Connecting by using IBM® Personal Communications

Learn the requirements and steps to connect to the terminal emulator by using the IBM® Personal Communications provider. In IBM RPA, you can use this provider to launch and connect to zSeries (3270 protocol), and System i5®, eServer i5®, iSeries, or AS/400 (5250 protocol) host sessions.

Before you begin

  • Bring your own instance and install IBM® Personal Communications on your computer to start sessions with the terminal emulator. The connection through IBM® Personal Communications provider supports sessions with the following hosts:

    • IBM® zSeries (3270 protocol)
    • IBM® System i5®, IBM eServer™ i5, iSeries, or AS/400 (5250 protocol)

  • You must have the session saved as workstation profile (WP) to launch and connect to it with IBM RPA.

  • Use PCOMM version 14 or higher.

Important:IBM RPA only supports PCOMM 64 bits.

Procedure

You can use the IBM RPA Studio's recorder to connect with the IBM® Personal Communications provider, or add the Connect to Terminal (terminalConnect) command directly to your script.

In the connections' fields, select IBM® Personal Communications, and provide the workstation profile (WP).

In the following example, the Connect to Terminal (terminalConnect) command connects to a terminal emulator over 5250 protocol with IBM® Personal Communications provider.

defVar --name terminalName --type String --value Terminal
defVar --name connectionSuccess --type Boolean
defVar --name wp --type String --value "C:\\IBM\\Personal Communications\\hostname.ws"
// Connects to a terminal emulator over 5250 protocol with IBM Personal Communications provider.
terminalConnect --name "${terminalName}" --provider "PCOMM" --profile "${wp}" connectionSuccess=value
if --left "${connectionSuccess}" --operator "Is_True"
	// Logs a message in IBM RPA Studio if the connection is established.
	logMessage --message "Connection to the \"${wp}\" host established." --type "Info"
endIf
// Disconnects from the terminal.
terminalDisconnect --name "${terminalName}"

If you use the terminal recorder and lose the connection, you can click the Terminal is disconnected. Click here to reconnect... button to reconnect with the same credentials.
However, if you aren't connected and enter an incorrect credential, that button prompts you to enter new credentials.

In versions before 23.0.7, the terminal recorder uses the same credentials to reconnect. In this case, restart the terminal recorder to provide new credentials.

What to do next

Learn how to record screen data from the terminal emulator based on the actions that you take on it and how to inspect fields on it. For more information, see Recording actions on the terminal emulator and Inspecting fields with the recorder.