An Attended Robot operates on the same machine as a human. It is usually triggered by user events and should only run under human supervision. Read more about the Robot's automation capabilities according to license.

Parallel Attended Execution is performed by a Robot on a machine for a particular user. Processes run in the same Windows session at the same time.

Each running process uses its own version of dependencies, even if multiple running processes require a different version of the same dependency. For example, if process A requires dependency 18.4.6 and process B requires dependency 19.4.4, then each process downloads and uses its required version of the dependency.

According to this type of license, an Attended Robot can concurrently execute one foreground process (with UI interaction) and multiple background processes (without UI interaction).

A foreground process is used when your automation project needs to interact with UI elements. These processes heavily rely on UIAutomation activities. Please note that you can only execute one foreground process at a time.

A background process doesn't need to interact with UI elements on the screen, but rather relies on background processes to pass along information. UIAutomation activities should not be used in these project types. Multiple such processes can simultaneously run on a machine, even if a foreground process is already running.

The type of process is generally dictated by the type of activities it uses (whether or not they interact with UI elements). However, you can specify the type when you create a new process from Studio. By default, all processes are marked as foreground, unless specified otherwise.

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Note:

You can not start processes from Orchestrator on this type of Robot. They can only be started from the Robot Agent (tray), or from the Command Prompt.

As long as at least one process is running, the Robot is marked as Busy in Orchestrator.

Starting another foreground process while one is already running is not possible. Background processes, on the other hand, can be started regardless of the state and type of the other processes.

You can use the Run Parallel Process activity in your background processes to start other processes, based on triggers you need. Processes started by this activity run independently. For example, a background process which monitors particular actions can start a new process (foreground or background) and continue to monitor the specific action without being interrupted. A background process loaded by this activity starts right away, even if a foreground and one or more background processes are already running. If the activity starts a foreground process, one of the following situations occurs:

• The process starts right away if there is no other foreground process running.
• An exception is thrown if a foreground process is already running.