How do you guys scale and duplicate the bot into multiple machines easily?

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Hello ,
Im new to UiPath , started learning few days ago as im coder already it didnt went to hard , made some Good Project so far ,
However , i have got some questions where i will be very happy if someone can help me on them .

lets say i made the bot and it works fine on my windows machine ( where the process take 30 min ) . so in a daily basis the bot can do the process 48 times .
Where its not sufficient to be honest , including the failures …etc i willl be down to 30 times or even less .

So i want to know how do you guys scale this up to multiple machines easily , i was thinking about Doin it On AWS machines create an image where UiPath is installed and duplicate , but i will have again to run the process on each machine and check each one , and this will be so hard if the number of machines are too high .

so the questions is ,
1- how do you guys scale the process across multiple servers machines without having to run the process on each one again .( lets say we have 50 machines ) .
2- How can i keep track of all those machines and handles errors if any happen , like can i recieve an alert if any error occurs on any machine . on a sheet or something .
3- Can the bot work on the background of a windows server , or should the window of the server always be open ?

any help is welcome, was thinking about doing a bot that will run those multiple machine it self , so a bot that will run the bots of the main process multiple times , but i belive it should be a more efficient way , maybe it has somehting to do with orchestrator ? im not sure what it is , i just create project on UiPath software and run them locally via the proiject .

thanks in advance for any help !

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Edit : Also another question please , is there anyWay to run Multiple task in the same machine ?

like having same process running on different browsers for example .

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Hi @celie.mccook

Hopefully this will help:

  1. Usually UR robots are what you want to go for. Please check the community agreement if you want to run multiple robots at the same time.
    Robotic Process Automation | UiPath

Community edition subject to the conditions herein and the Documentation. If the Customer is either an individual, oran organization that, together with its Affiliates, collectively have (a) less than 250 physical or virtual machines or users and (b) less than the equivalent of USD 5 (five) million in annual revenues, the Customer is deemed a “Small Business” and may use the Software for internal business purposes only. If the Customer is an organization that, together with its Affiliates, collectively exceed the limitations set herein for a Small Business, the Customer is deemed a “Large Business” and may only use the Software to test and evaluate the suitability, and for non-profit purposes, such as education, hackathons, individual or institutional research, and internal trainings. UiPath reserves the right to delete all Customer Data in the Software if the Customer fails to use that Software for more than 90 (ninety) consecutive calendar days.

So the way to go usually would be to buy UR robot licenses, create some new machines with UiPath robot software installed and run them through Orchestrator.

  1. It also applies to scaling but you will want to read and learn about the Orchestrator functions like queues, triggers, jobs etc.
    Orchestrator - About Processes
    Usually you would create a trigger which will check the items in the queue and start running processes, then you can monitor this through the Orchestrator dashboard when selecting one of the queues for example. You can set Orchestrator to send you alerts as well, or send emails from robots directly.
    If you are using aws and teams or slack, you can automate the process to send the messages directly into chat as well. Literally you can pick whatever you want.

  2. Yes it’s possible. UR robots will log in directly, however depending on the settings of the machine some selectors may not work (image dependent selectors)

  3. Yes and no. You can run multiple background processes however you can run only one foreground process(process using UI).
    Robot - Background Process Automation

From what you described (using UiPath locally) I would assume that you’re using community edition. If you want to scale the processes throughout multiple machines, I’m not sure whether UR robot is available in community edition now but even if so you are limited to 1 license per account.

  1. You would have to create multiple community accounts (have in mind that this may already breach the community agreement)
  2. Create multiple machines whether AWS, Azure, few computer set ups.
  3. Create stack or excel file accesible from all machines/accounts which will act as a queue (telling your robots which task to work on now)
  4. Create a windows service will start robots in case they stopped working or for example when you add a file to folder. How to execute robot by command line?. This will act as a trigger.
  5. Inside the robot on each machine you will need to implement logic which will access the stack/queue you created, pick the top item and then after work is done mark it as completed. If you simply pop it the job may end as exception.
  6. Create some kind of monitoring tool, checking via API calls whether robot on each machine is online or not and notifying you.

To scale everything and make it work without any hickups on community edition will cost a lot of time and effort.
There is probably and easier way to do that however it would definitely have to contain answers to questions.

  1. How to avoid conflict between robots (not working on same item) but working in unison
  2. How to start all the robots without Orchestrator
  3. How to monitor all the robots without Orchestrator
  4. How to retry failed cases automatically.
  5. How to notify when robot stopped working/machine went offline.

I have probably forgot about some stuff but that’s the basics which needs to be implemented I suppose.

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6

thanks a lot for this detailed explanation ! i really appreciate the effort ! and you answered almost all of my needs ! as im new to UiPath and yes for now i use only community edition . and as you said i have two options either scale hardly with multiple accs and multple machines Aws , or Use Ur and orchestrator .

I would love if you could answer this for me please :

1- Is the paid Ur Robot version same as the community edition style of visual coding and any project i made on community will work on paid one ?

2- i automated some windows apps browsers combined with another windows app how will the UR handle these apps on the new machines when i try to scale just wondering ? will it install automatically or what exactly ?

3- You said "depending on the settings of the machine some selectors may not work (image dependent selectors) " , does the Ui Targets i was selecting on the Web browsers for example count as an image dependent ? ( like on click , wait for target to appear …etc activities ) .

4- most of my process are foreground using UI , so i wont be able to run many on same machine , have to do multiple machines using UR right ? or ( multiple aws … the hardest way )

5- and for this questions you asked
‘‘How to avoid conflict between robots (not working on same item) but working in unison’’'. i was thinking about filling. a sheet cell whenever the process start on that row. and put a condition where if this cell is filled then move to next row and make an offset between each robot start , so each robot will work on a new Row , ( where i think there might be some confusion sometimes ) . what to dyou think about that ?
or Does UR manage this for me in an easier way ?

and for others questions , that would be the hardest way so yeah all of this will be hard i guess without UR and paid licence .

6- I would love to know if this is good idea , i will finish the Bot on Community edition , and then when im ready to scale i will just buy the licence ,

is there anything that will change later when i upgrade ? or anything to keep in mind from now ? or will my Robot scale easily ( with all apps im using on my windows ( browser + another windows app ) .

7- lastly how much does the UiPath licnce to do this cost monthly ?

thanks in advacnce. Celie

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Hi @celie.mccook

  1. When you buy the license you’ll have access to Studio which will be no different that Community Edition when it comes to visual coding etc. The only difference is that you can actually choose the version you want to use.
    Community on the other hand updates automatically. This is some kind of your payment for free usage. So using Community Edition you become a beta user and might possibly run into bugs.
    There should be no problem with migrating projects you already created tho.
    But please make sure you make projects in Windows compatibility since Windows-Legacy will be deprecated in next major Studio Update.

  1. It depends on you. The best way to scale would be creating an image of already deployed system and propagating it through all other VM’s.
    However robot won’t work if you try to run it on a computer without the target applications.

  2. Yes, depending on the machine settings, it may or may not find your selectors. At the time, we have 3 selectors available for each target and anchor. Studio - About Selectors

  • Normal selector - which depending on framework, uses different technologies to retrieve backend of a target on anchor and will only find it if the match is 100%.
  • Fuzzy selector - which will look for target (button, field etc.) based on a pattern rather than on exact match Studio - Fuzzy Search
  • Image selector - which will look for an exact image you input.
    Basically If you spy(select an element to be used) with the Studio right now you are most likely to recevie selector based on Fuzzy and Image selector.
    image
    image386×651 24.9 KB

The problem with Image selectors is that you need to exactly match the image, so things like font smoothing in windows, resolution, window size matters a lot and may cause your automation to fail. You should focus on Normal selectors always. As long is it’s possible to use.

  1. Yes, this will mean that for one process running you will need one machine.

  2. Yes and no. You need to think what happens in case of exception. So you would at least need one more field where you mark and check whether the case was successfully processed or not.
    This is normally implemented in queues. Orchestrator - About Queues and Transactions
    You can use them in Community edition as well, however since you have only one robot license all of the robots won’t be able to access the same queue which beats the purpose, hence you need to implement it yourself.

  3. Yes, I don’t think there will be any problem. Once you buy a license, as far as I know, you will also get access to UiPath technical support aside from forum. They will help you in any case of migrating robots.

  4. I think that deeply depends on the size of contract, number of licenses and types of licenses you will want to acquire. It probably differs a lot between companies so it would be smart to contact UiPath sales directly on that matter.
    Automation Pricing - Complete UiPath Enterprise Solution | UiPath

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Thanks a lot for all this valuable Help ! wanted to know please

" 2. It depends on you. The best way to scale would be creating an image of already deployed system and propagating it through all other VM’s.
However robot won’t work if you try to run it on a computer without the target applications."

  • Will the UR licence , create VM’s ? or should i ? talking about 100 Vm , something like that ?
    and how much they will charge per One Vm’s ( per robot basically ) .

  • AND IS THERE anywhere where i can read about Queues Please , and you think that they can avoid avoid all repition when reading from a sheet database when running many machines ?

Thanks again , Celie

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@celie.mccook

  • Will the UR licence , create VM’s ? or should i ? talking about 100 Vm , something like that ?
    and how much they will charge per One Vm’s ( per robot basically ) .

You will have to create VM’s yourself, all the infra etc needs to be managed by you.
There is also Automation Cloud Robot - SaaS Robots with No Infrastructure | UiPath which will basically create and scale everything for you from the description. However I have had never used it.

  • AND IS THERE anywhere where i can read about Queues Please

Orchestrator - About Queues and Transactions
Here you can read about queues. If that’s not enough for you or you prefer learning from videos
you can try those:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lc4q1NCapFg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LpB9pB7upJg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r890Tcx_ITs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xQCfRaUrL_Q
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i7szje7mYwI

, and you think that they can avoid avoid all repition when reading from a sheet database when running many machines ?

what do you mean by that?

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12

well thanks for the answsers ,

i have been watching some videos and i started understanding how it works , and it seems that i need AWS or any other cloud sub as well , so basically UiPath , doenst offer the Cloud service on the 1500 usd payment ? only the abbility to run many bots and manage them from one single account , but the Vm’s are on another cloud , paid by me in addition to the 1500 . im i correct ?

and then what they mean by ( Hosted ) ?
on the pricing page they says :

Automation Cloud robot Bundle
UiPath-hosted unattended robots , 5,000 Units/bundle.

another question apart , once an image is created from the cloud (azure lets say ) and connected to UiPath …etc can we create 10 times this machine easily from UiPath directly or should we go from azure ?

13

i have seen in a site that the cost of one unattended robot is around 4000-8000 annulaly ? so if i run 100 unattended robot it will be 4M-8M a year ? im correct? :smiling_face_with_tear:

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So even if i pay the cloud outside , they will charge me that much ?

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@celie.mccook

i have been watching some videos and i started understanding how it works , and it seems that i need AWS or any other cloud sub as well , so basically UiPath , doenst offer the Cloud service on the 1500 usd payment ? only the abbility to run many bots and manage them from one single account , but the Vm’s are on another cloud , paid by me in addition to the 1500 . im i correct ?

Yes, that’s how it works, infra needs to be provided by you. Unless you use this Automation Cloud Robots.

and then what they mean by ( Hosted ) ?
on the pricing page they says :
Automation Cloud robot Bundle
UiPath-hosted unattended robots , 5,000 Units/bundle.

I’m not sure exactly, but I think this is regarding the AI Fabrics. Those are units used for AI processing on their platform. AI Center - AI Units

another question apart , once an image is created from the cloud (azure lets say ) and connected to UiPath …etc can we create 10 times this machine easily from UiPath directly or should we go from azure ?

Yes, however AWS, Azure or GCloud should make it easier to do.
I haven’t touched cloud platforms in a while but the steps should be like that:

  1. Create VM with windows.
  2. Install all of the 3rd party software and robot.
  3. Create image of the vm
  4. Create all the remaining vm’s
  5. Use image created in step 3 and propagate is into all the VM’s created in step 4.

So it is semi-automatic.

i have seen in a site that the cost of one unattended robot is around 4000-8000 annulaly ? so if i run 100 unattended robot it will be 4M-8M a year ? im correct? :smiling_face_with_tear:

You need to speak with UiPath Sale. I think you can adjust the offer to your needs, for example take only UR robot licenses if needed Etc.

You could also get AR robot licenses and automate triggers with Windows Services to start the AR robots. This way your robots will be able to use the same queue but you will have to create a service which will be able to start them

So even if i pay the cloud outside , they will charge me that much ?

UR licenses are counted separately so yes, you will have to pay for both, UiPath Licenses and Infra.

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Thanks Again!

" automate triggers with Windows Services " can you tell me more about this pelase sounds interessting ?

and can manage them from Orchestrator ? and get notified when they stop or get errors ?

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@celie.mccook

" automate triggers with Windows Services " can you tell me more about this pelase sounds interessting ?

Since you can run robots using CMD commands as linked in the first post:
How to execute robot by command line?
You can create a Windows Service which will work in the background of your operating system. This can for example check your email, check if new files were created in a folder. Or simply start the process every day/hour etc.
For example as an example by microsoft, file watcher: windows-service-create-a-customizable-filesystemwatcher-windows-service

This will allow you to create your local robot triggering system. You can also integrate API’s etc.
I have created such solution for adding new items to queue with API so it can be done for sure.

and can manage them from Orchestrator ? and get notified when they stop or get errors ?

You can set this separately. Allow mails while the job fail in the settings for example, use webhook to create a teams/slack message when job fails.
OR simply create an action inside the robot to send and email to you whenever fail happes.

This could also be used as a trigger.

For example. Create a mail watcher windows service. This could watch your outlook app for new mails or simply use API of some other email provided to get all the new mails.
Then check for the mail titles.
If an email generated by robot fail with specific error message is found use cmd to run robot.

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