Has anyone done Citrix Automation using BP which is production-grade?

[Tejaskumar_Darji]

Has anyone done Citrix Automation using BP which is production-grade and working fine in a prod environment?

I'm doing some analysis and evaluation of Blue Prism for Citrix automation.

As we know this is possible only with Surface Automation methods with the help of Region Mode and Passing keystrokes to achieve.

Also, any guide for Citrix Automation is appreciated.

(PS: With BP V7.0 this mode was introduced but never came across any successful implementation of same because it requires BP installation inside VM as well so one can simply install BP in VM and automate there itself. Hence looking for your suggestions/experience/feedback or anything in this regard.)

------------------------------
If I was of assistance, please vote for it to be the "Best Answer".

Thanks & Regards,
Tejaskumar Darji
Sr. Consultant-Technical Lead
------------------------------

[Neel1]

hello Tejas,
 
i  have worked on Surface automation along with my ex- team mate   @esaugos . We worked on version 5,6,3,2,6,9. ​

Which version of BP you are ​working on?

i am currently working on v7 but so far did not work on SA in this version to check the native functionality of citrix introduced in this version.

------------------------------
Neeraj Kumar
Technical Architect
------------------------------

[esaugos]

Hi @Tejaskumar_Darji,

I am currently working on BP 6.3.2, 6.4.1 and 6.9.0 and below are the common observations i have for these versions.

Before going for development with complete region mode using Surface Automation​, its good to have the Font smoothing settings disabled at the VM level.
I have seen many Target applications where the color tolerance of the elements which is set for the image at an initial level while using region mode doesn't remains stable due to constantly changing pixels and even gray scale also doesn't remain stable.

So, as a best practice its good to have Font smoothing settings disabled first at VM level and then start spying the elements in region mode.
If you modify the settings in between, elements spied in region mode can again become unstable so its suggested to have the font smoothing settings disabled in the VM first then start spying and not to change or modify these settings in between at all.

And, again same needs to be disabled in Prod environment as well while deployment and testing. below is the link for your reference.

https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/126775-enable-disable-font-smoothing-windows.html


------------------------------
Saurabh Goswami
RPA Architect
Ericsson
------------------------------

[RaviSingh]

Hi Tejas,

Yes! I developed a bot on Citrix. The application that I modelled is called EWorkBook. I developed it on 6.10.2. The bot is running on prod from last 1 year.

Challenges:-
1. The only issue that I failed to solve till now is sometimes when bot click on a button to open one of the window, it only appears as a single 1 pixel line. Manually you can stretch the line and the entire window will appear but through bot it's not possible coz there is no way bot can recognize the 1 pixel straight line. I have heard Citrix tunneling is improved in 7.0 and it can solve this problem.
2. The other challenge that I see is with dynamic tables where width are changing. If column width is changing, we can manage it using padding, however, it's very difficult to do the same in case of row. Sometimes in test environment this behavior is not seen, however, as soon as you go on prod the application
3. And yes the resolution, it should be same everywhere dev, test, staging, prod env. Sometimes we get a VM from infra team and it don't have the required resolution. You ask them to adjust the Adapter RAM/video memory etc. but it will not resolve the issue. And eventually you have to change the VM. That require time, therefore it should be planned well.

Tip:-
1. Use Image as Location Method smartly. "Anywhere" is the easiest way to find the element on the screen, however, it scan the whole screen. Therefore, it takes more time than "fixed" or "relative". Adjust padding with "fixed" if you think the position of the element can change slightly.

Links:-
https://portal.blueprism.com/documents/training-document-introduction-surface-automation-v5
https://portal.blueprism.com/documents/guide-send-keys-and-send-key-events

------------------------------
If I was of assistance, please vote for it to be the "Best Answer".

Thanks & Regards,
Ravi Singh
Sr. Software Engineer RPA
------------------------------