I am new to Uipath, so any tips or advice are really appreciated.
I am trying to automize typing new employee to one of our HR applications, Navision.
I have all the fields stored in variables and tried “click” and “type into” activities
to type values into correct fields, but I cannot select individual fields.
The whole form is treated as one object.
I have tried recording, then again I cannot select a field.
UI explorer cannot identify individual fields, it identifies scroll bar and buttons in the form.
I installed Java, but it didn’t help.
Any ideas? Thanks!
Hello @Pirouz,
With these type of application where selectors can’t find anything the way you could try to automate it is to use image based activities (like Click Image, Find Image etc.) and Send Hotkey activity.
Hello @Pablito,
You are right, I can identify the fields as images. I haven’t worked with the images before, but apparently I will. But can I click and type into the fileds? Thanks
Sure. You have for example activity called Click Image and Type Into (with argument “Simulate Type”). With good combination you will be able to work on images like with normal application. It’s just more challenging and time consuming to automate. But remember… Sky is the limit
If you are able to find the selectors for buttons on ribbon then find out the button from where “tab” key takes the cursor to first textbox. If this scenario exists then you can click on the button and use send hotkey “tab” to move cursor to first textbox. And then use type into.
If that is not the case then use find image and click (as @Pablito) mentioned.
In further steps, you can use send hotkey “tab” to go to next input type (button/checkbox) and use type into/send hotkey “Enter” instead of image based activity for all the fields.
Thanks @Pablito. Yes indeed, it is more challenging. Then again what is not. I will work on it after my holiday in three weeks. I bet there will be lots of trials and errors .
Hi @mahesh.kumar
Unfortunately I cannot. The only selectors I can find is the whole form or frame. Nothing else is identifiable. I will try what @Pablito suggests, Click image,find image and find my way through the whole process.
@Hi Mahesh, sorry for a late reply, I was on holiday. If I could click on the first filed then I could navigate to other fields using tab key. Here is the selector for the frame: frame.xml (258 Bytes)
Navision can be troublesome to work with, for the reason you presented yourself
I have used another option, instead of (only) using Image Recognition
For most of the fields in the forms, there is a label to them, the text before the field. Such as
Nickname . . . . . . . [__________________]
You can use the “Click Text” activity, highlight the entire form, and then search for the label text, “Nickname” in this case. When clicking a label, the cursor will automatically go into the input field and you can then use a Type Into activity.
For the tabels, you are still stuck with hotkeys (as far as I know)
You can use Ctrl+C, other hotkeys and the Clipboard activities, to get text and to validate your input
Hi Nicolai,
Thanks for your reply.
“ClickText” did the trick.
I made a test today, and everything ran smoothly.
I just needed to click on the first field. Then I could navigate to the other fields using hotkey. Navision has also some shortcut keys that made my job much easier.
I am a kind of new in Uipath, could you please elaborate more on Ctrl+C and Clipboard activities. It sounds very interesting.
I have save the values in the variables that I type in Navision, but validation sounds good.
Thanks again for your input.
Glad I can share some information that helps
Yes, Navision is great when it comes to hotkeys!
For the Ctrl+C and Clipboard activity, I sugges sending a Ctrl+C hotkey and use the Get From Clipboard activity
Or simply use the Copy Selected Text activity.
I would however also suggest to use the Set To Clipboard activity, and set it to an empty string before any copy operation - to ensure you get the actual value of the field (or an empty string if something goes wrong)
Then, when you have gotten the information, you can validate what you have typed, and either proceed, retype og stop the process.
As a side note, there are some selectors available in Navision that you can use with UI activity, such as Click Element. These selectors I tend to find mostly in the menu boxes that pops up when you click a button or alike.
Thanks for your reply.
Your information was very useful, thanks.
I had problem click into the first field using “click element”, but it wasn’t my primary solution.
Since the selector for “click element” was the whole form and not the first name, and it wasn’t reliable for me.
But the selector for “click text” recognizes first name field.
I will definitely use “Ctrl+C, Get From Clipboard, Copy Selected Text and Set To Clipboard” activities for validation and test. I might use them in production as well.
It all depends on the automation process.
Tell you the truth, I wasn’t aware of these activities, and I am sure there are many
activities that I don’t know them.
But I learn them one day at the time.
Glad I can help.
I know that there aren’t many “good” selectors in Navision, but whenever you encounter a new element, take your time and see if you can get a selector for it!
I will definitely advise you to keep using Ctrl+C/Clipboard to validate your input - if there are no controls later in the process - worst case is that you type the wrong value in the wrong field, and Navision nor the robot/process won’t complain about it.
UiPath is program with a lot of features and functionality. I’m still learning new ways to do thing, and new activities to use - and I’ve been working with UiPath for more that a few years now
On a side note: when you are in the process of marking a field, to make a selector, try to press F4. That changes the way UiPath looks at the programs.
I haven’t tried this in Navision myself, but have seen in other programs that it helped!
You can read a bit more about it here, under Ui Frameworks. UIExplorer
I am going to automate a process with UiPath in Navision. So it was quite informative already. Thanks for that.
I have a general question to Navision. Maybe you can help me with that.
Do I have to activiate GUI-Scripting in Navision (as in SAP)? And if I have to activiate it, how can I do this?
Hi @Nicolai_Kruger
Thanks so much for your post. Tell you the truth, since I have made the first test after your initial post, I didn’t have much time to work and experience with it. I am totally jammed with another project due in two weeks time.
But the first test was very good. As you said, I used hotkeys to traverse to different fields in navision. But clicking on the first field was my main challenge, and I can see that the selector did identify the field:
I do not see selectors for the other fields, since I am using hotkeys(navision shorcut tkeys) to traverse.
You are right, I should definitely use Ctrl+C to validate my entries, since I don’t have any selector in my other fields. I will do so.
I will leave this case open until I am sure that the robot is running correctly. I might even have some questions for you. If you will be kind to answer them
But I can see other people have problems with Navision as well. We might be able to help them as well.
Thanks @Nicolai_Kruger
Hi @Nicolai_Kruger
Thanks so much for your post. Tell you the truth, since I have made the first test after your initial post, I didn’t have much time to work and experience with it. I am totally jammed with another project due in two weeks time.
But the first test was very good. As you said, I used hotkeys to traverse to different fields in navision. But clicking on the first field was my main challenge, and I can see that the selector did identify the field:
I do not see selectors for the other fields, since I am using hotkeys(navision shorcut tkeys) to traverse.
You are right, I should definitely use Ctrl+C to validate my entries, since I don’t have any selector in my other fields. I will do so.
I will leave this case open until I am sure that the robot is running correctly. I might even have some questions for you. If you will be kind to answer them
But I can see other people have problems with Navision as well. We might be able to help them as well.
Thanks @Nicolai_Kruger
Hi @Lianla
I have actually looked for enabling GUI-scripting in Navision, but I couldn’t find anything.
Our navision is developed and maintained by an external company. I asked the main developer for enabling GUI-scripting in navision, but she said there is no such a thing in navision.
But our navision is pretty old. The new navision might have such feature, but as I said I couldn’t find anything.
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