Workflow

The value is not that a machine is faster than you. It is that the twentieth account is opened exactly like the first, and that whatever went wrong is written down instead of remembered.

A workflow is an ordered set of steps a machine repeats the same way every time it is handed the same job.

What a workflow is made of

A workflow is a name, an ordered list of steps, its own variables and the profiles it is aimed at. All of that belongs to the workflow itself, so the selection is still there tomorrow.

Steps
Ordered, each of one known kind, each carrying only the fields that kind needs.
Variables
Named values the steps can carry, filled in fresh for every profile a run touches.
Target profiles
Who the run is for, chosen once and remembered alongside the steps.
An outcome
What ran, what failed and on which profile, written down rather than remembered.

Steps that act and steps that decide

Most of a workflow does something to a page and the rest decides what happens next. The deciding kinds are what separates a workflow from a list of clicks.

Acting
Open an address, click, type into a field, scroll, press a key, take a picture of the page.
Deciding
Test the page or a value and take one of two branches, repeat a body, or run it once per item in a list.
Waiting
Pause for a time, for a random spread, until an element appears, or until the page asks for an address.

One workflow many profiles

The same steps run against every chosen profile, and the values differ per profile. That is how one workflow signs into twenty accounts without twenty copies of itself.

Profiles are taken in a queue rather than all at once, and a worker that finds no free slot waits for one instead of writing the profile off.

Checked before it is trusted

A workflow broken in a silent way is worse than one that is obviously unfinished. The builder looks for the silent kind while you edit and names the step number it found.

1
A click with nothing to click
A step whose target was never filled in at all.
2
A wait with no end
Neither a length of time nor an element to wait for.
3
A read with nowhere to go
Text pulled off the page and no name to keep it under.

Saving is never held back

An unfinished workflow is a normal working state, so remarks are shown and the file is saved anyway. Errors are marked apart from warnings, so the difference is visible at a glance.

Leaving this computer

A workflow is a file people pass around, so export leaves out the values typed into steps, the cookie values and the variable values. Names and references stay, so whoever receives it sees what to fill in.

The library that travels through your account keeps those values, so a flow arrives working on your second machine. A workspace shares one library, so anyone in it can read what a synced flow holds.

Often confused with

A macro recorder
A recorder watches a person and replays the watching. Here every step is added from a form, and there is no recorder at all.
A bot
A bot is expected to cope with whatever it meets. A workflow repeats what you wrote, at the pauses you set, and a moved button breaks it.
A schedule
The workflow is the work. A schedule is only the hour it happens at, and either can exist without the other.

What this does not do

There is no recorder. Nothing watches your clicks and turns them into steps, and every step is added by hand from a form.
A workflow is a script, not a person. It repeats what you wrote at the pauses you set, and a site that moves a button breaks the step that looked for it.
There is no library of ready made workflows to install. The only steps the app writes for you are the browsing ones the cookie robot builds for a new profile.
It runs on your machine while the app is open. Closing the app ends a run in progress, and nothing carries it on in a datacentre.

Check it

What a workflow may hold, who may change it, and the stands that hold both.

What a workflow may hold, and the ceilings on it: apps/desktop/src/lib/rpa.js
The builder names what is broken and never holds back saving: apps/desktop/src/lib/flowCheck.js · apps/desktop/test/flow-check.js
Done means the steps ran: a profile whose steps failed is reported failed: apps/desktop/src/main/main.js · apps/desktop/test/run-result-honest.js
The library travels through your account, and writing to it is a manager's right: apps/server/src/flows/flows.controller.ts · apps/server/test/flows-shared.js

Questions

What happens when one step fails?: It is written down with its reason, a counter for that profile goes up, and the next step is tried. A profile with failed steps is reported failed, and so is the run.
Can my own code be a step?: Yes. One kind runs your JavaScript in the page and stores what it returns, and it carries a time limit of its own, so code that never settles ends as an ordinary step error.
Can a program on this machine start one?: Yes. A local route lists your workflows and starts a run over the profiles you name, and it answers with a run identifier.
Do the same steps work on a mobile profile?: Yes. On a mobile profile the click is turned into touch events instead of mouse events, because a mobile page often listens for a touch and never sees a mouse click.
Does a workflow carry my passwords to a colleague?: Not through export. Typed values, cookie values and variable values are left out of that file on purpose, and only the names stay.

Next to this

Write it once and run it twenty times

The builder, the variables and the run log are in the app itself, and a workflow stays on your computer until you send it.

Download ARMANOS Automation builder