Enterprise 11: Schedule a bot

To run a bot at a later point in time, on a periodic basis, or at a specific point in time, use the Schedule bot page.

Prerequisites

The following permissions are required:
  • View everyone's In progress activity
  • View my scheduled bots
  • View my bots
Note:
  • You can access only the folders for which you have the Run and Schedule permission.
  • You cannot schedule Attended Bots from the Control Room. Only Unattended Bots are available for the schedule operation.

You can schedule a bot from any of the following Control Room pages:

  • Activity > In progress
  • Activity > Scheduled
  • Bots > My bots
  • Devices > Bot runners and bot creators

Procedure

  1. Click the Schedule bot link in the appropriate page, such as the In progress, Scheduled, My bots, or Bot runners and bot creators page.
    The Schedule bot page is launched.
  2. From the Select a TaskBot area, click one of the folders depending on your requirements.
    The Type and name of the available bots are shown on the right side in a tabular format.
  3. Click a bot to select a Task Bot depending on your requirements.
    The Select option is enabled.
  4. Click Select.
    The bot is ready to be scheduled. You can view the dependencies of the selected bot in the Review dependencies for <bot name> section.
    Note: When you click Select, the option label changes to Replace. This provides you an option to select another bot and replace the selected bot.
    Although, you can schedule a bot, automation fails in the following cases:
    • If any of the bot dependencies are missing
    • If you do not have the folder privileges on the dependencies
    • If you do not have the Run and Schedule permission (shows a red dependency icon - The dependency icon.)
  5. Click the Next link.
    The Schedule and Devices tab is shown. You can choose from two options to schedule a bot: Run once or Run repeatedly.
    • Run once: Use this option to run the bot once on a given day at x hour. When you select this option, set the start date and start time.
    • Run repeatedly: Use this option to schedule your bot to run every x minutes per hour on a given day. When you select this option, select the start date, end date, and start time.
      • Enter the Start date either manually in MM/DD/YYYY format or by using the pop-up calendar. The default value of the Start date field is set to the current day of your local system.
        Enter the End date if you are using the Run repeatedly option. The default value of the End date field is blank.
        Note: If the value selected in the Start date field is the current day, the scheduled time has to be greater than the current time. Also, the value of the End date field has to be later than or equal to the value in the Start date field.
      • Enter the Start time using the drop-down list to quickly set the time value. The list contains predefined time values in the 12-hour format at intervals of 15 minutes. You can also manually set the time value in the 12-hour format. However, this is not available for the selection in the drop-down list. The default value of the Start Time field is rounded off to the closest half-hour that is 15 minutes away. For example, if the current time is 11:22 AM, it will display 12:00 PM.
      • Time Zone: While creating and editing a schedule, you can select the Time Zone with the start time. The default value of the Time Zone is set to the current location your system.
      Note: A schedule is run based on the Time Zone selected when creating or editing a schedule.
      For more information about selection of time in schedules by considering Day Light Saving Time (DST) switch over, see Daylight Saving and Time Zone Selection in Schedules.
  6. After selecting the Run once or Run repeatedly options, click a device of your choice from the Available devices area and use the arrow button to move it to the Selected devices area.
    The list shows the devices connected and disconnected to the Control Room.
    Note: You can select only bot runner devices that are connected. If a device is not connected, it is not enabled. Also, if the device does not appear in the list, ensure that an active bot runner session is running on the device.
  7. Optional: Select the Run bot runner session on control room when you want the Control Room to use the RDP of the Bot Runner sessions and run it in its local memory.
    Use this option if you face issues with Auto Login. You can also choose to set the RDP screen resolution of the Bot Runner with the Set bot runner screen resolution option and ensure that the screen resolution of the Bot Creator and Bot Runner match and the bot executes successfully.
    Note: When this option is selected, a separate audit log for run bot deployment and Bot Runner session is logged in the Control Room. See Audit logs for run bot deployment and bot runner session.
    After the device is added to the list of selected devices, the Upcoming schedules for that device are shown. This helps you to decide whether to deploy another schedule or not.
  8. Click the Next link.
    The Name and Description tab appears.
  9. Enter a name and description in the General area and click the Schedule bot option.
    The bot is added to the Activity table of the Scheduled activity page.
    Note: The Schedule bot option remains disabled until all the required items, such as bots, schedule details, and devices are not selected.