Is Robot a Good Choice for Me?

T-Plan Robot is able to automate anything on a graphical interface - desktop or mobile. Whether you are automating a GUI application, web application, mobile application, or a system component the tool will out perform expectations across all major platforms and environments with ease. Our tool mimics a standard user by driving your system, application or device in a non-intrusive way through your existing application interface.

Object Orientated automation tools are focused towards one particular technology, whereas Robot is a true cross-device and cross-platform software automation tool replicating human actions to drastically reduce the automation effort. In an age where cost reduction and ROI is paramount, investment in a tool that can do it all is very attractive.

Automate ANYTHING, ANYWHERE

Platform independence via Java. Robot runs on, and automates all major operating systems, such Windows, Mac, Linux
Mobile platform support for Android and iPhone
- Robot is the only mobile automation solution that allows full control of iOS and Android devices for mobile application automation; without the need for jail-breaking/rooting.
- Non-Jailbroken/rooted Apple iOS devices can be automated.
Automate ANY system. As automation runs at the GUI level the tool can automate all applications, including. Java, C++/C#, .NET, HTML, mobile, command line interfaces.
Robot is environment agnostic. It can run on any platform using the same version, the same scripts... everything the same! It can be used to automate any application or device... mobile / games / point of sale / radar / GIS mapping
We only have one version of the tool which supports Windows, Mac, Linux, therefore we do not charge different prices (like our competitors) for the tool running in the different environments.

Non-Intrusive.

Robot does not require any modification to the system or application being automated.
Replicate end user actions to control or operate the system, application or device. Utilise automation to drastically reduce the effort of cross-device and cross-platform software automation.
No application authoring to include automation tool hooks. No source instrumentation (compile-time) code required allowing your ‘vanilla’ application to be received / downloaded / installed and automated within an exact replication of your production environment.
- True production environment readiness can be achieved, as no foreign code has been included into the application for automation.
- No access to app/game source code required.

Ease of Use, Resourcing & Skill Transfer.

Script generation through simple drag and drop interface without the need to write complex code.
Record and playback capability to help minimize the learning curve and produce automation suites quickly and efficiently from the outset.
Simple 'end-user' like approach to automation through visual text and image recognition of the application UI.
Robot fully supports Java as an optional alternative programming language for those already skilled in Java.
- Scalable resourcing across multiple geographical locations, should this be a consideration.

Full support of Java.

Use the worlds most commonly used programming language to write and execute complex scripts/actions (alongside our proprietary scripting language).
Java code can be compiled and executed on the fly.
Use of Java IDE e.g. Netbeans or Eclipse is supported.
Java Script Converter allows conversion of Robot scripts into Java.

Open architecture.

Extension plugin interface allows easy customization and integration with other tools.
Customizable XML / xslt stylesheet reporting.
Full Java API to allow custom integrations.
Provided integrations include MS Excel, PDF, Tesseract (Google) OCR, ABBYY OCR and Sikuli.
Automate using any language with OCR (Optical Character Recognition), including multi-byte languages.

Advanced image comparison and search options.

Powerful image search engine handles changeable screen elements making it suitable for any type of systems, including Game, Radar, GIS maps and POS.
Search for elements based on colour and size.
Search for web elements based on their object properties using built-in Selenium engine.
Scaled image search algorithm to support cross-resolution automation.
Create 'Image Collections' to cater for known element state variations.
Static Image Automation – offline script creation and debugging against image repositories.

Unattended Batch Execution - CLI (Command Line Execution).

Automatic execution of scripts are supported using the incredibly powerful CLI.
Allows Robot to become part of any automation framework.
Integrate into any CI/CD pipeline

License flexibility.

T-Plan licenses are based only on simultaneous connections to the system under automation.
We do not specify node locked or floating licenses.
No different pricing for host or target environments - automate what you want, from where you want.
Offline/isolated environments fully supported through the License Server.
Online product Update & Upgrade functionality.

Competitive Pricing.

We offer an outright purchase ("perpetual") and a yearly membership ("annual subscription") to suit your budget requirements.
Support package includes various access channels to our world class support team.
Our support package includes all product updates.

Excellent support.

Direct access to development roadmaps to expedite customer change requests.
UK based with flexible time zone support.
Honest and open staff with no intensive sales force or pressure selling techniques.
Assistance with onboarding, skills-transfer, training, technical and non-technical questions, change requests and more.

Making the Difference!

Why RPA & Test with the same tool?

Our products are the GUI Automation software solutions of choice, across many market verticals. For RPA projects, automation of manual and often repetitive work activities 24/7 is a cost saving and quality improving exercise, which has benefits for the whole organisation.

For quality assurance activities in industries such as gaming and mobile app development, speed of delivery is of the utmost importance. One of the biggest challenges to any auditable verification process is time. When squeezed for time due to delivery timescales, the quality of the software is normally the first to suffer. Test Automation in this instance can really help reduce the business risks of releasing a product. How... by getting computers to do the job of 'regression testing' whilst the workers are asleep, or by freeing up your workers so that they can concentrate on critical, new or complex areas of the system that have just been produced.

Organisations are beginning to see the benefit of using the same tool for both RPA and test projects as sharing of intelligence across the two areas can greatly enhance the success of the automation solutions.

The justifications for automation are well documented on the web...so... what are you waiting for?

How does our tool work?

By creating a series of scripts or actions, T-Plan Robot can exercise or drive applications in the same way as would an end user. In essence, imagine yourself sitting at your PC and running through a list of 'pre-flight' checks on the software, and recording these. Now imagine the PC, using our Robot software, playing this list back to you over and over again, perhaps under different circumstances and then telling you the results when it had finished. For example... you want to conduct the same list of checks simultaneously on a Windows PC / Windows Tablet / Mac / iPad / Linux PC and mobile to check that the software works in all of these environments. Or you would like to repeat the copy and paste of data from an Excel spreadsheet into an application. Welcome to the world of automation...

How are we different?

How does our solution interact with the desktop or mobile? Answer: "The same way that an end user would". Robot is an "image based" automation tool and approaches validation from the end-user perspective, providing critical validation that what you want the customer to see, they will actually get. We do this by capturing images upfront and then checking they remain unchanged during each execution i.e. just like a human would by comparing 2 photos... or 2 pictures from memory... but doing it programmatically, and therefore eliminating human error and saving time and ultimately money!

For test projects, the fact is that if you are not using Robot, you may be automating your code and qualifying that it does not have any bugs that a computer can detect, but a computer isn't a person. A person doesn't read code when they are using an application or a game. Therefore, without testing your software's interface (GUI) by "seeing it" or "reading it", can you confidently say that you know your application will deliver the desired experience to the end user. Robot is also platform independent, meaning it can run on, and automate all major systems such as Windows, Mac and Linux plus Android and iOS mobile platforms. The product has the same functionality, look and feel regardless of host Operating System (OS). There is no need to relearn the product on various platforms, and your test scripts are completely transferable between platforms. This is a huge point for the gaming industry as many games have to function with no alteration in many different environments, mobile included.

Time for a change!

Do you have access to your app/game code?
Can an object based tool get access to your backend code repository?

Other vendors have an approach that is very developer centric. The 'big boys' all approach automation with very complicated "object oriented" tools. These tools require a development knowledge of the system, and technical checking of the code behind the displayed element.

Please view our YouTube Channel.

Resourcing and skill transfer.

T-Plan Ltd offer a range of training and skills transfer sessions to ensure smooth transitions with fast and efficient uptake.
Robot also fully supports Java as an optional programming language which can open a wider resource pool given it is the most used programming language. This in turn means that your automation activities can be scalable, as required.

Do you need to answer these Questions?

Automation of a mixture of technologies. Do you need to automate CLI, GUI and/or a web interfaces using one solution? Does your application contain a technology or a feature which is not supported by other tools? T-Plan Robot Enterprise will help!
Automating on less common platforms. Is your system running Solaris, Linux, HP-UX or any other less frequent desktop OS?
Cross-platform automation. Do you need to connect to and automate on different platforms inside a single script? Would you like to design scripts which would run across different systems? T-Plan Robot can do it all! An individual component can be represented by an image collection rather than one single image and platform-dependent pieces of code (routines) may be implemented through libraries separately from the main script.
Automating with images involved. Does your application display images or objects which are not recognized by the GUI component hierarchy in object oriented tools? Remember it's not a problem for T-Plan Robot.
Non-invasive automation is required. These are projects which require no installation of third party components on the system to eliminate any environment risks.

T-Plan Robot Enterprise is also suitable where:

Fast automation is needed (shorter cycles of work). As you don't have to deal with the underlying technology and the application GUI structure, creation of automated scripts is generally simpler and faster than with object oriented tools.
There's a lack of skilled QA staff. As the tool is easy lo learn and understand, it may be operated by a person with very limited programming background.

User Guide