Process Trigger
Description
Launches a task when the specified process starts, ends or stops responding. To indicate partial process names, use wildcard characters * or ?.
Practical usage
This trigger is frequently used to monitor external applications for unexpected crashes. For example, if a certain process unexpectedly stops, a task can automatically be launched to remedy the issue by executing a Run action to try and restart the stopped process. This trigger can also be used to start a task when an external application starts.
Parameters
General
| Property | Type | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Process State | Options | Specifies
the process action to monitor. The available options are:
|
| Process Name | Text | Indicates the process that this trigger should monitor. The provided combination list box accepts manual text entry or the process can be selected from the drop-down list of open processes. The Folder button can be used to navigate to the desired application as well. Either a file name or a full path and file name may be entered. Wildcard characters * and ? can be used to indicate partial process names. For example, entering e*.exe will watch for all processes starting with the letter e. |
Behavior
| Property | Type | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Enable trigger | Yes/No | If selected, the trigger will immediately be active upon creation. If disabled, the trigger will stay inactive until it is manually enabled. This parameter is selected by default. |
| Trigger on startup if condition is true | Yes/No | If selected, the system will act upon conditions that already exist upon startup of the current trigger. For example, this trigger is set to launch a task when a specific process stops responding. If this parameter is selected and the specified process is non-responsive upon startup, this trigger will launch the task as a result. If disabled, this trigger will ignore the current state of the process upon startup and instead, act on the next time the process becomes non-responsive. This parameter is disabled by default. |
| Trigger after the condition has been met 'X' times. | Yes/No | If selected, specifies how many times the trigger condition must be met before the task is started. For example, if this trigger is set to launch a task when a specific process stops responding, and the value of this parameter is set to 3, the process being monitored must stop responding 3 separate times in order for the task to launch. This parameter is disabled by default. |
Additional notes
AMTrigger
When this trigger is activated, it automatically passes the AMTrigger object to the task. AMTrigger is a standard Automate Desktop dataset and can be used much like the datasets created by the Database - SQL query activity and Email action. The fields of AMTrigger can be used within a task to determine specific values, such as whether or not the task was started by a trigger, which trigger started the task, when the trigger was activated and other properties. AMTrigger populates a unique set of field–value pairs for each Automate Desktop trigger. The following table lists the ones specific to this trigger. For more details about a specific AMTrigger field–value pair, click the associated link.
| Name | Type | Return Value |
|---|---|---|
| AMTrigger.Action | String | Returns the action that took place to cause the task to trigger. |
| AMTrigger.ExeName | String | Returns the absolute path (full path and file name information) of the process that activated the trigger. |
| AMTrigger.FileName | String | Returns the file name of the process that activated the trigger excluding path information. |
| AMTrigger.ProcessID | Number | Returns the process ID of the process that activated the trigger. A process ID is a number automatically assigned to a process by the system. The process ID can be used by other actions in Automate Desktop to specify an instance of a process or application. |