Automation 360 supports both attended and unattended automation, giving business users and automation developers flexible options for deploying bots. Attended automation requires human oversight at key steps, while unattended automation runs independently using preset triggers to handle back-end tasks such as data collection, validation, and retrieval.
Attended automation: Attended automation is where a human and a bot work together on the same machine. The bot assists the user in real-time during their workflow. The human is in the loop — they might trigger the bot, provide inputs, review outputs, or handle exceptions.
- Bot runs on the user's own machine (local desktop/laptop)
- Human triggers the bot manually (For example, via a button click or hotkey)
- Bot might pause and wait for human input, validation, or decisions
- Ideal for front-office tasks where human judgment is needed
- Runs in the foreground alongside the user
| Scenario | Example |
|---|---|
| Customer-facing interactions | Agent assists a call center rep by auto-filling customer data |
| Processes requiring human judgment | Reviewing extracted data before submitting |
| Tasks with exceptions needing human review | Invoice processing with anomalies flagged for approval |
| Partial automation of a longer manual process | Automating just the data entry portion of a workflow |
| Compliance-sensitive processes | Where a human sign-off is mandatory |
Unattended automation: Unattended automation is where bots run fully autonomously, without any human involvement. They are scheduled or triggered from the Control Room and execute on dedicated bot runner machines (VMs or servers) — often overnight or in bulk.
- Bot runs without a human present on a dedicated bot runner machine/VM
- Triggered via Control Room scheduling, API calls, or event triggers
- Runs 24/7 in the background — even overnight or on weekends
- Ideal for back-office, high-volume, repetitive tasks
- Requires Auto-login to be configured on the bot runner device
- No human can be logged into the machine during execution (can cause session conflicts)
| Scenario | Example |
|---|---|
| High-volume, repetitive back-office tasks | Processing thousands of invoices overnight |
| Scheduled batch processing | End-of-day reports, payroll runs |
| Time-sensitive processes outside business hours | Nightly data migrations or reconciliations |
| Processes with no human decision points | Fully structured, rule-based workflows |
| Scaling automation across multiple bots simultaneously | Running 10 bots in parallel to process a queue |
- Automated integration between multiple applications or databases, reducing errors as very little user intervention is necessary.
- Access bots in real-time through an easy-to-use interface.
- Configure or update triggers to start bots in response to real-time events.
Benefits
The following table compares the characteristics of attended and unattended automation:
| Attended automation | Unattended automation |
|---|---|
| Integrated into process workflows that require user intervention only for approvals or authentication, such as front-office activities. | Repetitive back-end tasks such as data collection or retrieval are managed accurately and quickly, improving user efficiency. |
| The user triggers the bots when necessary to complete certain tasks. | Preset triggers are configured to start and complete routine business tasks. |
| Works best when integrated with service desk processes or environments where user input is required. | No user intervention is required — preset triggers start the back-end processes. |
Deployment considerations for automation developers
When building attended or unattended automations, consider the following factors that affect how bots are deployed and executed.
- Trigger mechanisms
-
- Attended: Triggered manually by the user from Automation Co-Pilot for Business Users, a desktop client, or a third-party embedded interface.
- Unattended: Triggered by schedules, API calls via the , or event-based triggers configured in the Control Room.
- Credential and permissions model
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- Attended bots can use the logged-in user's credentials at runtime.
- Unattended bots run under a service account and must have all required credentials pre-configured in Control Room Credential Vault.
- Bot Runner requirements
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- Attended: Requires an attended Bot Runner license. The user must be actively logged in on the target machine.
- Unattended: Requires an unattended Bot Runner license. The target machine can run headlessly without an active user session.
- Error handling
- Unattended automations must include robust exception handling and logging because no user is present to intervene. Use the Error Handler action and configure retry logic at the task level.
- Orchestration and queuing
- Use the Control Room Work Items queue to manage high-volume unattended workloads across multiple Bot Runner instances. The supports programmatic queue management and status monitoring.
Video: Attended automation overview
Watch the following video to understand attended automation: