Managing computers

Learn how to create and edit computers to make them available resources to run bots, in the Computers interface on IBM RPA Control Center.

IBM RPA automatically adds your computer to a tenant after you install the client. However, in some rare occasions, IBM RPA is unable to add the computer, and you must do it manually.

Before you begin

Your user needs permission to manage computers. See the Checking user permissions topic to learn how to check your user permissions.

If bots that you plan to run on a computer need to unlock it without human intervention, create a credential to set to the computer. For more information about how to create credentials, see Creating a credential.

Note:Reserved runtime for queued bot runs was previously named: Queued runtimes percentage. The old default value for this field was 0%.

Creating a computer

  1. Log in to IBM RPA Control Center.

  2. In the Define menu, click the Computers > Computers tab.

  3. Click Create computer.

  4. In the Name field, enter the computer's hostname.

    Important:If the server uses MSMQ as the system queue provider, the computer's hostname must be a maximum of 15 characters long.

  5. Optional: From the Credential list, select a credential to use to unlock the computer.

  6. Optional: In the Physical address field, enter the computer's MAC Address.

  7. Deprecated in 23.0.3: In the Vnc Password field, enter the password that is used for a Virtual Network Computing (VNC) connection. This step is optional.

  8. In the Reserved runtime for queued bot runs, enter a value between 0 and 100 that represents the percentage over the runtime capacity of the computer reserved for bot runs.

    • Before version 23.0.10, this field was labeled Queues runtime percentage.
    • Bot runs include scheduling bots, bots run on demand from the IBM RPA Control Center, bots triggered by API calls, and process orchestration. If the value is equal to 0, you can't do any of these bot runs on the computer.
    • The reserved runtime amount is the integer part of the percentage of the total runtime capacity of the computer. For example, if capacity is 5 and reserved runtime for queued bot runs is set to 50, then the reserved runtime amount is 2. See Running bots.

  9. Optional: In the Standing by runtimes field, enter the amount of runtimes to load on stand-by. When this field has a number other than 0, the Bot Agent pre-loads extra runtimes on stand-by mode to avoid loading them later when a script needs to run. Use this strategy if you want to increase performance for digital assistants and concurrent operations, for example.

  10. In the Capacity field, enter the amount of bot runtimes that can run concurrently on the computer. The default value set by the installer is 1. For more information about computer's capacity, see the Modifying computer's capacity topic.

Editing a computer

  1. Log in to IBM RPA Control Center.
  2. In the Define menu, click the Computers > Computers tab.
  3. Choose a computer and click the vertical ellipsis button ⋮ > Edit.
  4. Complete the fields according to the procedure to create a computer.

What to do next

The certificate is automatically installed together with the computer after you install IBM RPA client.
However, you must install the certificate manually if the current certificate is invalid or corrupted on the computer, or the tenant code isn't specified during the installation of versions before 23.0.2 of IBM RPA. For instructions on how to install a certificate, see Installing computer certificate.