Automation Anywhere - Best Practices and Secure Recording

Automation Anywhere - Best Practices and Secure Recording

Automation Anywhere

Best Practices - Recording & Running Tasks, Coding Standard

Recording of Task:

• Avoid using mouse clicks.
• Use Keystrokes as much as possible.
• Use keyboard shortcuts.
• Maximize all windows.
• Avoid dragging windows while recording.
• Avoid clicking on applications that are not involved with your process.
• Record the task at Low speed.
• Avoid unnecessary mouse movement.
• Applications' resolution should be 100%.

Running a Recorded Task:

• Properly open application window.
• Avoid moving the mouse.
• Avoid unnecessary keystrokes.
• Maximize all windows.
• Use Wildcards.
• Add commands such as If/Else, Loops etc.

Coding Standard:

• Variable name should be meaningful.
• No Hardcode value should assign to variable.
• Use meaningful comments.
• Use Credential vault and encryption of sensitive data.
• Use Error handling and write log to fix the issue easily.
• Use wildcard (*) or variables in Window Title to avoid further issues in BOT.
• Use at least 50ms of delay while using keystrokes.
• Use dynamic delay.

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Running automated tasks under Minimized Session of RDC (Remote Desktop Connection)

When you running an automated tasks in RDC and you minimize a remote desktop window, the operating system switches the remote session to the non-GUI mode and does not display windows and controls.

As a result, Automation Anywhere is unable to interact with the application GUI. At this point, the automated GUI task fails.

To run GUI tasks on a remote computer while minimizing the remote desktop window, change the registry keys on the computer from which you connect to the remote Automation Anywhere workstation.

Steps to change in Registry:

• Open Registry window.
• Navigate to one of the following registry keys
• HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Terminal Server Client - If you want to change setting of registry for current user only.
• HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Terminal Server Client - If you want to change setting of registry for all user of computer.
• Create a DWORD value named RemoteDesktop_SuppressWhenMinimized and set it to 2.
• Save and exit from registry.
• Restart the computer.

Once you complete the above steps, you are able to run automated tasks from RDC successfully, whether RDC is minimized or not.

There is an alternate to RDC is VNC (Virtual Network Connection). VNC physically connects to the remote system, rather than creating sessions for each connection. The connection retains controls on the remote GUI, even when the VNC window is minimized or disconnected.

To know more about VNC, please visit https://www.realvnc.com/en/

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Basics of Secure Recording

When you use Automation Anywhere recorders, the commands generally capture important details such as object value, image, text, inner HTMLs etc. Capturing these sensitive data may pose a risk. To overcome this problem, Automation Anywhere introduce Secure Recording. When Secure Recording is enabled, any commands in AA is not able to capture any sensitive data.

By default, Secure Recording is disabled. To enable this option, user need to go to Control Room. In control room move to Control Room Setting -> Select Client Configuration -> Under secure recording option, click on Enable.

List of commands which supports Secure Recording

• Delay/Wait - No images are captured.
• Error Handling
• If/Else Command - Images are not captured.
• Image Recognition - ‘Image1 is not saved and ‘Image2’ is not captured.
• Insert Mouse Click - No images are captured.
• Manage Windows Control - No values are captured.
• Object Cloning - No value and images are captured. When you try to record and play using the Image Option and Save the command, it is not supported in the “Secure Recording mode.”
• OCR
• Screen Recorder - No images are captured.
• Web Recorder - No values, caption, default texts are captured. Also, none of the values are captured for ‘Extract Data’ and ‘Extract Multiple Data.’
• Screen Capture - In AAE Main Client, screen-shots are disabled while recording when 'Secure Recording Mode' is enabled. To verify, In AAE Main windows, Tools -> Options -> Advance Setting -> 'Capture Screenshots while recording a task' will be un-ticked and disabled.
• AAE Task Editor - 'Visualize' and 'Snap Point' button are disabled.

Note: - If a task is recorded when Secure Recording is 'disabled', it will consist object values and images. If the Secure Recording is then enabled and the same task is opened with the AAE Task Editor, the object values and images will still be visible.

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Basics of Metabot

Basics of Metabot

Automation Anywhere

Basics of Metabot

A MetaBot is an automation blueprint of an application that can be re-used to optimize processes. They help you standardize your processes end to end.
MetaBots enable you to create automation building blocks that capture information in the form of visuals or application APIs. These can thereon be integrated as commands and further leveraged by varied processes to deliver value at multiple levels.

MetaBots can be constructed using:

• Visual captures (Screen) - These are GUI components (screens) of an application. In MetaBot Designer, a visual capture is referred as Screen.
• Application APIs (DLL) - These are interfaces that allow low level operations of an application by circumventing GUI. The MetaBot Designer also supports the most common format of API on Windows platform – the DLL.
• Navigational flows (Logic) - These are pre-configured use cases of an application and leverage Visual captures and APIs. In MetaBot Designer, Screens and DLLs form the Assets using which you can define and pre-configure any use case of a target application to create a navigational flow, known as Logic.

Benefits of using MetaBots:

• MetaBots can be re-used; create once, use everywhere. They show up in automation command library in AA Enterprise and can be leveraged by any automation task.
• Enterprises can leverage MetaBot library to standardize org-wide automation in a rapid manner.
• MetaBots ensures systematic, accelerated automation ROI.
• MetaBots eliminate common navigational errors in complex automation tasks.
• MetaBots automate without requiring access to live application.
• MetaBots can be easily calibrated to newer versions of applications to ensure compatibility.

NOTE: You cannot calibrate screen that pop-up or do not have a title.

Error Handling in Metabot

MetaBot Designer provides the following options for error handling when an error occurs:

• Take Snapshot: In case of any error, take a snapshot of the screen.
• Variable Assignment: Specify a value to be assigned to a variable and Set Task Status Pass or Fail depending on the Error handling action.

  

  Error Handling

Available System Variable in Metabot

System Variable

Types of Variable in Metabot

Variable

Available commands in Metabot logic editor

Commands in Logic Editor

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Automation Anywhere - String Operation Command

Automation Anywhere - String Operation Command

Automation Anywhere

String Operation Command

This command is use to manipulate a text string and store it in a variable.

Sub-commands

• Before/After - This command is use to extract text from a string.
  Example: In the text string, 'The quick brown fox jumps right over the lazy dog.' let's copy only 'fox'. We specify Before =
  'brown' with an Occurrence of 1. We also specify After = 'jumps' with an Occurrence of 1.
• Compare - This command is use to compare two strings.

  

  Compare

• Find - This command is use to find specific character's position from the string. If the specified string is a regular expression, select the check box that is provided. Insert the regular expression in the Find String field.

  

  Find

• Join - This command is use to join two or more strings from list variable.

  

  Join

• Length - This command is use to get the length of the string.

  

  Length

• Lower Case - This command is use to convert a string into lower case.

  

  Lower Case

• Replace - This command is use replace character or text from the string with a specified replacement string.

  

  Replace

• Reverse - This command is use to reverse the string.

  

  Reverse

• Split - This command is use to convert a string into the list. Specify a 'Delimiter' and optionally number of delimiters to be considered in 'Limit'.

  

  Split

• Sub-String - This command is use to extract text from a string.

  

  Sub String

• Trim - This command is use to remove blanks and spaces from a string.

  

  Trim

• Upper Case - This command is use to convert a string into upper case.

  

  Upper Case

Components of Before/After Sub-command:

• Source String - Enter a variable which contain the string or Type into a string, which you want to manipulate.
• Before - Specify a text which from where you want to extract.
• Occurrence - Specify the occurrence of the text specified in Before field.
• Logical Operator -
  • AND - This is use to ensure 'Before' and the 'After' conditions are met.
    -- For instance, when you input a string in 'Before' and if not found, the search will be aborted. The program will not search the
    string input in 'After'.
  • OR - This is use to ensure 'Before' or 'After' conditions is met. This is a default logical operator.
    For instance, when you input a string in 'Before' and if not found, the program will continue to search for the string input in
    'After'.
• After - Specify a text which from where you want to extract.
• Occurrence - Specify the occurrence of the text specified in After field.
• Number of Characters to be extracted - Enter the value to extract a text with specific length.
• Trim the extracted text - Select this option if you want to remove space and blanks from extracted string.
• Remove Enter from the extracted text - Select this option if you want to remove enter from extracted string. if contains.
• If no match found, return - This is use to return a string or null into a variable, if conditions are not met. Two options are available 'Source string' and 'Empty string'.
• Assign Output - Store extracted string into the variable.

  

  Before-After

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