UiPath: Citrix automation Issues

Question

Presently working on Citrix automation, I am finding a very weird behavior of UiPath dont know weather the problem is my process or the application that I am working on. The issue that I have be facing:

1. As per my knowledge the best way for automating citrix is not using the mouse click events: So for this I have prepared my automation completely using the Key Strokes, I have achieved the internal navigation using key strokes sending Tab & Arrow keys using(Send HotKeys and Type into activities), while working on the key strokes they are working randomly, when working on debug works perfectly when trying to run in normal mode it gets jumped above or below, when trying to reduce the down button count move in a random way.

2. Initially before starting the citrix application, we need to accept a Sign-in window here, I am sending the mouse clicks, suddenly gives the error as "UiElement not found" when I just delete that event and add it again it works fine.

3. The same type of error is there with both click events and Type Into, some times suddenly stops working when I delete it and add it back with same text it works fine.

4. Image Exist\Element Exist activity I am using those to check if the image is available on the screen or not, with a If condition I will be checking the image status and will perform the required actions , this also works complete randomly, even when the image is available the Image exist will be giving the output as false and it fails.

I have completed the Advanced Citrix Automation tutorial also but could find only basics

Note: Please don't ask for my code Security reasons cannot provide.

Any suggestion will be helpful

Thanks in advance

Harsha

Answer 1

If your hotkeys work well with debug but breaks otherwise it may be that your app does not react fast enough (debug slows things down). Try adding delays between activities to make sure your environment have enough time to react. Your problem with elements and images look like algorithm issues, consider that if the page reloads at the time you try to click an element or find an image it might disappear right when the activity is executing. Again timeout and generally revisiting the way you approach your automation might help (e.g. make sure the page/screen loads completely before your action).

In general when working with Citrix consider using Citrix Extension and enter link description here if you can, it will allow you to work with Citrix apps natively. If you can't do that than try out the Computer Vision activities in UiPath 19.2+, with luck you'll get you UI element selectors and that's really reliable as well.

Answer 2

I would suggest going through the Foundation Training course. It helps a lot, and it is free to sign up for. A lot of the video s are the same ones in the YoutTube series, but there is also more stuff that YouTube does not cover that is important.

In your case, with unreliable selectors, they recommend using either Anchor Base or Find Relative Selector to help UIPath pinpoint selectors more reliably. You could also play around with delays in between these trouble spots to give the elements time to appear if that is what is happening. That seemed to be a big one for me.

Regardless though, without good selectors like with HTML5 elements with IDs, you do not get the kind scalability and reliability that you might want. Even with the delays and anchor base stuff, you are basically building a house of cards. UIPath says themselves in the training course, that "Attributes are the stars of selectors" in speaking about finding good UI selectors.