Hi Max,
when the path attribute can't be used, Blue Prism needs to traverse the entire DOM structure of the webpage to identify the element and it can take some time if the webpage is very large or complex. There are a number of techniques that you can adopt to interact with your web application and some of them (in particular Dynamic Paths) are described in this document available on the Portal Support Center "How can I speed up my Browser Automation if I can't use 'path' to identify the elements?"
https://portal.blueprism.com/customer-support/support-center#/path/Automation-Design/Application-Integration/User-Interface-Automation-Spy-Mode/1339120402/How-can-I-speed-up-my-Browser-Automation-if-I...
On top on that, I would suggest to explore the possibility of using Send Keys to navigate the web page (using arrows or tabs), to write text in the fields and to read their values (you can send a CTRL-A CTRL-C to select and copy the text in the clipboard and then use the Utility - Environment object to read the clipboard content). The CTRL-A CTRL-C combination can be even used to read larger sections of the HTML page (i.e. a DIV or a TABLE) and then you can parse the string to find the elements your are looking for.
Region Mode is another excellent way to navigate the screen (as long as the screen resolution and OS used on all the machines (dev, test and prod) are the same as per best practices): you can use it to set the focus on specific elements of the screen and then read or write using Send Keys.
Blue Prism provides several ways to interact with an application, it is important to explore all the available possibilities and determine which one (or what combination of techniques) works best for you. And don't forget to perform an Application Assessment (more details on the BP Portal) before you decide to automate a business process: the Application Assessment is a mandatory step in the Blue Prim methodology. Assessing how Blue Prism interacts with the client's host systems during the Initial Process Analysis phase helps determining the automation feasibility, the build techniques to adopt and time/cost of the project. The Application Assessment is critical to avoid situations where the technique adopted during the development turns out not to be reliable in a live environment.
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Luca Valente
Senior Product Consultant
Blue Prism
America/New_York
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