UI Automation Activities

Last updated Dec 4, 2024

UI Automation Classic Project Settings

These project settings apply for Classic activities in Windows - Legacy, and Windows projects.

Use Project Settings to configure changes at the project level. These global settings impact all activities in the package that have the properties listed below. For more information, see Configuring Activity Project Settings.

Important: The properties configured in Project Settings only take effect in the activities of the workflow if their properties have not been edited. Editing properties manually no longer applies the project settings to them.

To configure the UI Automation Classic project settings, follow these steps:

In the Project panel, go to Project Settings.
Navigate to Activities Settings > UI Automation Classic.
Modify the settings according to what you want to change.
Click OK to save changes.

You can reset all settings to their default values or copy all values between the debug and production fields using the Bulk Actions drop-down menu at the top of the window.

Generic

The settings below apply to UI Automation Classic activities in Windows - Legacy, and Windows projects that have either one of the following properties.

Property name	Description
DelayBefore	Delay time (in milliseconds) between the previous activity and the current activity.
DelayAfter	Delay time (in milliseconds) between the current activity and the next activity.
Timeout (milliseconds)	How long to wait for the current activity to be executed before throwing an error.
WaitForReady	Before performing the action, wait for the application to become ready to accept input. The following options are available: None - Does not wait for the target to be ready. Interactive - Waits until only a part of the application is loaded. Complete - Waits for the entire application to load.
AlterIfDisabled	If set to True, the Select Item action is executed even if the specified UI element is disabled. This property does not apply if the Input Mode property is set to Hardware Events.
Capture Screenshots	Dictates if screenshots are captured at design time by all the activities that support this feature. If the setting is set to False, the Remove informative screenshot option from the context menu is disabled.
Show closest matches in the 'Element not found' error message	When set to True, this setting shortens the error message that corresponds to an 'Element not found' error. This is useful for protecting sensitive selector information.

Browser

The settings below apply to the Open Browser and Attach Browser activities.

Property name	Description
Browser	Choose the type of browser you want to use from the dropdown menu. The following options are available: IE Firefox Chrome Edge Custom - Suitable for other Chromium-based browsers, such as JxBrowser.
Private	If set to True, the values of variables and arguments are no longer logged at Verbose level.
NewSession	If set to True, starts a new session of the selected browser. This option is specific to Internet Explorer.
Hidden	If set to True, opens a hidden browser.
Enable WebView2 Native Automation	WebView2 is a technology used to integrate browsers in a desktop application or to render web applications as a desktop application. If set to True, The Web2view2 Native Automation project setting can be used to steer the automation of embedded browsers (e.g. embedded Edge) with HTML attribute-based selectors.
Enable workaround for simulate click with MV3 extension	Enables a workaround for the issue where the Click activity would fail on certain web page elements when used with the Simulate input method.See more details in Troubleshooting.This setting applies to all clicks performed with Simulate input method - Classic Click, Modern Click etc.
CommunicationMethod	Choose the communication method. The following options are available: Native WebDriver
UserDataFolderMode	The user data folder mode you want to set. It is used to start the browser with a specific user data folder. There are several options: Automatic - Picture In Picture mode uses a different folder than the default mode, automatically generated if UserDataFolderPath is not set. DefaultFolder - Uses the default browser folder, no matter if it runs in the main or PIP session. CustomFolder - Uses the folder specified in UserDataFolderPath or an auto generated path if UserDataFolderPath is not set.
UserDataFolderPath	The user data folder that the browser uses. Defaults to `%LocalAppData%\UiPath\PIP Browser Profiles\BrowserType`%LocalAppData%\UiPath\PIP Browser Profiles\BrowserType if not set.
Runtime Browser	The Runtime Browser project setting enables you to switch the browser at runtime. It can be used to execute on another browser than the one used at design time. This converts the browser type and selectors automatically if set. This setting has the following options: None - Maintains the browser type and selectors as defined at design time; when set to None, the setting does not influence the runtime execution in any way. This option is selected by default. Chrome - Adapts the browser type and selector properties for Chrome. Edge - Adapts the browser type and selectors properties for Edge. Firefox - Adapts the browser type and selectors properties for Firefox.
Extra arguments for OpenBrowser Chrome	Extra command line arguments for opening the Chrome browser. Applies to the Classic Open Browser and the Modern Use Browser activities.
Extra arguments for OpenBrowser Edge	Extra command line arguments for opening the Edge browser. Applies to the Classic Open Browser and the Modern Use Browser activities.
Custom executable path for OpenBrowser Chrome	Custom executable path for opening the Chrome browser. Applies to the Classic Open Browser and the Modern Use Browser activities.
Custom executable path for OpenBrowser Edge	Custom executable path for opening the Edge browser. Applies to the Classic Open Browser and the Modern Use Browser activities.
Enable retry for OpenBrowser Chrome	Retry opening Chrome if the extension NativeHost failed to launch. Applies to the Classic Open Browser and the Modern Use Browser activities.
Enable retry for OpenBrowser Edge	Retry opening Edge if the extension NativeHost failed to launch. Applies to the Classic Open Browser and the Modern Use Browser activities.
Open browser timeout (seconds)	Configure the browser startup timeout.

Robot Logging

Information saved in the Robot execution logs.

Property name	Description
Log Target Info	If set to True, the UI Automation Classic activities log Activity Type, Activity Display Name, and Selector.Additionally, for the Open Browser activity, Activity type, Activity display name, and URL are logged.

Tooltip

The settings below apply to the Tooltip activity.

Property name	Description
Timer	Duration time (in milliseconds) until the pop-up is automatically closed. By default, the pop-up does not close.

Data Scraping

The settings below apply to the Extract Structured Data activity.

Property name	Description
DelayBetweenPagesMs	The amount of time, in milliseconds, to wait until the next page is loaded. If the loading time of the page is longer, this value should be higher.

Element Exists

The settings below apply to the Element Exists activity.

Property name	Description
Timeout (milliseconds)	Specifies the amount of time (in milliseconds) to wait for the activity to run when the element does not exist..

Highlight

The settings below apply to the Highlight activity.

Property name	Description
HighlightTime	The amount of time (in milliseconds) in which the specified UI element is highlighted.

Keyboard Events

The settings below apply to the Copy Selected Text, Type Into, and Type Secure Text activities.

Note: The SendWindowMessages and SimulateType input methods are mutually exclusive and selecting them both throws an error at Runtime.

Property name	Description
SendWindowMessages	If set to True, the action is executed by sending a specific message to the target application. This input method can work in the background, is compatible with most desktop apps, but it is not the fastest of the methods.
ClickBeforeTyping	If set to True, the specified UI element is clicked before the text is written.
EmptyField	If set to True, all previously-existing content in the UI element is erased before writing your text.
SimulateType	If set to True, the type action is simulated using the technology of the target application. This input method is the fastest and works in the background.

SAP

Applies to any UI Automation activity during SAP automation.

Important: This project setting applies to both Classic and Modern UI Automation activities.

Property name	Description
Enforce hard timeout (only for SAP WinGUI)	Enforces a hard timeout for all activities performing SAP WinGUI automation.
Enable additional scaling	Enables SAP WinGUI additional scaling, to support SAP native multi-monitor scaling awareness.
Enable SAP monitoring	Enables the monitoring of SAP automations at runtime. Applies to SAP WinGUI, SAP WebGUI, and SAP Fiori.

Send Hotkey

The settings below apply to the Send Hotkey activity.

Property name	Description
SendWindowMessages	If set to True, the action is executed by sending a specific message to the target application. This input method can work in the background, is compatible with most desktop apps, but it is not the fastest of the methods.

Mouse Events

The settings below apply to the Click, Double Click, Hover, and Extract Structured Data activities.

Property name	Description
SendWindowMessages	If set to True, the action is executed by sending a specific message to the target application. This input method can work in the background, is compatible with most desktop apps, but it is not the fastest of the methods.
SimulateClick	If set to True, the click action is simulated using the technology of the target application. This input method is the fastest and works in the background.
SimulateHover	If set to True, the hover action is simulated using the technology of the target application. This input method is the fastest and works in the background.