FAQs

Recorder application

What needs to be installed on the client desktops to run Task Mining?

• Each user needs to install the Client and the Processing Queue to capture their tasks. For details, please check the Installing the Recorder from the User Guide.

Does the recording application support a multi-monitor setup?

• Yes, it does. Depending on the setup, it might consume more CPU / RAM

Does Task Mining support the Remote Runtime for working with Citrix XenApps?

• No, not yet. We use OCR screenshots, so task/process discovery usually works well in Citrix, but if you export the result as a XAML you won't get the needed selectors. It is recommended to install the client on the Citrix environment rather than on the desktop for capture.

Are there any limitations when recording in virtual / Citrix environments?

• We did some testing, and there were no limitations identified.

• The Desktop Client can be installed on a XenDesktop persistent VDI and works properly, recording a XenApp while having the Desktop Client installed locally works properly.

  Still, keep in mind that in Citrix apps, you can capture only the window selector.

How can I uninstall the recording application?

• To uninstall the Task Mining recording application, please follow the generic app uninstallation process: access your PC > Settings > Apps > search for the Task Mining app > select it > click the Uninstall button.

How much of the desktop resources will the recorder app consume?

• The recorder application, along with the Queue service, should not typically consume more than 40% of the desktop resources (mainly CPU and memory). There might be spikes in resource usage from time to time.

Data collection

How to choose users for a project?

• Select 2-5 users working on similar tasks that are available during the timeframe allowing them to capture their task execution multiple times. Usually, a minimum for 2-3 users would be two weeks or one week for 3-5 users.

Is there a minimum amount of data or users required to get meaningful results?

• We suggest a minimum of 10,000 actions, but we recommend 50K actions as a good baseline. This can typically be captured by 2-5 users in a week.

How to select applications for a project?

• Select applications that users can access without administrator permissions, installed on their desktops and can be accessed via .exe.

Can URLs be allowed for recording for browser apps?

• Yes, you can specify URLs for allowing recording in the settings.

What application languages can TM recognize?

• English is the only language supported in Task Mining now.

Will TM record processes in mainframe apps?

• Yes, but we do not recommend capturing processes heavily reliant on mainframe applications

Data upload and security

How is recorded data uploaded?

• It depends on the selected option in the Output Configurations setting.

What are the data types, and where are they stored during the Task Mining data flow?

• Initially, captured data resides on the user’s desktops until uploaded to an AI Center ™project as configured.

How is data secured during the upload?

• Before the upload, the data is encrypted with a generated AES256 key stored in an encrypted way in the database. Encryption is applied both in transit and in the AI Center™ storage. The data is stored with Azure encrypted storage for the visualization while images are decrypted on demand (stored in a short-lived cache after it was initially served).

Troubleshooting

Why is the user's recording status switched to Error when I start the recording?

• Please see the description for all errors here: troubleshooting-errors-and-alerts

  You can download the user logs to see the error's details and context or share it in the support request.

Why do I receive 'The queue is not configured' error message in the logs?

• Please check the configuration file uploaded to the Admin Console > Settings > Configure Upcoming Output > Network Shared Folder and confirm that the path to the local store is correctly formatted.

  If the path is correct please open a customer support ticket and share the application log files.

Analysis and visualization

What is a task?

• A Task is defined as a set of activities employees do to complete an entire or part of a process. Things like completing an expense report, checking if the PO amounts are correct, or spending thirty minutes in excel. It is a collection of mouse clicks, keystrokes, and screenshots.

How are tasks named and sorted?

• The task's default rank is based on the machine learning model’s confidence of the identified task.

What is a variant?

• A variant is a grouping of similar traces within a task. A grouping provides a view of similar traces indicating areas where they vary.

What is a trace?

• Trace is one iteration of the task performed by one user.

What is a step? Why it has a number?

• The number is the unique identifier for this step/cluster in the dataset.

How are the names of the steps determined?

• Unsupervised algorithms are used to generate model representations and labels. If needed, manual editing could be used for labeling after the Analyzer algorithm is applied.

What are the numbers between steps?

• The number between two consecutive steps (rectangles in the task graph) represents the number of traces (individual instances of the task performed) that executed those steps. For example, in the diagram below, we have 11 traces/instances where a user executed Step 4 - Open Expense Window and Step 5 - Input Expense Date. Then, only 7 traces/instances had the user proceed to Step 5a - Input Expense Category, followed by Step 6 - Enter Amount. The remaining 4 traces/instances went from Step 5 - Input Expense Date directly to Step 6 - Enter Amount.

  

How can I export a task?

• To export a task, you can Export traces.

My analysis result shows that my task only involves one user. Why is that?

• Our AI model looks for automation opportunities. Therefore, it tries to identify the most repetitive workflows (i.e., tasks) regardless of the number of users performing them. If a task was performed repetitively and sufficiently by a single user, it would be identified as a task in the result. The AI model does not require a task to be performed by more than one recording user. In this specific case of a task having one user, it is likely that other users completed other repetitive tasks but they are less frequent than the task performed by that single user.

In one trace, I see that a screenshot is marked as not associated to a step. What does that imply?

Not associated with any step has two meanings:

1. The screenshot is only clustered with a few other similar screenshots, implying similar actions were performed only a few times, so it is treated as noise in the result; or

2. This action is treated as a gap in the variant. When the AI model tries to identify the most frequent sequence of actions for the result, it allows gaps between steps to handle random actions. When the screenshot is marked as not associated to a step, it means that it is treated as a gap and was skipped.

What do the minimum, maximum and average in the Min/max utilization chart in Project Insights represent?

• The maximum utilization represents the maximum total amount of time spent on an application/website domain across the recording users. Similar computation across the recording users is performed for minimum and average.

  For example, over the entire recording period, supposed User 1 spent 4 hours on one application, User 2 spent 5 hours on the same application, User 3 spent 7 hours, and User 4 spent 1 hour. The chart will indication a maximum of 7 hours, a minimum of 1 hour, and an average of 4.25 hours.

In the chart showing Utilization by day, if a day’s utilization is 4 hours, what does it represent?

• Utilization by day represents the total amount of time to perform the actions across all users for a given day.

The total recorded time for my project is greater than the total time in the utilization chart. Why is that?

• The Unassisted Task Mining algorithm treats any action that took more than 10 minutes from its previous action as idle and disregards it for the purpose of computing utilization. A previous action can be an action by an application or website domain not in the allowlist, and because it is not in the allowlist, it is not included in the CSV export from the project.

  

Can I filter Project Insights at a user level?

• No, Project Insights does not filter by users. To do that, you can analyze actions carried out by users by downloading the .CSV log file.

How do I see all actions recorded by users in my project?

• You can download a .CSV file that contains all actions recorded by your users. See Export to CSV.

In the .CSV file, what is the reason that the Associated Task field is empty?

• The Associated Task field is empty if an action is not included in any of the tasks identified by the AI model.

Why does an URL appear in the top 5 context switching but not in the top 5 URLs?

• The URL showing up in the top context switching means that it is frequently switched from or to another application/website. However, it is not in the top 5 URLs because the recording users spent more time in total on those other URLs.