Scan the demo application

This chapter describes step 2 in the RPA Studio First Steps tutorial.

What will you do here? 

You will scan the Tricentis RPA DEMO Application (click here to open).

For detailed information on scanning, see "Create Modules by scanning".

Why is that important?

The pages of the demo application consist of various elements, such as text boxes, buttons, or drop-down menus.

These elements are called controls. Ultimately, you want the Bot to steer these controls, i.e. interact with them: enter text, click buttons, use the menu, etc.

So you need to get the controls' technical information into RPA Studio. You do that by scanning all pages that you want to steer.

Scanning collects the technical information that the Bot needs; RPA Studio saves the information as a Module. You will later use this Module to tell your Bot what to do.

To learn more about Modules and their role in Bots, see "Use Modules".

Video

The following video takes you through the scanning process. A step-by-step description is below.

Create a new folder

First, create a new folder where RPA Studio should save the Modules:

1. Right-click the folder Tutorial and select Create Folder from the mini toolbar.

2. Name the new folder Modules.

Perform the scan

Now you perform the actual scan:

1. Open the Tricentis RPA DEMO Application in Internet Explorer.

2. In RPA Studio, right-click the folder Modules and select Scan from the context menu, or click on Scan in the RPA menu.

3. In the subsequent dialog, click on User interface.

4. This opens the Select Application dialog, which displays all open applications on your desktop.

5. Double-click the tile that shows the demo application, or click on the tile and then on Scan.

This opens the scan interface. Since the demo application is simple, we'll use the Basic scan view. In more complex environments, Tricentis recommends using the Advanced view.

6. Select the controls you want to steer. To do so, click on the respective page elements in the demo application. It doesn't matter if the control is currently active or not.

   For this tutorial, you need to steer the following controls on the first page:

   • text box First name

   • text box Last name

   • text box Email

   • the Private/Business drop-down menu

   • text box Company name

   • the I agree to the Terms and Conditions check box

   • the Register button

   The scan interface lists all controls that you select.

7. By default, RPA Studio uses a window's caption as the name for the Module.

   To change it, click onto the name in the scan interface and enter a new name. For this tutorial, rename the Module to Enter visitor data.

8. To save the selected controls, click Finish Screen.

9. To get to the second screen so you can scan it, fill out the form and click on Register. You can enter any data.

10. Once you're on the second screen, go back into the scan interface and click on Scan Screen. This restarts the scan.

11. Click on the element you want to steer: the Label with the registration code.

12. The scan uses the registration code as the name of the control. Change it to something more descriptive, for instance Code.

13. Rename the Module to Registration code.

14. Click on Finish Screen to save the selected controls on the second page.

15. Click on Close.

RPA Studio saves the two Modules you have created to the Modules folder.

What's next?

Time to put those Modules to good use! Design your Tutorial Bot.