Login Agent - Multiple User Accounts

[TheoHenderson]

Good Morning/Afternoon/Evening All,

Our customer is looking to scale up an existing Blue Prism process and has asked if it possible to run multiple instances of the process concurrently on the same resource.

The challenge we are facing is that the run mode of the process cannot be set to Background and we are also required to use the Login Agent to Login and Logout of the resource at the Start/End of each execution.

If possible, the customer does not want a stand up an additional resource and has asked if it is possible for the Login Agent to Login/Logout of the same resource using different credentials and each instance of the process running will work independently of each other using it's own login.

Does anyone know if this is possible?

Thanks in advance

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Theo Henderson
RPA Developer
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[BohyonHwang]

You may modify Login Process as you wish.
I made Login_RR01 and so on based on Login.

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Bohyon Hwang
Director
블루프리즘
Seoul
+82262033950
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[GopalBhaire]

Hi Theo,

As far as my understanding of your question goes, what you are trying to do seems to be not possible at this moment with Blue Prism. You will be required to setup additional resources for this. But, It is better to get this confirmed from Blue Prism Support .

Thanks

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Gopal Bhaire
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[michaeloneil]

Hi @TheoHenderson

If i understand correctly your client is asking you to log into a single machine using multiple credentials to run process and you want each login/process to run simultaneously on the same machine​? So you would have maybe 5 schedules all login to the same machine as the same time with different credentials then run a process?

I dont believe this would be possible with login/logout actions but im not sure if this could be something you could do with maybe the lock/unlock screen actions. Maybe if there are multiple profiles on the machine but I believe if you log into the machine with a profile it will likely log out/lock any other user profiles currently running on that machine. The only other thing I could think of is maybe if the machine had dedicated virtual machines available on the single resource that once logged in to the machine you could then launch another vdi within the machine with a new credential but i think this would be difficult, if not impossible, to set up and this would almost definitely result in bots accidentally working on the wrong vdi and accidental crossover.

I think you're client will need to be a bit more flexible in how they want to scale up and will either have to accept limitations of a single machine or start making more resources available.

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Michael ONeil
Technical Lead developer
NTTData
Europe/London
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[StanislavaSkřip]

Hello Theo,

so basically the customer wants to use one machine as multiple resources to save money for a machine.
From infrastructure point of view this can be achieved easily by using multiple ports and multiple windows accounts (at least it worked when I tested on BP version 6).

So you use first port for login agent service, second port for starting the listener when one windows account gets logged in and third port when the other windows account log in. The ports are written in the config files. 

You have to register the machine for each port separately and it will appear as multiple resources at the control room.
Then you should be able to start sessions independently for each resource... Just a reminder 2 sessions still consumes 2 of the licenses amount even though they run at the same machine.

However I strongly advice you not to do this.

I don't see a problem is not the process/object running modes, if the sessions run under different users.

But if two instances of the same application run at the same time on the same machine... It might cause accidentally attaching to the other instance or inability to attach at all.

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Stanislava Skřipská Tlustá
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[Walter.Koller]

Hi,

What you describe is uncommon for automation as it might be possible it might also cause issues with some applications.
Issues might be caused by application by how they handle files and data at runtime. eg multiple instances of one application is using the same temp folder, or even the same temp files, or might lock access to files to other application instances. Those issues might not be obvious at first but there might be random access violations / error messages, app crashes, ... This is probably the worst case and I just wanted mention this possibility. Normally application are able to run in parallel in separate Windows sessions.
Another challenge are application processes. Similar application processes are running in parallel. Normally they are separated by Windows user context but if eg kill process with elevated (admin) rights is used, then it is possible to kill the application of another user session and not the one the robot is currently working with.
Blue Prism also suggests to ensure the correct application process ID is used to avoid attaching to wrong processes (and fail) and such issues.

After we finished the disclaimer I will try to provide the info that might help you.

There is a post from Blue Prism taggling this topic (it is in German but should be possible to be translated)
#TippderWoche: Blueprism Runtime Ressouce auf einem Terminal Server betreiben | Deutschsprachige Community

In short:
Multiple sessions on one VM is only possible using Terminal Services / Remote Desktop Services.
Special care have to be taken on handling application processes
Further details and explanation can be found here:
https://digitalexchange.blueprism.com/dx/entry/3439/solution/remote-desktop-services---blue-prism?_gl=1*9zcg33*_ga*MTM1NTUwOTMyNy4xNjczOTY0NDQw*_ga_MFBQ2KFZ1L*MTY3NDcyMDc2MC41LjEuMTY3NDcyMTI1OS42MC4wL...


I have never used the proposed solution so it would be nice if you can share your experiences and provide feedback here. This might help community users in future.

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Walter Koller
Solution Manager
Erste Digital / Erste Group Bank
Europe/Vienna
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