Supported applications

This section defines the drivers you can use with IBM RPA Studio's recorder and the technologies these drivers, consequently the recorder, supports.

About the recorder drivers

The IBM RPA Studio's recorder can interact with Windows applications through the use of components called drivers. Each driver enables the recorder to map the applications elements, also called controls, and read their attributes to generate selectors. Then, you can use these selectors to identify controls during automation so your bot can take action on them.

The recorder uses the following browser permissions:

  • Alarms
  • Tabs
  • Scripting
  • ActiveTabs

Switching recorder drivers during recording

You can swap drivers while recording:

  1. On the recorder's menu bar, click the bee icon.
  2. Select the driver from the menu.

To load the web driver, click the Activate Web Recorder icon.

To load the Vision driver, press the Print Screen key on your keyboard. As an alternative, you can also click the Snipping Tool icon.

Web driver

Depending on the browser, a specific web driver is required in order to use the recorder to develop scripts for web automation. For a more detailed information about Web automation, see Web Automation

You must install at least one of the following browsers to record web applications:

  • Chrome v67 or higher
  • Edge v100 or higher
  • Firefox v53 or higher
  • Internet Explorer v11

Also, install the web recorder extension on the respective browser:

Important:
  • The browser might prompt you to grant permissions to the web recorder. Accept the permissions to proceed.
  • The web recorder uses attributes like URLs and titles from Windows and Tabs to autocomplete data in the IBM RPA commands.

SAP driver

You must install SAP™ GUI to record SAP applications. After installing the SAP™ GUI, you are ready to start configuring SAP.

Java driver

You must install Java™ 1.5 or higher to record Java applications.

Important:Versions before Java SE™ 7 Update 6 (7u6) require Java Access Bridge™ 2.0.2 to function. To install it, refer to Installing Java Access Bridge 🡥. To enable it, refer to Enabling and Testing Java Access Bridge 🡥.

Windows driver

The recorder supports the following Windows™ GUI libraries:

  • Win32
  • WinForms
  • WPF
  • Qt (Experimental)
  • SWT (Experimental)

For a more detailed explanation on Windows applications, see Windows applications automation with IBM Robotic Process Automation.