BulePrism进阶教程-13. Further Application Types

Blue Prism is capable of interfacing with other application types, but so far we have only looked at the default option of Windows based and Browser based applications.
This section provides an overview to mainframe and Java applications. Separate datasheets are available on the Blue Prism Portal that provides more detail. In addition this section describes Surface Automation that can be when elements aren’t accessible to Application Modeler.
13.1. Mainframe Applications

Figure 180: Application Modeler Application Types
Blue Prism is also able to interface with mainframe applications (sometimes known as green screen systems) and the Application Modeler wizard is used to specify the initial details.
 Application type.
 Session file path.
 Session identifier.

Figure 181: Mainframe Applications

Figure 182: Hummingbird Mainframe Application
Mainframe applications are spied by identifying rectangular areas of the screen. Application Modeler does this by superimposing a grid onto the application to make the rows and columns of the screen visible. One unit of the grid represents one character space on the screen.

Figure 183: The Mainframe Grid
The operation to capture mainframe elements is slightly different to spying other applications. First, the grid must be created by holding “CTRL” and clicking on the application. With the grid in place, the mouse is used to drag and select rectangular areas. These areas can then be captured in Application Modeler using the mouse menu.

Figure 184: A Mainframe Region Highlighted in Blue
Mainframe elements are simpler than those from other application types and there are far fewer attributes to deal with in Application Modeler.

Figure 185: Mainframe Element Attributes
13.2. Java Applications
Blue Prism is also able to interface with Java applications, and creating a Java based Business Object is near identical to making a Windows-based Business Object.
You should find the procedure for spying elements and employing them in the Business Object is very familiar to you by now.
Ancestor Count
The Ancestor Count attribute is a very useful attribute for limiting the search that Blue Prism has to perform in order to identify your element.
Picturing the target application as a tree of elements (in which, for example, a table cell is the child of a table, which in turn is the child of a frame, which in turn is the child of a top-level window) the Ancestor Count attribute records how deep in the tree the element is found.
By matching on Ancestor Count, you can instruct Blue Prism to only search a subset of the tree, thereby improving performance. When you experience slow performance in a Java application, this should be the first attribute you experiment with.
The Match Index and Match Reverse attributes (described below) may also be used to improve the performance of a Java interface.
For some elements and environments, Blue Prism technology connectors (Windows/Java/HTML etc.) can’t be used. Examples of this are where applications are presented in a virtualized state (i.e., via a Citrix server), and some bespoke application controls.
Blue Prism provides Surface Automation techniques that can be used as an alternative when technology connectors are not available. Some of these Surface Automation techniques are briefly described in the following Regions, Character Matching, and Global Clicks and Keys sections.
A detailed Surface Automation training course is available, separate to this Foundation course. This additional training course is recommended to anyone needing to use these techniques in their environment.
13.3. Match Index and Match Reverse
Match Index and Match Reverse
When identifying an application element using Application Modeler, you will notice that there are two attributes available named Match Index and Match Reverse. These attributes are available for all application types.
Match Index and Match Reverse are not attributes of the identified element, but instead are controllers of how Blue Prism will search for the element at run time.
When Match Index is set, Blue Prism will stop searching once an element has been found, instead of continuing to search for potential duplicates. Using this attribute may significantly increase the search speed (especially when using the Java and Accessibility interfaces) but should only be used in circumstances where duplicate elements are either unlikely or can be ignored.
When using Match Index, Match Reverse will make Blue Prism search in a bottom-up order rather than the default top-down order. Again, this may improve the search speed but only experimentation will tell.

Figure 186: Match Index and Match Reverse Attributes
The match index value can be changed to any numeric value. For example, if set to 2, it will ignore the first element found that matches all the other selected attributes and find the second matching attribute instead if one exists.
This can be a very useful when identifying screen elements that are otherwise not unique. For example, in the earlier Object Studio exercises the Ordinal attribute was used to uniquely identify elements in the Order System application. If the Ordinal had not worked and elements were still not unique (returning multiple matches), Match Index could have been used instead.
13.4. Surface Automation
For some elements and environments, Blue Prism technology connectors (Windows/Java/HTML etc.) can’t be used. Examples of this are where applications are presented in a virtualized state (i.e., via a Citrix server), and some bespoke application controls.
Blue Prism provides Surface Automation techniques that can be used as an alternative when technology connectors are not available. Some of these Surface Automation techniques are briefly described in the following Regions, Character Matching, and Global Clicks and Keys sections.
A detailed Surface Automation training course is available, separate to this Foundation course. This additional training course is recommended to anyone needing to use these techniques in their environment.
Key Point
If Surface Automation techniques are required, additional training is required.