Robot File System

The Robot File System tab lists file systems configured to share and store data used and/or produced by robots. You can add a configuration for a file system by providing the required credentials and defining a list of robots and users to access this file system.

The file system can be a local Windows folder, Windows file share, SFTP, and FTP server. For FTP, FTPS is supported.

For information on how to configure a server for the Robot File System, see "Set up Robot File System server" in the Kofax RPA Administrator's Guide.

Important By default, only users with the admin, Administrator, Project Administrator role can manage robot file systems. See Manage Users and Groups for more information on user roles.

The following information is displayed for each file system.

Column Description
Name Name of the file system configured to store and share robot data.
Project Name Project that the file system is associated with.
Path Path to the file system.
User Name User that has access to the file system.
Project Scope If selected, the file system is accessible to all robots of the project. Otherwise, the file system is only accessible to particular robots selected during configuration.
Delete Click to delete the file system configuration from the Management Console.
Edit Click to edit the file system configuration.

  1. To configure a new file system, click Add in the upper left corner.
  2. Select the project and click Ok.

    The configuration dialog box appears.

  3. On the left side, in the Name field, type the name for the new file system configuration.

    Example: RFS1

  4. In the Path field, specify the path to the file system.

    • For Windows, the path must be similar to the following:

      Folder\Subfolder1\Subfolder2

    • For a Windows file share, the path must be similar to the following:

      \\WindowsServer\FileShareName\Folder

      This file share is mapped to the Robot File System as specified in the Name field.

    • For an SFTP, FTP, or FTPS server, the path must start with sftp://, ftp://, or ftps://, respectively, and be similar to the following:

      sftp://website.com:9551/guest

  5. In the User Name and Password fields, type the credentials to access the file system.

    For Windows, the user name must conform to: username@domain

    The credentials are only used by a secure service to allow robots to read and/or write to the file system.

  6. Configure which robots have access to the file system. The robots must be synchronized with the Management Console.

    • To make the file system accessible to all robots of the project, select Project Scope.

    • To make the file system accessible to particular robots within the project, you can map them by names or add access tokens for those robots.

      • Use the robot name to ensure that all versions of the robot (current and future) have access to the file system. This method works as long as the robot name remains unchanged.

        1. On the Robots mapping tab, select the robots.

          A check mark appears to the left of the selected robot names

        2. Save the changes.

      • Use the robot access token to ensure that only the current version of the robot has access to the file system and that no changes made to the robot are written into the file system. As the token corresponds to the particular version of a robot, if the robot changes, it will no longer be allowed to the file system.

        1. Close the configuration dialog box.

        2. In the Management Console main window, on the Robots tab, right-click the required robot and then click Add/edit Password Access for robot.

          A new dialog box appears.

        3. Copy the value of Access Token and close the dialog box.

        4. Re-open the configuration dialog box for the file system you are working on.

        5. On the Authorized Access Tokens tab, add the copied access token.

        6. Save the changes.

  7. You can configure Design Studio users that are allowed to the file system, so that they can design a robot to read and/or write to the file system.

    To make the file system accessible to a particular Design Studio user, on the Authorized Access Tokens tab, add an access token for that user.

    The token must copied by the user from the Help > About window in Design Studio and shared with the administrator.

  8. Save the changes.