GUIDE

Blue Prism
Resource Pools and Groups Guide

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Date Revision Author Description

22/8/2016 0.1 RDT Document Created
20/9/2018 0.2 Vinay Shetty Document Updated for V6.3 Compatibility

The information contained in this document is the proprietary and confidential information of Blue Prism
Limited and should not be disclosed to a third party without the written consent of an authorised Blue Prism
representative. No part of this document may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means,
electronic or mechanical, including photocopying without the written permission of Blue Prism Limited
© Blue Prism Limited
All trademarks are hereby acknowledged and are used to the benefit of their respective owners.

Published by:

Blue Prism Limited

Centrix House
Crow Lane East
Newton-le-Willows
WA12 9UY, UK
Registered in England; Reg. No. 4260035
www.blueprism.com
Tel: 0870 879 3000

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Contents
1. Introduction .................................................................................................................................................................4
2. Installation and Setup ..................................................................................................................................................4
3. Resource Pools .............................................................................................................................................................4
a. Creating a Pool.........................................................................................................................................................5
b. Adding a Resource to a Pool ...................................................................................................................................6
c. Removing a Resource from a Pool ..........................................................................................................................7
d. Deleting a Pool .........................................................................................................................................................8
e. Assigning a Process to a Pool ..................................................................................................................................9
f. Assigning a Schedule to a Pool ............................................................................................................................ 10
4. Resource Groups ...................................................................................................................................................... 11
a. Creating a Group .................................................................................................................................................. 11
b. Adding a Resource to a Group ............................................................................................................................. 12
c. Removing a Resource from a Group ................................................................................................................... 12
d. Deleting a Group................................................................................................................................................... 13
5. Implementation Tips and Information .................................................................................................................... 14
6. Issues and Support ................................................................................................................................................... 15
a. Common Issues..................................................................................................................................................... 15
b. When a resource is added to a pool, existing schedules fail. ............................................................................ 15
c. When a resource is unavailable, processes scheduled against or assigned to it cannot execute. .................. 15

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1. Introduction
This document is a guide to using resource groups and pools. Resource groups and pools are features that help
organize and manage Blue Prism resources and clients, improve execution and administration efficiency, and
generally handle larger numbers of machines more easily.
With the advent of Multi-Team Environments in V6.3, groups function as more than just sections for organisation
of resources. Based on the user’s ‘access rights’, these groups can now be used to limit access to resources. For
more detailed information on Multi-Team Environments, please refer to the ‘Multi-Team Environments – User
Guide’ document.

2. Installation and Setup

Both resource pools and groups are integral to Blue Prism and are available by default through the System tab of
the Blue Prism client. For issues with installation of Blue Prism, please refer to the ‘User Guide - Installing
Enterprise Edition’ document. If there are further problems with installation of the product or if the resource pool
or group features are not available, please query the Blue Prism Knowledge Base or contact
[email protected].

3. Resource Pools
This section describes resource pools and their basic operations. In general, pools allow multiple resources to be
treated as a single entity for purposes of scheduling and running processes.
When a process is run on a pool, Blue Prism will automatically attempt to find the most appropriate resource to run
one session of the process. It will not create a session on every resource in the pool, only one session will be
created. And if no resources in the pool are available, no session will be created. The decision of which resource to
use is primarily based on availability but from v6.3 onwards, the user’s permission to use the resource, governed by
the access rights of the user role, is taken into account.
Resource pools also help increase reliability and fault tolerance; if an individual resource is unavailable, a process
scheduled against or assigned to a pool can still run on a different pool member until the resource becomes
available again.

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a. Creating a Pool
To create a resource pool, go to System -> Resources -> Pools. Then click New Pool…

…and then type in the pool’s new name.

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b. Adding a Resource to a Pool

To add a resource to a resource pool, go to System -> Resources -> Pools…

…and then drag the resource into the relevant pool.

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c. Removing a Resource from a Pool

To remove a resource from a pool, go to System -> Resources -> Pools. Then select the resource in question and
click the Remove from Pool button…

…or right-click on the resource and click Remove.

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d. Deleting a Pool
Note that deleting a pool does not remove the resources from the system, the resources will simply return to an
‘un-pooled’ state.
To delete a resource pool go to System -> Resources -> Pools. Then select the resource in question and then either
click the Delete Pool button…

…or right-click on the pool and click Delete.

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e. Assigning a Process to a Pool

Once created, a pool may be assigned processes in the same as any other individual resource. As mentioned
previously, from v6.3 onwards, the user’s permission to use (or even see) a resource is governed by the access
rights of the user’s role. See the ‘Multi-Team Environments – User Guide’ document for details.
In the Blue Prism client, go to Control -> Session Management….

…and then drag the process onto the pool (not the resource within the pool) to be used.

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f. Assigning a Schedule to a Pool

Schedules can be assigned to a pool in exactly the same way as any other resource in the system. However, from
v6.3 onwards, the user’s access rights to the resources in the pool will determine the ability to create or run a
scheduled task. See the ‘Multi-Team Environments – User Guide’ document for details.
If you have an existing schedule defined in the Blue Prism client, go to Control -> Scheduler -> Schedules. Then
select the relevant schedule and add a task to it…

…and then drag the process to the resource in the task.

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4. Resource Groups
This section describes groups and their basic operations. Primarily groups are simply for managing and organising
large numbers of resource PCs, however from v6.3 it also became possible to apply ‘access rights’ to groups in
order to limit usage and visibility of resources, according to user role. See the ‘Multi-Team Environments – User
Guide’ document for details.
a. Creating a Group
To create a group, go to System -> Resources -> Management. Then right-click on the parent group for the group
you are creating…

…select Create Group and then type in the name of the new group. Note that from v6.3 permission to create a
group is dependent on the user’s role.

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b. Adding a Resource to a Group

To add a resource to a group, navigate to System -> Resources -> Management. Then expand the tree to expose
both the resource to be added and the target group…

…and drag-and-drop the resource into the group.

c. Removing a Resource from a Group

To remove a resource from a group, simply drag it into another position.

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d. Deleting a Group
Like deleting a pool, deleting a group does not delete the resources within. Unlike deleting a pool, a group must be
empty before it can be deleted.

To delete a resource group, navigate to System -> Resources -> Management. Then right-click on the group to be
deleted…

…and click Delete Group then OK on the subsequent confirmation dialog.

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5. Implementation Tips and Information

This section details some useful tips and reminders while working with resource pools and groups.
• When working with large numbers of resources, try categorizing them along logical lines. Apply pools or
groups to these categories to simplify management of the resources.
o When you have a number of resources which are all designated to a single task or group of tasks,
create a pool to manage them.
o Create groups to collect resources by non-functional similarities – e.g. physical location, date of
creation, version of operating system, or anything else that does not directly affect the processes
run on them.
• The status of pooled resources is available via Control and expanding the pool in question.
• Once in a pool, a resource may not be addressed as an individual resource – only through the pool.
o Existing schedules or processes configured to use the individual resource will fail once the resource
has been added to a pool.
• A resource cannot belong to more than one pool.
o A resource must be removed from its pool before it can be added to another pool.
• A pool may not have spaces in its name.
o Groups can have spaces in their names without error.
• A pool can belong to a group.
o Resources within the pool will become members of the group.
• Prior to v6.3, by default resources do not belong to any group.
o However from v6.3 group membership is compulsory and a ‘Default’ group is provided for any
resources that have not been moved to a user-defined group.
• A resource that does not belong to a pool can belong to more than one group.
o Adding a resource to multiple groups does not make more resources available.
• When a pool is deleted, its resources will be released back to the list of ‘Available Resources’ as if they have
been removed from the pool.
o From v6.3 onwards group membership is compulsory, and a ‘Default’ group is provided for any
resources that have not been moved to a user-defined group.

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6. Issues and Support

For support with using pools and groups, please reference the Blue Prism Knowledge Base on the Portal or, if a
specific issue is not addressed on the Knowledge Base, contact Blue Prism Support ([email protected]) for
further help.
a. Common Issues
The following are some common issues you may encounter with Resource Pools and Groups.
b. When a resource is added to a pool, existing schedules fail.
When a resource is added to a pool, it cannot be scheduled or used to execute processes individually – only
through the resource pool. Any existing schedules which addressed the resource directly will fail. To correct, try re-
creating the schedule to use a different resource or to use the pool the resource is now a member of.
c. When a resource is unavailable, processes scheduled against or assigned to it cannot execute.
In this case, create a pool with multiple resources in it and reassign the processes or scheduled tasks to use the
pool. The temporary unavailability of any individual resource will no longer affect the execution of these processes
and schedules, as Blue Prism will use the resource pool to automatically find an available resource to execute them.

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