Orchestrating your automation¶

Prerequisites¶

• BotCity Account (Signup here)
• BotCity Studio SDK
• Python 3.7 or higher
• Java 11 or higher

Overview¶

Orchestration automation is possible to manage the execution of tasks in an automated way, being able to isolate tasks so that they can be executed sequentially.

BotCity Maestro is an automation platform used to support the development process of bots and other types of automation, deployment and orchestration of processes in runtime.

Life Cycle¶

The automation process contains a life cycle divided into a few steps:

• Process Preparation: the developer must know the processing flow.
• Creating the project: the developer creates the automation project, which can be in Python, Java, Javascript or Typescript.
• Developing Robot: the robot will be developed in this step.
• Deploy and Relase on Maestro: after the build is done the developer will send the robot to the platform and choose which version will be used in production.
• Creating runner: the developer will create the runner.
• Configuring BotRunner: the developer sets the machineId in the SDK configuration.
• Creating automation: the developer will create the automation, selecting the Runner that was created and the robot that was deployed.
• Starting the BotRunner: the developer will start the BotRunner from the terminal.
• Creating task: the developer or the user who will be responsible for running the robot will create a task for the BotRunner to execute.
• Task execution: the BotRunner will perform the task.

Creating a project¶

To build a bot we need to create a project in Java, Javascript or Python structure that will be used to develop the bot.

To create a project follow the tutorials below:

• Python project

  • Web bot
  • Desktop bot

• Java project

  • Web bot
  • Desktop bot

• Javascript project

  • Web bot
  • Desktop bot

Building your project¶

To send the bot to Maestro you need to build the project. If you are in Windows run the build.bat file in the root directory of the project, otherwise run the build.sh file under Linux or macOS.

.\build.bat

./build.sh

chmod +x build.sh

Easy Deploy¶

After building the project, the next step is to deploy the automation to BotCity Maestro.

The easiest way to do your first deployment is through Maestro's Easy Deploy feature.

The Easy Deploy process is basically divided into three steps:

1. Creating an automation
2. Deploying a bot
3. Choosing where to run

First Step - Creating an automation¶

The first step is to fill in the name of our automation process.

Second Step - Deploying a bot¶

The second step is to fill in the information regarding your bot.

You will upload the file referring to the bot, define which technology is being used and finally the name and version you want to use for the deployment.

Final Step - Choosing where to run¶

The third and final step is to define which Runner will be associated with this automation.

You can select a Runner that you have previously created or enter an identifier to create a new one.

machineId=vm-01  # <- your runner id here
logScreen=true
logApplication=true

Success 🚀¶

Congratulations 🏆

In a few seconds, you managed to configure your automation process, associate it with your bot and define where it will be executed.

You now have the option to create a new task for this automation.

By doing so, a new task will be queued and as soon as the Runner associated with the automation is active the execution will start automatically.

Over the next sections, we will cover in more detail how to create and execute tasks.

Automation Management via BotCity Maestro¶

The Easy Deploy process is very useful for the first deployment of our automation.

However, at certain times we may need to deploy new versions or update existing versions of our bot associated with our automation.

BotCity Maestro offers several features to manage our automations.

From the My Bots menu you can:

• Deploy new bots and versions
• Set versions as the release (Production Version)
• Update the bot code
• Download the bot code for a given version
• Exclude a bot.

Updating your bot¶

You can update a bot by simply clicking on the pencil icon on the right side of the line associated with your desired bot version and selecting a new file to replace the current one.

Deploying a new bot version¶

You can deploy a new bot or a new version of an existing bot by simply clicking on the Deploy button and filling the form with the Bot ID, version, file and technology used.

Defining a release version¶

You can define the released version by simply clicking on the ribbon icon (highlighted by the red arrow below). The version marked as "release" will be the version of the bot that will be used at the time of execution.

Managing tasks¶

Tasks are instances of an Automation that are created by the user via the Maestro User Interface, BotCity CLI, Maestro SDK or the Maestro API.

Task creation page¶

You can create a task via the task creation page in Maestro.

Just click on the New Task button referring to the automation process you want to execute.

Executing tasks¶

After creating a task, it will be sent to the queue and at that moment it will be ready to be executed.

The last necessary step is to activate Runner. Just run the BotRunner or BotRunner-gui script from the BotCity Studio SDK.

Finishing a task¶

Once tasks are created, they are queued on the BotMaestro and collected for execution by the BotRunner.

There are two ways to finish a task: via code (together with the bot code) or via CLI.

It is the bot developer responsibility to inform the BotMaestro via the SDK of the proper final status of a task.

Click here to learn how to finish a task using the Maestro SDK.

Troubleshooting¶

Q: Runner does not run the robot

1. Make sure you choose the runner correctly in the automation.
2. Check if the SDK configuration is with the correct machineId.
3. Make sure you start the runner.
   • If you have the runner with GUI, click the "START" button to run the tasks in the queue.
4. Open the log.txt file in the root directory of the SDK and check if there were any errors.
5. Make sure the runner is running in the terminal.
6. Check that the runner has internet access.