One of the big advantages of AutoSteps that you have installed on your organization's computers is that you don't have to configure them. That's all taken care of automatically: When you install AutoSteps they immediately connect to PerformanceGuard Agents.
The entire process of AutoSteps can be simplified into the following steps:
| Note | ||
|---|---|---|
| ||
| You can only do this if you are PerformanceGuard administrator. |
You can configure your jobs in many ways. You can schedule when and how often the jobs run, add executable scripts and/or files, have them enabled/disabled or set them to Debug also.
If you want to know more about how AutoSteps works, see AutoSteps Functionality.
| Tip | ||
|---|---|---|
| ||
You must have AutoHotkey installed on your computer before you start creating Jobs and executing scripts. Download the latest version AutoHotKey. |
Create a Job
AutoSteps allows user to create jobs in two different ways:
- From Jobs: To create a new job click
. - From Scripts: From a script
create a job.
| Expand | ||
|---|---|---|
| ||
| AutoSteps uses AutoHotkey allowing users to automate repetitive tasks in any windows application. Scripts run in an environment where many pieces of information are made available. |
| Tip | ||
|---|---|---|
| ||
| You can create a job with multiple scripts - but it will create separate jobs for each script i.e. "one specific Script per Job". |
| Expand | ||
|---|---|---|
| ||
| The grouping of executors allow users to submit jobs to specific executors depending on the group name. Users can specify different groups for all executors. Based on the group name executors will be selected and job will be submitted by performing load balancing among these executors. |
| Expand | ||
|---|---|---|
| ||
| Schedule:You can add a schedule to a job. The user can add schedule to run these scripts to avoid having to configure every time via daily, weekly, monthly or custom intervals. |
| Note | ||
|---|---|---|
| ||
As a default it is set as Enabled. There will not be  next to a job if it isn't enabled. |
| Note | ||
|---|---|---|
| ||
| You can also set jobs to Debug as well if you wish to determine whether a program is working correctly. |
Where can I find the file with Debug log? You will find the logs in the \AppData\Local\Scout\ExecutionDir. The file will be named same as the Script name with the date and time the script was executed.
| Note | ||
|---|---|---|
| ||
| You can not save a job until Script, Executor Group and Schedule have been selected. |
| Info | ||
|---|---|---|
| ||
Example:Click thumbnail to view image in full size.
|
Default Scripts
You can select from some default scripts that AutoSteps already contain:
BTMutil Demo:This script demonstrates how to use the BTMutil supplied with the PerformanceGuard Agent. BTMUtil.exe is a small tool that is useful when you want to test your installation and when you want to time events in local scripts. See more about BTM via BTMutil.exe
Notepad Demo: AutoSteps uses BTM with
Outlook Mail Roundtrip: AutoSteps uses BTM with AutoHotKey to run and execute the script. The script will create a mail and send the mail to the recipient specified in the Script. This also uses PGExtHelper for COM start - stop interface.
Overriding Job Parameters
AutoSteps allows to you to override the executable parameters when creating/editing a job.
| Note | ||
|---|---|---|
| ||
| If you will not check Override - the job will use the Default Parameters values that were set when created that particular script. |
| Info | ||
|---|---|---|
| ||
Example:Click thumbnail to view image in full size.
|
Create a Script
How is the communication between a Script and the PerformanceGuard Agent structured?
The structure for the data reported by AutoSteps script must follow the same structure as outlined for BTM. The documentation on how a script can communicate with the PerformanceGuard agent is described in BTM.
You can use the following parameters:
Property
Description
Examples
Transaction Group
Defines the BTM Transaction Group - Mostly used as an overall category.
The length of characters can not exceed more than 64.
- TransactionGroup = PG Demo Scripts
Transaction Name
Defines the BTM Transaction Name - Mostly used to define a more narrow category like the application or website being tested.
The length of characters can not exceed more than 64.
- TransactionName = NOTEPAD Document
Tags
Defines the BTM Tags - Mostly used to describe the exact operation performed by the script.
The length of characters can not exceed more than 64.
- ComPG1.setTag = NOTEPAD startup
- ComPG1.setTag = Type in text
- ComPG1.setTag = Save NOTEPAD document
. You can select a category from the menu or you can create a new Script Category while creating a new Script.Category: Used to organize your scripts and also makes it easier to search for a particular script.
Executable and Executable Parameters: Used to define what and how a script is executed.
Creating Executable and Executable Parameters
You can create the line of arguments for the executable and set values to each parameter while creating a new Script.
In order to ensure that a file attachment is used please make sure to add the name of the uploaded file to the list of Executable Parameters.
When AutoSteps executes the script, it is done using the parameters in the order they are written and thus it is important to type the parameters according to the syntax for your executable.
Parameters can be defined as variables. A variable can be left as is or overwritten when the script is used to create a AutoSteps Job. You must create and close each parameter variable with a hashtag # i.e. #<name># otherwise will not be recognized as a variable, e.g. /c #parameter1# #parameter2#.
After creating a parameter you will be able to add Default Parameter Values to each parameter.
Example:Click thumbnail to view image in full size.
allows you to edit, delete, download these scripts locally on your computer and create a job. Creating a Script with an executing binary file
AutoSteps supports the use of self-contained executable (.exe files). This allows you to distribute the executable and thus no installation of an executable program on the AutoSteps computer is necessary in order to execute the script.
- Go to Administration > AutoSteps > Scripts and Create a script
In order to ensure that a self-contained executable will run, make sure to specify the name of the file in the 'Executable' field. If your self-contained executable takes parameters, these are specified as usual in the filed 'Executable Parameters', e.g. /c dir c:.
- Upload the file and Click Save
Example:Click thumbnail to view image in full size. 
Create an Executor Group
The groups are separated into two i.e. Executor groups and Executor Network groups.
Executor Groups: These are the groups that doesn't contain any other groups but just Agents.
Executor Groups allow you to add multiple agents in one group i.e. giving you the flexibility and better availability.
AutoSteps Network Groups: These contain other network executor groups for host or network interface identification and location addressing.
- The grouping of executors allow users to submit jobs to specific executors depending on the group name.
- Users can specify different groups for all executors.
- Based on these groups, executors will be selected and job will be submitted by performing load balancing among these executors.
To create a new executor group click or search for a group by entering the name in the search field.
You can add other executor groups in an executor group. After creating an Executor group, you can drag and drop the Network groups into the desired groups i.e. the groups will highlight as green allowing you to drag and drop in them.
Timezone feature allows you to set a time period in which you want the executor to run the script and not with the Server local time.
Schedules
The main purpose of adding schedules to the scripts is to avoid having to configure every time via daily, weekly, monthly or custom intervals. AutoSteps allows users to create jobs with adding a schedule to the scripts.
AutoSteps Usage
You have set up the scripts, have scheduled jobs and now you need to setup AutoSteps status widget on your dashboard in order to view the monitoring results. You will use the BTM widget for the response time measurements that the scripts perform. For each script you can configure the BTM widget to monitor that the system under test is running within an acceptable thresholds.
You can create a new dashboard and add specifically these two widgets listed under AutoSteps:
Select what You Want to View
Your PerformanceGuard administrator has typically set up the widget to show information about BTM metrics or BTM activities for one or more computers or locations.
When that's the case, you can simply use the Computer or Location and Time period menus in the top part of the dashboard to view the BTM metrics or activities when a particular computer or location uses it.
- Select the BTM activities that you want. These activities display the scripts that are combination of a Script file, information about what program is to be used to execute the script and a set of execution parameters.
- Select the BTM metrics that you want. You can measure a number of metrics such as response times, availability and requests from a number of different Executors.
AutoSteps widget allows you to choose whether you want the widget to display individual job status (click on a displayed script category or executor group to expand the view) or view them as a combined category. You can always refresh
the Job status or click In BTM graph each series display a snapshot of your latest execution of the scripts at that particular point of time. AutoSteps will keep running, discover the error, alert you and provide detailed information about the problem where real user monitoring will not be able to comprehensively test for the functional correctness
. |
| Panel | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Search this documentation
On this page
In this section
|