SAP Desktop Agent - Build Process Automation

[sarathc]

This blog is specific to registering a Desktop Agent to work with SAP Build Process Automation. While there are other documents that refer to the same as referred in the references section, they are specific to SAP Intelligent Robotic Process Automation. While the steps are same as the reference material to install the Desktop Agent, the difference is in getting the Process Automation Tenant. For a beginner in SAP BTP who wants to work with Process Automation, the following would help to do the necessary steps to register the Desktop Agent and run their first Process Automation successfully.

Pre-requisite:

Make sure you have an active subscription of SAP Build Process Automation subscribed in your SAP BTP sub-account.

Step 1: From SAP Development Tools (ondemand.com), search for "SAP Process Automation: Desktop Agent" and download the file.

Step 2: Run the downloaded file and install the Agent in the local machine.

Step 3: Once Installed you will receive browser pop-up to activate the browser extension, this is active only for Chrome and Edge. Once activated you will see the extensions enabled as below,

For Edge:

For Chrome:

Step 4: From local machine run the Installed Agent

Once Installed, Open the Desktop Agent from local machine to Add a Tenant and Activate the Agent. This process is to connect the Desktop Agent installed on the local machine with the SAP BTP subscribed SAP Build Process Automation subscription.

In the below you can see an Agent is already in Active status, this is the end state.

 

Step 5: To achieve this, follow the steps in the image,

Step 6:

Enter a Tenant Name: MYTRIALUS

Enter the Domain URL: Copy the URL by going into SAP Build Process Automation.

Click the Application link referring to the image in Pre-Requisite and navigate to a project in Build Process Automation and copy the URL until "xxxxxxx.ondemand.com" as in image below.

Paste the URL to the Domain and Save. Once Saved then Activate the Tenant:

Step 7: Once registered you should see the Agent in the Settings Tab

After this step, make sure your Agent is registered as well,

 

Step 8: Now in the Build Process Automation project, you should be able to see the Desktop Agent Installed on the local machine. It may few minutes for the Agent to be recognized and visible here.

The version is automatically recognized based on the Agent version installed, you can refer this from image in Step 1, highlights the version that was downloaded.

PS: The Agent has 2 modes:

Attended Mode - This can be used while you create the process automation and perform testing on the Automation to check if it works.

Unattended mode: This is to be used when you deploy the process and run the process. If the Agent is in Attended mode the Automation will fail to run after deployment.

In the below image, the Agent is set to run in Unattended Mode.

 

References used:

SAP Note: https://me.sap.com/notes/3202981

SAP help: Desktop Agent Tenant Registration | SAP Help Portal

Developer tutorial: Install SAP Intelligent RPA On-Premise Components | Tutorials for SAP Developers

Conclusion: In this post I have explained you with the steps to install the Desktop agent, register a Build Process Automation Tenant in the agent, add the Agent to your Build Process Automation tenant and use the right mode in the agent to run the process.

Thank you for taking time to read the blog post and greatly appreciate your feedback and insights. For various other insights and learning, please refer to: Build Process Automation Community, Tutorials