Environment Best Practices
Set Up Enough Environments
Make sure that you've created enough environments to handle the workload of your robot.
For example, consider a robot that runs in two minutes and has one environment. If you call the robot every three minutes, the robot typically runs without issues, even with occasional performance issues. However, if you call the robot every minute, you create a backlog.
How do you know how many environments to run? Consider the following factors:
- Amount of time a robot instance typically requires to run.
- Frequency with which the robot is called.
- Likelihood of performance issues in the application that the robot automates.
- Impact to the business if a backlog occurs.
Create System Requirements
Each robot has different requirements. Document the requirements and use them when setting up and testing each environment. Make sure to include all software requirements, configuration requirements, and network connectivity requirements.
Follow All License Agreements
Verify that your applications' license agreements allow for automation.
Replicate the Robot's Environment
Most computers have time-saving features, including applications that remember your credentials and browsers that remember your preferences. However, a robot's environment is likely to be a clean slate.
Additionally, the account that you use to record a robot could inadvertently have more or fewer permissions than the robot will have in production.
To ensure that your robot can run as expected in a production environment, make sure that the experience you have while building a robot accurately replicates the experience that the robot will have while running on its environment.
Monitor Your Environments
Periodically throughout the day, monitor your environments. For example, ensure that all environments remain up and running.
Maintain Good Performance
A robot works in an application like a person does. Before creating your robots, understand their performance implications.
For example, consider a scenario in which ten robots are active in an application at a time. Determine whether the robots could impact the performance of the application, and take the appropriate action. You could reduce the number of robots, run the robots overnight, or increase the capacity of the machine that hosts the application.