user information. This task can repeat exactly what the Web Recorder captured. There is no dynamic input of multiple users.

In the next tutorial, Edit a basic bot using the Enterprise Client, what was recorded in this exercise is modified to dynamically read data from a CSV file and input that data to a web page.