Ways to Execute a Robotic Process
This content applies solely to Appian RPA, which must be purchased separately from the Appian base platform.

This page describes the ways you can execute a robotic process.

To extend automation, robotic processes can be triggered to execute automatically in multiple ways. The method you use to execute a robotic process depends on its purpose and context. Choose one of the following options that describes your use case:

Execute a robotic process in a process model

After you set up the connected system, call an RPA integration using the Execute Robotic Process smart service from your process model to execute synchronously. Synchronous execution is useful if you want to return data from the robotic process execution and use it in subsequent nodes in the same process model.

To execute a robotic process in Appian RPA asynchronously, you can call the integration using the Call Integration smart service. When the robotic process is executed asynchronously, the process model moves to the next node whether or not the robotic process is complete, and the results aren't automatically returned.

Execute a robotic process from an interface

You can adapt the Refresh Data After Executing a Smart Service recipe to execute a robotic process and retrieve results in an interface.

Note that this recipe needs some modification to work for this purpose. After you set up the connected system and integrations, you'll call the integration rules in this recipe. Specifically, for a robotic process to start when a user clicks a button, include that Execute Robotic Process integration rule in the saveInto property. Update the status local variable to reference the Retrieve Execution Results integration rule.

Execute a robotic process manually in the Appian RPA console

You can manually execute a robotic process within the Appian RPA console. Open the robotic process's configuration and click the Execute icon. This option also appears in the Actions column in the List of robotic processes. The Execute robotic process dialog appears:

rpa-execution-options.png

Before you click Execute rpa-execute-icon.png, fill in all required fields.

A warning message appears if the robotic process has any restrictions to keep it from executing, such as new executions are disabled in the console or the maximum number of simultaneous executions has been reached.

If the robotic process requires any input parameters, these appear at the top of the Execution options window. Other execution options appear below:

  • Resource: Select a resource for the execution to occur. The options include resources where the robotic process has permissions to execute. By default, the first available resource is selected. The robotic process will run on the first connected resource for which it has permissions to run. This list also shows resources that are Unconnected and Connected but incompatible due to mismatched permission tags.
  • Priority: If desired, change the execution priority defined in the robotic process configuration.
  • Queue: If the robotic process works with a process queue, assign it manually using this field.
  • Trace level: Depending on the trace level selected, information written in the Execution log will be higher or lower.
  • Description: Add an optional short description of the process or execution.
  • Executions to launch: Specify how many executions to launch.
  • Color: If desired, change the default color for the execution, defined in the robotic process configuration.
  • Debugging?: Select this checkbox to begin a debugging execution. You can debug in RPA to walk you through the workflow action-by-action and isolate where issues might arise.
  • Testing?: Select this checkbox to specify that the execution is a test. This option will highlight this execution on the lists where executions are displayed.
  • Capture screenshots?: Select this checkbox to capture images of the resource screen at the beginning and the end of each action.
  • Enable video recording?: Select this checkbox to record a video of the execution with additional options.
  • Deferred execution?: Select this checkbox to defer the execution to the chosen date and time.

After the execution finishes, see the execution details for more information.

Open in Github Built: Wed, Aug 17, 2022 (01:05:05 PM)

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