If your robotic task needs to capture images or search for existing images on a screen, you can use the Falcon module to configure your process. To get started, the Image Recognition template provides beginner level steps on using the Falcon module. This template details how to search and click on an image defined in your support files.

When you use a template to create a robotic task, you are provided with a zip file containing your source code and a pre-built workflow in the robotic task configuration page. Within the source code of this template, the robotic task references a sample image. For the robotic task to locate this image, you need to use the support image creation tool from the Appian RPA agent to capture the sample image.

The following page explains the contents of the Falcon template workflow and the source code generated by the template.

Prerequisite

For the robotic task to locate the sample image referenced in this template, you need to use the support image creation tool to capture a screenshot of an image on your host machine.

The template comes with the image test.png attached, which is an image of the Firefox icon. Before making changes to the template code, you can capture your own image instead of using the Firefox icon.

To create a support image on your host machine:

1. Right-click the agent icon and click Create support image.
2. Click and drag your mouse over an area of the screen to take a partial screenshot.
3. In the side panel, under Save image, select the dropdown and choose to save your image to your robotic task.
4. Enter test as the name of your image.
5. Click Save image. The image is sent to the console and available as a robot support file.

Workflow

The Image Recognition template's workflow includes two actions: Locate image and Send screenshot. The Locate image action is where most of the configuration will occur.

If you click the list icon on any action, you'll see it is associated with a method. These methods are in the source code generated from the template. Within the source code, Appian has provided an outline of how you can configure each method.

Source code

Within the downloaded ZIP file, you will see the file RobotFalconTemplate.java.

RobotFalconTemplate

The RobotFalconTemplate class implements the IRobot interface and is annotated by @Robot. Every Appian RPA robotic task must have the IRobot interface and @Robot annotation to allow the Appian RPA API to identify the class as a robot.