Automation Anywhere (AA) is the leading cloud RPA platform. With PixieBrix, you can trigger AA Bots from any web page via AA’s Control Room API.
PixieBrix can run bots on both the Enterprise Edition and the free Community Edition. However, in Community Edition, PixieBrix cannot retrieve bot output.
- Configuring the Control Room API
- Optional: Filtering By Folder
- Running a Bot
- Enterprise Edition User/Device Pool Configuration
- Community Edition Device Configuration
- Providing Bot Inputs
- Returning Bot Outputs
- Adding an Output to a Bot
- Retrieving Bot Output
Configuring the Control Room API
On the Integrations Screen, add the Automation Anywhere Control Room integration. The following fields are required:
- Control Room URL: the URL of the AA tenant. Should include the
https://, but should not include a trailing slash - Username/Password: your Control Room username/password. NOTE: AA will log you out of Control Room tabs you have open when calling the API
Optional: Filtering By Folder
When configuring the Automation Anywhere Control Room integration, you can optionally provide the folderId to restrict listed bots to that folder:
- Folder Id: the folder containing the bots you want to run. The folder id is available in the URL when viewing the Automation screen in the control room
Running a Bot
Add the “Run Automation Anywhere Bot” brick to a PixieBrix mod to run an AA bot. The brick has the following options:
- Integration: the AA Control Room integration you configured above
- Bot: the bot in the folder you configured above
Enterprise Edition User/Device Pool Configuration
- Run as Users: one or more users that can be used to run the bot (the user must be designated as a runner). AA will choose one of those users to run the bot
- Device Pools: if provided, AA will use one of the assigned device pools. If not provided, AA will use the default runner device for the Run as User
- Await Result:
- Toggle on to pass the bot output to the next step in the mod. PixieBrix will wait up to 60 seconds for the bot to run.
- Toggle off to return the deployment id for the bot
Community Edition Device Configuration
For Community Edition, you select the device you want to use to run the Bot:
- Device: the device for your Community Edition user
Providing Bot Inputs
In Automation Anywhere, Create the input variables for your bots. To designate an input variable as an input, check the “Use as input” box:
If the Bot you selected above has input arguments declared, PixieBrix will show the input fields and descriptions.
Currently PixieBrix supports the following Bot input types:
- String
- Number
- Boolean
Returning Bot Outputs
Adding an Output to a Bot
Create an output variable for your bot, choosing the correct Type and checking the “Use as output box”.
PixieBrix currently supports the following output types:
- String
- Number
- Boolean
Add an “Assign” step to assign the output variable:
Retrieving Bot Output
In PixieBrix, add a “Run Automation Anywhere Bot” brick to your mod. Toggle on the “Await Result” field.
To use the output in later bricks, access the field name on the output key you’ve assigned to the brick, e.g., @output.out_Sum