Use Modules

Modules are the building blocks of your Bot. They contain the technical information a Bot needs to navigate and interact with your application.

Types of Modules

When you design a Bot, you work with the following types of Modules:

• Modules you create by scanning or recording

• Modules provided in the RPA subset

Scanned Modules

To automate business processes, your Bot needs to interact with various elements, such as text boxes, buttons, links, or drop-down menus. These elements are called controls.

Ultimately, you want the Bot to steer these controls: write something into a text box, make a selection from the drop-down menu, verify the content of a PDF file, send a request to an Application Programming Interface (API), etc.

Scanning gets all required technical information on these controls into RPA Studio. RPA Studio saves the information as a Module.

Recorded Modules are Modules you created with the Recorder, a different type of scan.

Modules in the RPA subset

These Modules are prepared special tasks that you can adapt to your needs.

For instance, the Module OpenUrl is designed to open a URL in a browser window. When you use this Module in a Bot, all you need to do is define which URL to open.

Work with Modules

Each Module consists of ModuleAttributes:

• In scanned Modules, these are the controls you have selected during the scan.

• In the Modules from the RPA subset, the ModuleAttributes are parameters that the Bot needs to perform the special task.

When you create a Step from a Module, RPA Studio creates Step Values from the ModuleAttributes.

By filling out the Step Values, you tell the Bot what you want it to do.

Since you only modify the Step that you create from a Module, the Module and its technical information remain unchanged. This means that you can use the same Module repeatedly, and do different things with it.

For instance, you can use the Module OpenUrl from the RPA subset in different Bots to open different URLs.

However, if you modify the Module, RPA Studio automatically updates all Steps that you created from this Module. It also applies the same specifications to all Steps that you create from the Module in the future.

Use Modules in Control Expressions

You can also use Modules in the Control Expressions of Conditional LOOPs and IF Statements. For more information, see chapters "Create a Conditional LOOP" and "Create an IF Statement".

Properties of Modules

Modules and ModuleAttributes have two types of properties:

• Default properties

  In the Properties pane, default properties are marked with a gray square.

• Technical properties, i.e. technical parameters such as steering parameters

  In the Properties pane, technical properties are marked with a gray square with letters.

Relevant columns for Modules

The columns in the Details tab contain detailed information on the selected Module or ModuleAttribute. For more information on relevant columns, see "Columns for Modules".