Connectivity Limitations for Robotic Automation Solutions

This section describes connectivity limitations when working in unattended mode on a virtual machine without an active remote session connected to it. In such cases, the operating system handles the environment differently, and as a result, some Library functions and Screen Elements are not fully functional.

To avoid these limitations, you can use the Citrix Agent and Desktop Session Manager to work in an inactive session. See Using Citrix Agent and Using the Desktop Session Manager.

The following list describes the function limitations.

Screen Element functions

Bring to Front

Emulate Mouse Click

Emulate Keyboard

Windows Library functions

Set Focus To Window

Get Active Process - returns Idle value

Get pixel color - returns -1

Mouse, Keyboard

Functions from these libraries do not work.

The limitations for mouse and keyboard apply to Robotic Automation solutions and solutions running on physical machines with locked screens.

Win 32 Operations

Take Screenshot

Get CPU Usage of a process – returns 0

Hold Special Keys

Release Special Keys

Press Keyboard

Bring To Front

Handle of window in focus

OCR Picture

Create from Clipboard

Copy to Clipboard

Create from Window

Recognize Text From Control

Get Picture (creates Picture from the VSD Windows PictureBox control)

Scene Composer Input Emulation Control

Keyboard emulation does not work.

Workarounds

You can use the following functions to work around the missing keyboard functionality. They can be found in the Win32 Operations library.

Send Key to Window: Sends the specified key character to the specified screen element.

Key combinations do not work in unattended mode, for example: Ctrl+<character>.

Send String to Window: Posts the specified text to the specified screen element

Send String to Handle: Sends the specified string to the specified window handle. Send <String> To <Window handle>