Managing bots

Learn the tasks that you can do to manage your bots.

In this topic

Before you begin

  • Configure a project. See Projects for details.
    Projects organize automation resources. Bots live under a project. In fact, to create a bot, you must create a project first.
  • Your user must have the necessary permissions to perform the procedures described in this page. You can find these permissions on each procedure. See the Checking user permissions topic to learn how to check your user permissions.
  • You can modify the Unique ID field only when you create a bot.
  • If you haven't already, set up a computer group.
    Important:Bots require computers running client version 23.0.0 or later.
  • The computer that you configure to run bots must have a Reserved runtime for queued bot runs value above 0 percentage. See details about Reserved runtime for queued bot runs in Managing computers.
  • For IBM RPA on premises only:
    • IBM RPA on premises server requires a queue provider such as IBM MQ or Microsoft™ Message Queue (MSMQ) installed and operational to run bots. Check with your server administrator if your server supports one of these queue providers. The recommended message queue provider is IBM MQ.
    • If you are a server administrator, see Installing IBM MQ for instructions about how to install it. You can later change to MSMQ after you install the server.
    • If IBM MQ is not available, see the steps to enable MSMQ in Installing Message Queue (MSMQ) 🡥. You can later change to IBM MQ.

Supported input parameter types

Your user must have the Manage bots permission to create bots.

Before you create a bot, ensure that the script has only supported input parameter types, otherwise your bot might not run. Here's the list of supported input parameter types:

  • Date
  • Number
  • Boolean
  • Date and Time
  • Text

If your bot uses a different variable type as an input parameter, it might fail unexpectedly, and you must check the logs to look for the root cause of the problems.

Creating bots

The following procedure details how to create a bot:

  1. On the left menu, click Projects.
  2. Click the project that you want to use the bot.
  3. Click the Create bot button.
  4. In Name, enter a name to the bot.
  5. Optional: Modify the auto-generated Unique ID.
  6. In Description, enter a description to the bot and click Next.
  7. In Script, select the script that has the action that the bot will run.
  8. In Version, select the version of the script.
  9. In Computer group, select one or more computers and click Next.
  10. On the Summary tab, check whether all the information is correct and click Create.

Editing bots

Your user must have the Manage bots permission to edit bots.

  1. On the left menu, click Projects.
  2. Click the project that has the bot you want to edit.
  3. Find the bot that you want to edit, click the vertical ellipsis button ⋮, and click Edit.

Deleting bots

Your user must have the Manage bots permission to delete bots.

  1. On the left menu, click Projects.
  2. Click the project that has the bot you want to delete.
  3. Find the bot that you want to delete, click the vertical ellipsis button ⋮, and click delete.
Attention:This action is irreversible.

Viewing bot runs

Your user must have the View bots permission to view bots that are scheduled to run.

  1. On the left menu, click Projects.
  2. Click the project that has the bot you want.
  3. Find the bot that you want, click the vertical ellipsis button ⋮, and click View bot runs.

Viewing schedule

Your user must have the View bots permission to view bots that are scheduled to run.

  1. On the left menu, click Projects.
  2. Click the project that has the bot you want.
  3. Find the bot that you want, click the vertical ellipsis button ⋮, and click View schedule.

Viewing upcoming bot runs

Your user must have the View bots permission to see upcoming bot runs details.

  1. On the left menu, click Projects.
  2. Click the project that has the bot you want.
  3. Find the bot that you want, click the vertical ellipsis button ⋮, and click View upcoming bot runs.

Running bots

Running bots by using the Bots API

Your user must have the Invoke bots permission to run bots by using the Bots API.

You can run bots by using the Bots API. If you use the callbackUrl parameter of the API, you need to configure the allowlist so the callback doesn't get blocked. See Security settings for details.

For a step-by-step guide on running bots by using the Bots API, see the Running a bot through an API call tutorial.

Running bots from IBM RPA Control Center

Your user must have the Run bots permission to run bots through the IBM RPA Control Center.

  1. On the left menu, click Projects.
  2. Click the project that has the bot you want to run.
  3. Find the bot that you want to run, click the vertical ellipsis button ⋮, and click Run.
  4. If your bot requires input parameters, set them.
  5. Click Run.

A loading screen pops up to display the progress bar indicating the timeout for the bot to start running. After it is completed, a notification of the bot's current state pops up at the upper right corner of the page.

If you are having issues when you try to run your bots, check the troubleshooting bots page.

Scheduling bots

Your user must have the Manage scripts permission.

  1. On the left menu, click Projects.
  2. Click the project that has the bot you want.
  3. Find the bot that you want, click the vertical ellipsis button ⋮, and click Create schedule.
  4. In Starts on, enter the date and time the bot will start.
  5. In Recurrence, select one of the options.
    1. See Setting a recurrence interval for schedules for more details on each option.
  6. Click Next.
  7. In Name, enter a unique name to the schedule.
  8. Optional: In Description, enter a description for your schedule.
  9. Click Next.
  10. On the Summary tab, check whether all the information is correct and click Create.

A notification appears if the schedule was created successfully.

Important: The IBM RPA Control Center's UI shows times based on your browser's time zone. However, scheduled bots run on the Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) time zone.

To schedule your bots, use the converted UTC equivalent time. For example: On UTC-03:00, 11:00 AM converts to 2:00 PM in UTC. Use 2:00 PM in the scheduler.
After you schedule your bot, the scheduled time is shown in your local time zone instead of UTC.