Blue Prism and Remote Desktop Connection(RDC)

[PedroGouveia]

Good morning,

does Blue Prism work with Remote Deskto Connection? Mainly with Citrix, can someone that tested it before give me some insight?

Thank you!

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Pedro Gouveia
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[NicholasZejdlik]

Blue Prism doesn't work well with remote desktop. It will function as long as your session is connected, but once you disconnect from RDP, the session becomes inactive, which causes problems when it comes to reading elements on the screen. Ideally, it should be running on the console session.

Check out Adam Binder's post for a list of known-working remote access tools.

Edit: I may have misunderstood the question. If you're trying to use Blue Prism to work on RDP or Citrix, it can be done, just not through regular spying modes. You'll have to use region automation. I haven't done this myself, although it does seem a lot more complicated than working with normal applications.

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Nicholas Zejdlik
RPA Developer
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[zdenek.kabatek]

Hi, Pedro,

RDP works very similar way as Citrix. For BP it is a set of screens so you are bound to use Surface Automation. You can also look at is this solution https://digitalexchange.blueprism.com/dx/entry/24103/solution/ia-connect-2 which makes such an automation as easy as if you have direct access to the application. I really like their solution even though it depends whether you can agree with IT to deploy it.

Regards,


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Zdeněk Kabátek
Head of Professional Services
NEOOPS
http://www.neoops.com/
Europe/Prague
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[PedroGouveia]

Thank you for the answers, isn't Citrix a RDP?

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Pedro Gouveia
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[NileshJadhavBP]

No,

Citrix is the application server and application page where you have to login and that app will launch on citrix server. 

RDP is virtual window and The Microsoft Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) provides remote display and input capabilities over network connections for Windows-based applications running on a server."

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Nilesh Jadhav
Senior RPA Specialist
ADP
India
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[PedroGouveia]

So summing up, the only/best way to interact with BP on a RDP/Virtual Box is through surface automation with regions, even though it's unreliable/unstable?

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Pedro Gouveia
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[ManishRaw]

Hi Pedro,

I would suggest you to explore more about the tool IA-connect, it is a connector which helps blue prism to work with Citrix applications more effectively and removes surface automation and imaging. The connector needs to be installed at the server end of Citrix and run at the respective blue prism run time resources. It do have its own separate licensing. 

You can refer the below links for the same:
https://digitalexchange.blueprism.com/dx/entry/24103/solution/ia-connect-2

https://www.ultima.com/IA-Connect

Hope this will help.

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Manish Rawat
Project Manager
Mercer
New Delhi
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[PedroGouveia]

I've heard of IA-Connect a few weeks ago, it seemed really useful, is it a Blue Prism "third party program" add on, or a seperate executable program that helps Blue Prism?

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Pedro Gouveia
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[zdenek.kabatek]

Hi, Pedro,

it is a third party program (and a separate executable) that makes the automation easy. If you look at the presentation video on this page https://www.ultima.com/IA-Connect you will get much better understanding how it work. Of course, there is a price tag to it.

Regards,

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Zdeněk Kabátek
Head of Professional Services
NEOOPS
http://www.neoops.com/
Europe/Prague
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[LukeMcGovern]

Hi Pedro,

As Zdeněk and Manish have kindly explained above, IA-Connect is developed by us at Ultima as a Blue Prism TAP partner. It is available via the Blue Prism DX and provides additional functionality to allow you to automate over a remote session (Remote Desktop Connection, Citrix etc) in the same way as you would automate applications running natively on your Blue Prism worker, without using any sort of surface automation or image recognition.

We offer a 30 day free trial period in which you can test IA-Connect in your own environment and this can be requested via our website (https://www.ultima.com/IA-Connect) or alternatively, please contact us via email at IAConnect@ultima.com
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Thanks

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Luke McGovern
Automation Consultant
Ultima Business Solutions
Europe/London
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