Define clean-up procedures

In some cases, your Bot may throw unexpected errors. Typically, these stem from instabilities in your environment.

You can use clean-up procedures to increase the stability and resilience of your Bots. These clean-up procedures ensure that if anything unexpected happens, the Bot cleans up your environment.

Note that clean-ups don't fix the error. The Bot still fails at the Step in question. However, clean-up procedures reset the environment.

Clean-ups consist of Steps that you define. If a Step in the regular Bot flow fails, the Bot executes the clean-up Steps at the end of the run.

By default, the Bot stops running after it has successfully completed a clean-up procedure. You can specify that the Bot should try to run again.

Clean-up vs. regular Bot flow

Use clean-up procedures only for unexpected errors. Clean-ups increase the stability of your Bots, but can't compensate for vulnerable Bot design.

Let's say that your Bot transfers customer information from a file to a web application. The web application does not allow double entries. If a person with the same first name, last name, and email address already exists in the database, the application triggers a pop-up dialog.

Handling this situation should be part of the "regular" Bot flow, not part of a clean-up procedure.

In this scenario, a clean-up might include Steps the Bot should take if the web application suddenly isn't available. For instance: save and close the file, close the browser.

Add a clean-up procedure to your Bot

To add a clean-up to your Bot, follow the steps below:

1. Select a Bot.

2. In the Flowchart tab, click on Add.

3. In the Exception tab, click Create Exception Handlers. This adds the Exception Handlers element to your Bot.

   The Bot also automatically adds configuration parameters:

   • OnDialogFailure: triggers the clean-up in case of failed interactions. For instance if the Bot can't access a particular menu.

   • OnExceptionFailure: triggers the clean-up in case of unforeseen environment events that keep the Bot from running all Steps.

   • OnVerificationFailure: triggers the clean-up in case of unexpected content in your application. For instance if a cell contains a different value than expected.

   • BotRetries: defines how often the Bot should try again. You can specify how many times a Bot should restart from scratch after the clean-up procedure.
   • BotStepRetries: defines how often the Bot Step should try again. You can specify how many times RPA Studio should retry a Bot Step after the clean-up procedure.

   If you don't want to trigger clean-up procedures for a particular type of error, right-click the respective configuration parameter and select Reset to default value from the context menu. This deletes the configuration parameter.

4. Determine what the Bot should do if a Step fails, i.e. add your clean-up Steps.

   To add clean-up Steps, click on Add in Exception Handler.

5. Fill out the Step Values as you would for any Step.

6. By default, the Bot stops running after it has successfully completed a clean-up procedure. You can specify that you want the Bot to try again.

   To do so, click on in the After Handling Step. In the subsequent dialog box, select Restart the Bot and select one of the following options in the subsequent dialog box:

   • Restart the Bot: the Bot starts again from scratch.

   • Restart from failed Step: the Bot tries again from the failed Step onward.

7. Define how often the Bot should try again. To do so, specify BotRetries and BotStepRetries in the Max restarts field of After Handling Step.

   Note that the Bot doesn't execute the clean-up scenario in the last iteration.

   Let's say you have defined 3 retries. This means that if the Bot fails every time, it will run 4 times in total: the initial run and then 3 retries.

   In the first 3 times, the Bot also executes the clean-up scenario. If the Bot fails again in the 4th iteration, it doesn't execute the clean-up scenario.

You can only add one set of clean-up procedures to your Bot, i.e. one Exception Handlers element with one Exception Handler.

Modify or delete clean-ups

You can modify or delete the Steps within an Exception Handler at any time.

You can change their order via drag and drop. Additionally, you can add a Logic element as a Step within your Exception Handler.

You can turn the Placeholder within your Exception Handler into a regular Step.

To do so, follow the steps below:

1. Click on Add within a Placeholder in your Exception Handler.

2. In the subsequent dialog, select a Module, Logic element, or a Scan tab to replace your Placeholder.

To remove the defined clean-up from your Bot altogether, select the Exception Handlers element and press DEL.

View results

If a Step in your Bot fails, the Bot executes the clean-up procedure at the end of the Bot run.

It executes the Steps in your Exception Handler in sequence, from top to bottom.

When you test your Bot, the Exception icon next to the Bot name in the Results tab indicates that a Step triggered the clean-up.

If you have specified Bot retries, you can view the result of each try. To do so, use the arrows to scroll through Bot runs.

If you run your Bot by clicking Run from here or Run selected, the Bot stops after performing the Steps in the Exception Handler. It does not run again, even if you have specified Restart the Bot.