I read through some posts in the forum about setting up and licensing of FOR and BOR.
From what I understand, no matter I use Studio, FOR or BOR license, the software installation is same, I need to install UiPath Studio which will install Robot service as well.
Besides, there are two kinds of process file format, XAML and NUPKG, one is plain text one is encoded, that makes the things like security more complicated.
As I know, I can only execute NUPKG from Robot service and XAML in Studio, and there is a deprecated function to run XAML by Robot.ext through Windows Scheduler.
But I still have some questions:
If I am working on machine installed with FOR, can I open the UiPath Studio, create/edit/delete and execute any process/package? (Someone from Zendesk told me process in FOR is read-only, I don’t understand what does it mean) Or I can just execute the packaged process using the Robot Service?
I know BOR is unattended, but what if I logged in to check some system statuses, can I do what i mentioned in point 1? If scheduled job from Orchestrator launches when I logged in BOR, will it affect the bot execution?
Can I execute XAML in FOR & BOR using the Robot.exe? Given I want to use the deprecated Scheduling by Windows Scheduler.
In Orchestrator, there is a license management page, and when we register Robot to Orchestrator it asked for the type of robot (Free/FOR/BOR). Is Orchestrator controlling the license or the initial license activation when install UiPath Studio controlling the license type?
In deployment scenario that I will have only FOR. Is it appropriate to use 1 Studio license for both Development AND Testing + 1 FOR license for production? Or I should have one Studio for development + 1 FOR for Testing + 1 FOR for Production? What is the different between these two setup?
Sorry to make it too lengthy. There will be great if someone can make up some example or illustrative diagram for different licensing scenarios.
If you only have the attended robot license, you can open .xaml files in read-only mode, but you cannot modify since UiPath Studio is for development and you are allowed to run it as robot for testing/development purposes but not in production. Yes, you can execute the process using Robot svc from Robot tray for ex.
Let’s say you are logged in on a machine and a scheduled job is triggered in the meantime. That means that you will be logout and the robot will connect on that user and execute the process. After that, you can login again on the machine and the robot will continue to run. It depends on the process: could be running in background or not.
Windows scheduler is no longer supported by UiPath. It is now recommended to use the scheduling from Orchestrator. You can still try to run it using Windows scheduler, but UiPath offers no guarantees it will work as intended.
Before provisioning the robot to Orchestrator, the robot itself doesn’t know if it’s attended or unattended. In Orchestrator → License tab you will upload a file based on a license code provided by the sales team. (ex.: 3 attended, 2 unattended). Then you will provision the robot as attended for example and connect it to orchestrator and the robot will know it has the attended parameters(cannot start or schedule jobs from orchestrator)
The unattended robot is recommended for production. In your scenario, I would say the 1st setup will be a better fit because when you develop you also want to test.
Please let me know if I missed something or if anything is not clear enough.
Thanks for your answer, it is comprehensive but I am still unsure for the following:
When you say “read-only” mode, it is a file permission only, right? Which mean I can’t open the XAML in UiStudio or I can’t edit it in UiStudio? But if I am a System Admin, I can always edit the XAML file in a text editor even it is in read-only mode, isn’t it? Of course I can’t construct the whole process in plain text but actually it is not difficult to edit some core coding by looking at the XML syntax in the XAML file (and I tried and can edit and execute from Orchestrator the changed process without problem in read-only mode), that brings up my concern on code security…
I thought we need to activate the UiPath once it is installed, then what should I use to activate the local installation if the license file should actually be uploaded and managed by Orchestrator?? Besides, the local UiPath contact told me that in small enterprise deployment I can buy only UiStudio and FOR/BOR without Orchestrator, if license has to be managed by Orchestrator then how can I deploy such model? Or just a simple question, can FOR and BOR exists without Orchestrator?
As from Q4, one of my client just needs small deployment, so they are looking for just to buy Studio + FOR (as BOR has to work with Orchestrator and they don’t want to use). Do you mean this deployment actually won’t work as attended robot is not for production? Then what is the use case of FOR??
For my original setup, the second setup with a FOR for testing, is because the development environment may be different from UAT environment. In that case, I can’t use just one Studio license to cover both development and UAT, am I correct?
Additional question from my testing to trigger process from Orchestrator:
6. I thought nupkg file is executable by robot.exe, but it turns out the robot.exe will decompress the npukg back to the same project folder with all files and xamls developed in Studio. Then it brings up my concerns on code security again as in Q1, that a System Admin can actually change the code and run the changed process without governance. e.g. he/she can add a task to print the secured string to plain text and disclose passwords.
Sorry that I have too many questions, and I would really appreciate if the documentation can make licensing more transparent. Currently it just tells us about the purpose of the 4 components without too much setup details and constraints.