Running and debugging a process

Once you've built a process you'll want to run it, watch it work, and fix anything that goes wrong. You do all of this from the panels on the right of the process map. The panels you see depend on whether the process runs on a desktop bot or in the Cloud (bot-free) – see Cloud vs bot automation.

1. Play – run the process on a bot

The Run panel's Play mode runs an RPA process from start to finish on a desktop bot.

1. Open the Run panel and make sure Play is selected.
2. Choose a connected bot from the dropdown. The status indicator shows whether it is connected.
3. Press Play. The bot runs the process; press Stop at any time to halt it.

While it runs you can watch:

• Live Feed – auto-refreshing screenshots of the bot's screen (or press Screenshot for one on demand).
• Variables – the current value of each variable as the run progresses.
• Step Log – each step as it executes, in order.

Running uses runtime credits; if your balance is empty the Play button is disabled and points you to billing.

2. Debug – step through with breakpoints

Switch the Run panel to Debug to run the process slowly and inspect it as it goes – ideal for finding why a step misbehaves.

1. Choose a bot and press Start Debug. The process pauses at the first step.
2. Control it step-by-step: Continue (run to the next breakpoint), Step Over (run just the next step), or Abort.
3. Set breakpoints by selecting a step on the canvas and pressing F9 – the run will pause there. A breakpoint can be conditional (pause only when an expression is true) or set to a hit count (pause only on, say, the 5th time the step runs) – handy for catching a problem that only appears on a particular loop iteration.
4. In the Variables section you can see current and changed values, and even edit a variable while paused to try a different value.
5. When a step retries, each attempt is shown, so you can watch the back-off in action.

3. Logs – read what the bot recorded

The logs section lets you look at the detailed records a bot produced:

• Request logs from a bot for a chosen time window, or upload a log file you already have.
• Preview parsed entries colour-coded by level (Error, Warning, Info, Debug), with tracebacks you can expand.

For the meaning of formula error codes you may see, read Formula errors.

4. Run History – review and replay past runs

The Run History panel keeps the execution trail of previous runs so you can see exactly what happened.

• Pick a past run from the dropdown to see its status, start time, duration, and step counts (passed / failed / skipped), plus the slowest step.
• Replay the run step-by-step – play, pause, step forward and back, change speed, and watch variables and the path taken light up on the canvas.
• Insights highlight advisory notes the bot raised (for example, a lookup that matched no rows).
• Download the log, or Analyse with AI for a plain-language summary.
• Turn a past run into a reusable test case to guard against regressions.

5. Run now – run a Cloud process on the server

A Cloud process has no bot, so instead of Play/Debug it shows a single Run now panel.

1. Open Run now and press the button.
2. The flow engine runs the process on the server, calling each connector directly – no desktop or bot needed.
3. You'll see "Run started", and can track progress under My Runs on your dashboard.

Related articles

• Working with the RPA Bot
• Cloud vs bot automation
• Error handling and Try-Catch
• Working with the dashboard