Stopping unattended robots with Assistant: The specifics of "Awaiting Install" and "Install"

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Dear automation experts,

We are running a number of unattended robots. For a single process there is a perceived need to provide business with an option to pause, halt or stop a running unattended automation. While we are working to assague this perceived need, we would like to provide one department with an interim stop or halt button for a single process.

My question is as follows:

What, specifically happens when I use the “Install” option in Assistant for a given robot name? Is anything actually downloaded to the Assistant if the robot to be “installed” is of an unattended type? Is “install” a correct term for what the options does – or is this option more akin to “configure.”

It is not clear to me – again, working with unattended robots – if anything is actually downloaded to the Windows-instance with Assistant (and only Assistant) installed.

If one is willing to forego the granularity offered by a custom-written solution involving calls to Orchestrator’s API, can Assistant be used purely to send start and stop commands to an unattended robot?

Sincerely,
Matti

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What, specifically happens when I use the “Install” option in Assistant for a given robot name?

Response: It will install the needed packages (process and its dependencies) in the %USERPROFILE%.nuget\packages (default location). Or it will install the packages in your specified packagesInstallationFolder.

If one is willing to forego the granularity offered by a custom-written solution involving calls to Orchestrator’s API, can Assistant be used purely to send start and stop commands to an unattended robot?

Response: The UiPath Assistant was designed in the main part for Attended robots. For the unattended robots and their process control, use the UiPath Orchestrator → Automations → Jobs.

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