Last year, we presented a method of producing customized outreach videos through the utilization of Chrome, OBS, Google Sheets and Loom in our blog post. This was an illustration of the capabilities of an RPA (Robotic Process Automation) product.

But the configuration of this automation was difficult, and some delicate stages in the setup process created confusion and issues for our users. Moreover, we were frequently approached with questions on how to scale this automation.

The below screenshot shows an example of a generated outreach video recorded while visiting a potential customer's website:

Finally, to address these issues and fulfill the requests we received, we have developed a new flow from the ground up. It can now run smoothly on Mac, Linux, and Windows operating systems, and the setup process has been simplified significantly. Additionally, we have made it possible to run this automation at scale on our cloud platform.

In this article, we will explore how to convert this automation flow into a Bot that can be operated from the Bot Console, enabling us to generate multiple instances of this Bot and execute them using our Cloud Run capability.

Setup​

Log in to your Robomotion workspace. If you haven't registered yet, you can create your workspace from here.

We will start by importing the second version of our Personalized Video Creation flow from here. Click the Import button shown below.

Config​

Double-click the "Config" named node shown below.

The node's editor will be shown as below:

This flow can run with the default inputs without changing anything, but to customize it, four inputs are required:

1. A 30 to 60 seconds outreach video must be created and shared with a URL. (msg.video_url)
2. A CSV file containing a list of your prospects' names, and website addresses must be created and shared with a URL. (msg.csv_url)
3. An optional paid Loom account cookie value is required if you want to upload your generated videos into your Loom account. (msg.loom_cookie)
4. An optional empty directory for your generated videos and CSV file. If not given, the default folder will be your Home directory. (msg.home)

In the following sections, we will discuss each of these inputs in detail.

Outreach Video​

We aim to generate a customized video for your potential customers. The automation opens up your prospect's website, positions your outreach video in the bottom right corner of the screen, and records the entire session to create a video. To achieve this, you must first create your own outreach message. For instance, here is a fake outreach video as a starting point.

You can use the video URL provided with the flow by not updating the default value of msg.video_url in the opened editor window, or you can create your own video and upload it somewhere, share it publicly and use that video URL.

In this article, we will demonstrate how to accomplish this using Google Drive, but you can utilize any platform to share your video. However, please ensure that you provide a direct download link rather than a website link that opens up when accessed through a browser.

1. Go to your Google Drive and upload your outreach video.

2. Right-click the uploaded video file and click the Share link.

3. Click the Restricted option and then change it to Anyone with the link.

4. Click the Copy link button.

The link that you copied may look similar to the example below. However, the issue with this link is that it is not a direct download link. Therefore, we must generate a direct download link from this previously copied link.

This copied link contains your Google Drive File ID inside the URL as seen above. Copy the underlined Drive File ID and replace it with the Place Holder in the link below:

https://drive.google.com/uc?export=download&id=PLACEHOLDER_REPLACE_WITH_YOUR_ID

Now, this will be your direct download video URL link:

https://drive.google.com/uc?export=download&id=1Nirl6-EzCcT3PXzGLt25OKZVYDaFz9-r

CSV File​

To execute the automation flow, you will need to provide a CSV file containing the names of your potential customers' company names and their associated website URLs in a specific format. The following example illustrates what the CSV file should look like.

You can download the sample CSV file from here and update it with your prospects.

Then follow the same upload process described in the previous section for the Outreach Video. Upload this CSV file to Google Drive and create your direct download link.

Loom Cookie​

This section is optional. If you don't have a paid Loom account or don't want to upload your generated videos to Loom, just skip this section and leave the msg.loom_cookie value with an empty string in the opened editor window.

1. Open Chrome Browser and go to the Loom Login page and log in from your browser.

2. Press F12 in the Chrome Browser and the Chrome Dev Tools window will be opened. Click the Application tab first, click the https://www.loom.com domain under the Cookies section left and finally find the cookie named connect.sid in the opened cookies list. Double-click the Value section and copy your Loom Cookie.

You can now write your cookie value into the msg.loom_cookie in the opened editor windows as below:

Home Folder​

When the flow runs, all the generated videos and the output.csv files will be written into the given home folder (msg.home) in the Config node editor. The default value for all the operating systems is the actual user's Home Directory.

You don't need to change this default, but if you like to, here are some example folders for each operating system:

For Windows, it is "C:/Users/John/Outreach"
For Linux, it is "/home/john/outreach"
For Mac, it is "/Users/john/outreach"

You can create an empty folder/directory in your file system and replace the msg.home = global.get("$Home$"); line with the full path of your created folder. Make sure your path does NOT contain a trailing "/" as in the examples above.

After replacing the msg.home value in the opened editor, it would look something like below for the Windows operating system:

msg.home = "C:/Users/John/Outreach"

Run in Flow Designer​

We have finished the setup and you can run your flow with your Robot connected to your workspace. If you haven't run any flows before, you can learn from our Getting Started guide.

To execute the flow, click on the Run button in the Flow Designer. Once the flow is completed, you can locate the generated files within the specified home folder that you have configured.

Run in Bot Console​

So far, we have completed the setup and run it successfully.

This following section is actually optional and you do NOT need to follow through unless you want to scale this automation.

You also need to have Application Robots and Cloud Run minutes in your workspace to run your Bots on our hosted cloud platform. You can subscribe to a plan from Admin Console -> Subscriptions screen and also can buy Cloud Run minutes from this subscriptions page.

The Problem​

The problem with this flow is, it can only be performed on a single computer, as you cannot use the computer while the desktop recording is in progress; any activity performed during the recording will be captured in the video.

Alternative options to perform this automation include setting up virtual machines (VMs) or deploying multiple Virtual Private Servers (VPS) machines. However, we have a much better solution, which is our Bot Console and Cloud Run feature.

By utilizing the Bot Console, you can transform any of your flows into a reusable Bot. Additionally, you can supply different input parameters from the Bot Console for each execution. This enables you to provide different outreach video URLs or CSV files for this specific use case.

Follow the below steps to create your first Bot:

Update the Flow​

1. Cut the Inject (renamed as "Start") node wire to the Config. Put and connect an App In node instead.

2. Double-click the "Config" node and replace all the hard-coded string values of msg.video_url, msg.csv_url and msg.loom_cookie with msg.in.payload equivalents.

Do NOT change the msg.home value and leave it as msg.home = global.get("$Home$");

Here are the values for easy copy-paste:

// Pre-recorded outreach video
msg.video_url = msg.in.payload.config.outreachVideoURL;

// Prepared CSV company list
msg.csv_url = msg.in.payload.config.outreachCompaniesCSV;

// Loom Cookie (OPTIONAL)
msg.loom_cookie = msg.in.payload.config.loomCookie;

// Home Folder
msg.home = global.get("$Home$");

Publish the Flow​

To create a Bot from our flow, we need first to version and publish our flow.

1. Click the "master" button.

2. Create a new version after clicking the "Create Version" button. Fill in the Name and the Description fields and press the "Ok" button.

3. Finally, publish the created flow version. This is required by the Admin Console.

Create Bot​

We will open the Admin Console application to turn our flow into a Bot.

1. Click the hamburger menu at the top left corner and then click the Admin Console link.

2. Now in the Admin Console, click the Bots link.

3. Click the Add Bot button and fill in the details as below.

   

   3.1 Name: Outreach Video Creator

   3.2 Description: Personalized video creator

   3.3 Published Flow: Outreach Video Creator v2 ( this is the name of the flow you have published previously )

   3.4 Flow Version: v1 ( this is the name of the version you have published previously )

   3.5 Icon: https://i.imgur.com/D4cvaii.png

4. Click the Advanced tab in the "Create Bot" dialog and select "2 vCPU 4 GB Memory", then click the Create button. This automation needs a minimum of two vCPUs to run.

   

   You will see Bot created successfully message at the end.

5. Click the "Setup" item from the action menu of the newly created Bot. We can use the Setup option to create a Setup screen for our Bot with a special JSON object. The format of this JSON object is like the Robomotion Forms.

   

Just copy and paste the below JSON object into the Setup popup, save and close the window. To understand this JSON you can watch the Robomotion Forms video.

{
  "schema": {
    "type": "object",
    "required": [
      "outreachVideoURL",
      "outreachCompaniesCSV"
    ],
    "properties": {
      "outreachVideoURL": {
        "type": "string"
      },
      "outreachCompaniesCSV": {
        "type": "string"
      },
      "loomCookie": {
        "type": "string"
      }
    }
  },
  "ui_schema": {
    "type": "VerticalLayout",
    "elements": [
      {
        "type": "HorizontalLayout",
        "elements": [
          {
            "type": "Control",
            "scope": "#/properties/outreachVideoURL"
          }
        ]
      },
      {
        "type": "HorizontalLayout",
        "elements": [
          {
            "type": "Control",
            "scope": "#/properties/outreachCompaniesCSV"
          }
        ]
      },
      {
        "type": "HorizontalLayout",
        "elements": [
          {
            "type": "Control",
            "scope": "#/properties/loomCookie"
          }
        ]
      }
    ]
  }
}

Create & Run Bot Instance​

1. Click the hamburger menu at the top left corner and then click the Bot Console link.

2. Make sure you have enough Cloud Run minutes and available Application Robots. You can go to the Admin Console -> Subscriptions page to subscribe to a plan or buy extra Cloud Run minutes.

3. Click the "Outreach Video Creator" Bot icon.

3. Click the Create Instance button.

4. Click the Setup link from the created bot's action menu.

5. Enter your Outreach Video URL, CSV URL and Loom Cookie (Optional) and click Save

6. Click the Bot Instance

7. Click the Run button and select Cloud

8. Wait until the flow has stopped executing and then click the History tab

9. Click the last instance run item to expand and then you can click to download the output.csv file

Additionally, you have the option to download the MP4 files individually.

Here is the output CSV file:

Scaling​

At this point, you have the option to scale this process. You can create multiple Bot Instances as long as you have the corresponding Application Robot licenses for each Instance. And you can configure each instance separately from its Setup screen. You can provide different CSV file URL to each instance, or even different Outreach Video URL.

You can also rename each instance if you like from the action menu on the right side of the instance item.

Trouble-shooting​

Mac Capture Device Auto-Detect Problem​

If you are using a Mac, your flow may fail at the Run node as below. This is because currently the flow can not determine the correct capture device automatically for Mac.

Follow these steps, to fix this problem.

1. Find the Device Setup node and double-click to edit it.

2. Find the capture device number, you are going to update.

3. Open Terminal on Mac, copy-paste and run the below command

$HOME/.config/robomotion/packages/bin/Robomotion/FFmpeg/0.2.3/ffmpeg -f avfoundation -list_devices true -i ""

The output should be something like this. The numbers between brackets are the capture device numbers you can use:

4. Replace the "0" in the msg.recording_input = "0"; line with the number you see in the previous output. For this example output, the capture device index number can be something like below:

msg.recording_input = "2";

or it can be

msg.recording_input = "3";

5. Try running the flow again.

General Problems​

If you have trouble setting up this flow, please Join our Discord Community. You can ask questions in our #support-en channel.

This short guide explains how to use FTP/sFTP in Robomotion to run RPA workflows and avoid time-consuming operations.

To download target files to the local computer and execute the processes from the local computer, you can use Core.FTP nodes.

The Core.FTP nodes can support several FTP types such as FTP, sFTP and FTPS. You can select this property on the options section of the “Core.FTP.Connect” node.

You can use the “Core.FTP.Connect” node to connect to the remote server with sFTP by providing the IP and port information of the server. You can list the files on the server with the Core.FTP.ListDirectory node. In case there are multiple files, you can create a loop and download each file to the local computer with the Core.FTP.Download node. After downloading, you can disconnect from the FTP server with the Core.FTP.Disconnect node.

FTP and sFTP can be extremely useful for running RPA workflows in Robomotion. By using the Core.FTP nodes, it becomes easy to connect to a remote FTP server, list, download and manage files.

This can help to automate time-consuming tasks and increase productivity. With FTP and sFTP, Robomotion provides a powerful tool for automating file transfers and running workflows.

If you're an RPA developer, you've likely encountered situations where the nodes in your RPA tool simply cannot perform the action you need.

For instance, you may need to click on a specific field, extract information from a table on a page, or select a checkbox, if all these methods are not enough, you can write a script that you can run on the Browser console by using the Run script node.

In these cases, you can use Javascript and the Run Script node to get the job done.

To use the Run Script node, you'll need to have some familiarity with Javascript, as this is the software language you'll be using.

Once you've opened the page you want to perform an action on, you can take a specific area by embedding Javascript code in the Run Script node.

You can even add Javascript codes that you've worked with in the console panel of your browser.

Here's a step-by-step guide on how to use the Run Script node:

1. Begin by taking the Browser ID with the "Open Browser" node.

2. Use the "Open Link" node to navigate to the page where the action you want to take is located.

3. Finally, use the Run Script node to perform the desired action at the top of the page (e.g., clicking a button, extracting data, or getting a title).

The output of the code running in the console of the browser is seen on the Run Script node with the flow, giving you the same output you would see if you were working directly in the browser.

The integration of jQuery into the Run Script node provides developers with a powerful tool for simplifying web development and stream processing, enabling them to create robust and efficient applications with ease.

By inserting the jQuery library into the flow using the Run Script node, developers can easily access its rich set of functions and utilities to manipulate HTML documents, handle events, and interact with web APIs, among other things.

This approach allows you to solve problems that can't be handled with the existing nodes in your RPA tool, making it possible to perform the actions you need to complete your project.

In conclusion, the key lesson to take away from the technical log content is that when you encounter an obstacle in your RPA project that prevents you from performing a specific action or clicking on a particular area with the available nodes, you can leverage Javascript and the "Run Script" node to keep your project moving forward.

Integrating Javascript and Run Script nodes can be an effective way to tackle these challenges because it allows you to program a sequence of actions that streamline the automation process.

In today's digital age, software robots have become a critical component of many organizations' automation strategies. By leveraging web services, software robots can listen to requests from their developers and generate reports that can be accessed anytime.

However, setting up a web service that can securely and effectively communicate with your software robot can be challenging.

To beat this challenge, you can create a web service that would enable the robot to listen to requests and compile the results, which would be accessible via an end-point. To ensure secure communication and prevent unauthorized access, you need to add SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) and Basic Auth to the service.

In this article, you will explore the technical details involved in adding SSL and Basic Authorization to the web service, and discuss how you can overcome these challenges to implement the solution successfully.

Securing Your RPA Reports with SSL on Your Web Service (For Windows machines)​

To secure your RPA reports with SSL on your web service, we recommend following these steps:

1. Create a directory in “C:\” and name the directory as “robomotion_certificates”.

2. Move your .crt and .key files to this directory.

3. Go to “%LOCALAPPDATA%\Robomotion\config.properties” and edit the config.properties file as below. By editing this file, you will be able to change the behavior of the Core.Net.HttpIn node.

This step is necessary to ensure that the robot knows where to find the certificate files and can use them to secure communication with the web service

Once these steps are completed, your RPA developers will be able to use SSL to access the reports securely.

Basic Auth for RPA Developers: A Simple Authentication Method for Your Web Service (no machine distinction)​

In addition to SSL, RPA developers may also need to implement Basic Auth for authentication purposes. Here's how we suggest doing this:

1. Use a simple authentication method like Basic Auth, Core.Net.HttpIn node will catch the request and it will write the request headers into the “msg.headers” variable where header information comes in base64 form and needs to be decoded.

2. To decode the “msg.headers.authorization”, you can use a javascript function or you can simply use our Encoding package. With the “Robomotion.Encoding.Base64Decode” node.

3. After that, you can decode the information and check the result in the Core.Programming.Function node to verify username and password.

4. Then you can use the Core.Programming.Switch node to send a successful or a failed response.

If the username and password are correct, perform the operations and return a successful response. If incorrect, return an error response indicating that the username and password are incorrect.

In conclusion, web services are more effective way of delivering results to customers compared to traditional methods such as excel sheets. This new knowledge can allow you to be more flexible in our approach to technical solutions, as you can leverage the benefits of tools like software robots and web services to create more efficient and effective processes.

Personalized videos are becoming increasingly popular as a way to stand out in the crowded email inbox. Loom, an online video messaging platform, enables users to create custom videos with a personalized touch. These videos can be included in outbound emails for a more engaging approach to customer outreach.

The below screenshot shows an example outreach video recorded while visiting a customer website:

But creating a personalized video for each outreach is a difficult and time-consuming process. Robomotion can be used to auto-generate this content for you by utilizing different tools such as a video recorder, Chrome browser and Loom for uploading and sharing the content.

Setup​

We will start by creating our flow in Robomotion. We will then set up a Chrome profile that keeps our session so that we won't need to automate a login page and directly use Loom. We will use OBS Studio, an open-source video recorder, and streamer. We will set up the default settings for our automation in OBS Studio. And lastly, we will set up Google Sheets for our robot to use in the automation process.

Flow setup​

Log in to your workspace, and open the projects dialog by clicking the button right next to the Flow Designer logo.

Click the New Project button, set your project name as Chrome Setup and press Ok.

Once the project is created, press the save button.e

Chrome User Data Directory setup​

The Chrome user data directory contains profile data such as history, bookmarks, and cookies, as well as other per-installation local state. We will use the User Data Directory to save the login state to Loom so that we will not have to develop login automation for every flow run to execute.

Create the following flow by drag-and-dropping the nodes from the node palette, or by right-clicking on the empty board. You can also search the nodes by name:

Below is the list of nodes used in this flow:

• Trigger -> Inject
• Browser -> Open Browser
• Browser -> Open Link

Now create a folder somewhere on your file system, something like the below:

After creating this folder on your system, click the Open Browser node and fill the User Data Dir property with the full path of your folder.

Click the Open Link node and fill the URL property with https://www.loom.com/login.

Run the flow and when the automated browser is opened, manually log in to loom. Because we are using User Data Dir, the next run of this flow will keep this login state in the given User Data Dir.

Go to Shiny Picture in picture Chrome Extension web page and click the Add to Chrome button.

Go to I don't care about cookies Chrome Extension web page and click the Add to Chrome button.

You can now stop the flow. This flow was only used for preparing the Chrome profile that we are going to use. The profile now can auto-login to loom. when we open the page and also have the Chrome extensions installed that we need.

Outreach videos folder setup​

Create a folder named Outreach on your system, and two more folders named Videos and Uploads under the Outreach folder.

OBS Studio setup​

We are going to be using an open-source video recorder, OBS Studio to record the video we are going to be uploading to the Loom website.

Go to the OBS Studio website. Download and install OBS Studio. Start the OBS Studio application.

On start, if you see an optimization popup, select Optimize just for recording and press Next for the initial setup to finish and click Apply Settings at the end.

Open File -> Settings dialog. From the General tab, check the Minimize to system tray when started.

From the Output tab,

• Change the Recording Format to mp4
• Change the Recording Path to your full Outreach/Videos folder path
• Change the Recording Quality to "Same as stream"
• Change the Streaming Encoder Preset to ultrafast (low CPU usage, lowest quality)

From the Advanced tab, uncheck the Show active outputs warning on exit.

Click Apply and Ok to close the Settings dialog.

We will only need the recorder to record Desktop Audio, so we will disable the Mic/Aux. Click the speaker button right next to the Mic source.

Now we are going to add a video source for the OBS recorder. Click the plus button in the Sources panel below.

Select Screen Capture or Display Capture, give any name to your capture source and press Ok. You should see something similar that looks like the below screenshot. Yours may differ but you should start seeing a mirror of your Desktop in the OBS Studio.

Close the OBS Studio application with Alt + F4 or from the File menu by selecting Exit.

Google Sheets setup​

Open this template Google Sheets document and create a copy for your self and update what is inside this list with your outbound reach list.

For the robot to read and update this new document you have created, the robot has to be authorized and have a Google Sheets authorization token.

You have to follow two documents for this:

• How-to use Google Sheets with OAuth2 Credentials
• How-to automate Google Sheets

For the second document, you only need to create a Vault and add your OAuth2 credential from the first step.

Outreach video setup​

You have to have an Outreach video for your customers. You can use Loom or even OBS Studio to create one for yourself. 30 seconds would be ideal. Here is a fake outreach video that you can use for your experiments.

Record a 30 seconds video and upload it to Youtube as an Unlisted video.

In your video try to have 5-6 seconds that you do nothing and then your message should start.

Recording​

Here is the flow that we are going to run after all this setup.

Click the Import icon at the top-right to be able to edit and save this flow in your workspace.

After importing the flow, click the Config node's Edit menu item.

Update the links and paths in this editor with your own links.

• Change outreach_doc line with your own Outreach Google Sheets link
• Change outreach_video line with your own Outreach video you have uploaded to Youtube
• Change videos_path line with your full path of the Outreach/Videos folder on your system
• Change uploads_path line with your full path of the Outreach/Uploads folder on your system
• Change chrome_path line with your full path of the created Chrome Profile folder on your system
• Change start_delay and stop_delay with experimentation.

Click the Open Spreadsheet node and select the Vault and Vault Item property of the OAuth token you have added to the Vault.

Trouble-shooting​

We have created a Youtube video that follows this blog post.

If you have trouble setting up this flow, please Join our Discord Community. You can ask questions in our #support-en channel.