Basic Concepts

Before you begin, learn how to navigate through Automate Desktop with this detailed tour of the product. The following video provides a first look at some of the basics of interacting with the Automate Task Administrator. In this overview, automation expert Pat Cameron helps you get started by taking you on a tour of the basic functionalities provided with Automate—from viewing your folders and customizing preferences to setting defaults. In this video you’ll learn how to:

• Navigate through the Automate Task Administrator
• View calendars to track your tasks and history
• View logs for your task, system, and audit events
• See the task builder and sample tasks, and get an overview of task builder actions

Watch this video now and get started with Automate Desktop.

Want to get to know the Automate Plus management console? Start here with this detailed tour of the product and learn how to easily navigate your way around Automate Plus. Join us on a guided tour of the Automate Plus management console. In this video, you’ll get an inside look at the various functionalities Automate Plus has to offer, including:

• Overview of the Management Console and other components of Automate Plus
• How to view and manage users and user groups
• View task & workflow history
• Overview of the Workflow Designer, an interactive flow diagram

Watch this video now and get started with Automate Plus.

Learn about the many system settings within Automate Desktop to help you make the most out of your solution. This video gives you an overview of each system setting available, from Task Service settings to SNMP settings. Join automation expert Andrew Usher as he takes you through each option and provides you with the information you need to customize Automate. In this video, you’ll get an overview of the following:

• System Settings menu
• Log Management settings
• Backup & Restore settings
• Service User settings
• Execution settings
• Plus, many more

Start this tutorial now and learn how to customize Automate with a variety of setting features.

Get an overview of the different server settings available in Automate Plus. This guided tutorial goes through each individual server setting. In this video you’ll learn the settings available for:

• Data Store: the connection between Automate Plus and your backend database
• SSL: determines if you want to use SSL to encrypt communications between the server component and all the connected agents in your environment
• Email: how to set up a default email address for Automate to notify you of errors or messages
• Log Management: controls how data is handled and determines how long execution data should be stored
• Staging: provides the users with the capabilities to segregate workflows into distinct stages like production, development, or testing
• Constants: global variables so you don’t have to create variables at every task or workflow level
• SQL Connections: create the default SQL connections for Automate Plus
• System Security: dictate permissions to specific users and user groups
• Load Balancing: apply limitations to the number of currently running workflows
• Holiday: configure and edit a custom holiday schedule
• Management Console Sessions: determines various standards regarding individual user sessions
• API Permissions: manage and protect Automate’s API resources through authentication
• Revision Management: enable or disable the ability to revert a task or workflow object to a previous version and how long to keep previous versions

Watch this tutorial now to learn how to get started.

The Automate Task Builder is the foundation of the Automate product. This video will show you how to build and use tasks in Automate with a step-by-step tutorial. You’ll also learn about actions, the pre-built software robot components that make Automate such a powerful tool. Automation expert Pat Cameron will teach you how to create a basic task and run it in Automate. In this video, you’ll:

• Use a pre-built, drag-and-drop action
• Build a sample task with the Run Action
• Run your sample task
• Add comments in a task to document what you’re doing
• Use and store snippets to save multiple steps

Watch this tutorial now and start creating tasks with Automate.

Automate has more than 600 pre-built actions to choose from. This video provides you with an overview and description of each available action. We'll go through each individual action available and explain how you can use them to get the most out of Automate. In this video, you’ll learn:

• Where to find the actions in the Automate Task Builder
• An overview of each of the pre-built actions available in Automate
• Actions related to Amazon Web Services, Azure, Microsoft applications, and more apps

Watch this tutorial now for your overview of the actions in Automate.

Triggers are key in getting your tasks to run. In this tutorial, we highlight four of the most popular triggers. This video will be your guide to setting triggers and will show you how you can use triggers to get your tasks to run. Automation expert Pat Cameron gives you a tutorial on the four most popular triggers available in Automate. Here’s what you’ll learn:

• Overview of the Schedule trigger
• Overview of the File System trigger
• Overview of the Keyboard Shortcut trigger
• Overview of the Email Shortcut trigger

Watch this tutorial now to create your triggers in Automate.

The Workflow Designer is where you can take the tasks you’ve created and link them together in a workflow. This video will show you how to best create your own workflows with a step-by-step tutorial. Automation expert Pat Cameron will introduce you to the Workflow Designer and take you through creating your own workflow. In the following video, you’ll get an overview of the following:

• How to create and edit a workflow
• Linking your tasks together
• Adding variables to your workflow
• Adding a schedule to your workflow

Watch this tutorial now and create workflows with Automate.

What are datasets?

In the simplest terms, an Automate dataset is any named group of records. The data in a dataset is laid out like a database table, which has a unique name and consists of columns and rows.

Discover how to use Automate’s dataset action when extracting a collection of data, such as a database or a spreadsheet, or retrieving information that describes one or more objects or items. Datasets are also used to store information returned by applications or the operating system itself. In this video, you’ll learn:

• An overview of the dataset actions available
• Practical use within a task: creating datasets and moving, inserting, and deleting columns and rows

Watch this tutorial now to learn more about the dataset action.

In this chapter, you'll find out more about variables, placeholders for varying or changeable data which let developers write flexible tasks, and datasets, a grouping of related pieces of data. Learn how to find, create, and use variables, datasets, and the Expression Builder. Automation expert Brigette Matz gives you a guided tutorial on using each of these features in Automate. In this video you’ll learn:

• How to create and use variables
• An overview of the Expression Builder that incorporates all the elements required to create a properly formatted expression
• How to create and populate a dataset

Watch this tutorial now to learn how to get started.

In this tutorial, you'll learn how to use the Automate Recorder for web browser interactivity. Create interactive tasks without having to know which actions in the Task Builder need to be used—the Recorder creates them for you. In this video you’ll learn:

• How to build web automation with the Recorder
• An overview of the Recorder panel including the control, position, and web buttons, and adding additional actions, like wait or a keyboard input
• How to add non-GUI steps to your recording
• See a few examples of the Recorder in action

Watch this video now to learn how to get started.

In this tutorial, you'll learn how to use the Automate Recorder. Create interactive tasks without having to know which actions in the Task Builder need to be used—the Recorder creates them for you. In this video you’ll learn:

• How to build desktop automation with the Recorder
• An overview of the Recorder panel including the control and position buttons, and adding additional options, like wait or a keyboard input
• See an example of the Recorder in action

Watch this video now to learn how to get started.

Work along with this tutorial to learn how to create a task using the web browser action.

Watch this tutorial to see a sample task using Excel automation.

Get started even faster with task development when you use free, pre-built RPA bots from the Automate Bot Store.

Download the Automate Best Practices Guide >