Launcher

After successful installation, you can launch Work.AI Developer from the installer.

Alternatively, click the desktop shortcut to start it:

You can also select Developer (WorkFusion Work.AI) from the Windows Start menu:

Upon launching Developer, the Launcher application starts. It allows you to activate or turn off local server components, access their logs, and search through them.

You do not need Launcher if you are debugging a Bot Task that does not use OCR or RPA or if you are not deploying your project to the local Control Tower. In this case, the Worker in Eclipse is sufficient for a Bot Task to execute successfully.

Access components

Work.AI Developer provides several applications and their components to manage the environment:

• Launcher
• Recorder
• Inspector(21) or Inspector, depending on the Java version you use (Java 21 or Java 8, respectively)
• Eclipse
• RabbitMQ
• Secrets Vault
• File Storage
• Control Tower
• Nexus
• Workspace

You can access them as described below:

• Click the required link in Launcher.
• Select from the menu in the system tray.
• Open related URLs directly in a browser.

All components require you to log in. Use the Administrator username and password specified during the Work.AI Developer installation.

View component groups

The Launcher window shows component processes grouped into five main categories, each available on a separate tab. This segregation saves RAM and local machine capacity as much as possible and speeds up component startup. The groups are as follows:

• RPA Worker Java21 with the RabbitMQ and Secrets Vault dependencies
• RPA Worker with the RabbitMQ and Secrets Vault dependencies
• OCR with the OCR Worker, OCR REST API, RabbitMQ, File Storage, and Secrets Vault dependencies
• Control Tower with the Control Tower, Manual Task renderer, Input connector REST, RabbitMQ, File Storage, Nexus, Keycloak, Nginx, and Secrets Vault dependencies
• Workspace with the Workspace, Keycloak, Secrets Vault, and Nginx dependencies

To navigate to the UI of the components, on the right side of the screen, under the Stop button, click the corresponding direct links. Each process group contains its own set of links:

Access from tray menu

When Launcher is running, you can access the most frequently used options. To open the quick access menu, right-click the Launcher icon in the tray.

Apply the following options:

• The Open section contains direct links to the corresponding server components. Click any component to access its UI.

• The Launch Groups section enables you to view the statuses of components and manage them:

  • To launch a group of components, click the Start button next to the group.
  • To stop a running group, click Stop.
  • To launch or stop all the groups, click Start or Stop next to All Groups.

• The Exit option closes Launcher.

Access from browser

The components also have a web interface you can access directly in a browser.

Component	Running condition	URL	Login
Control Tower application	Must be running so you can access it.	http://localhost:15280/workfusion	Username and password. Upon login, you have the Administrator role with all privileges.
File Storage S3 Manager	Must be running so you can access it.	http://localhost:15110	Username and password.
Nexus repository web manager	Always running when Work.AI Developer starts.	http://localhost:8081/nexus	Username and password to log in as Administrator.
RabbitMQ management web interface	Always running when Work.AI Developer starts.	http://localhost:16772/	Username and password to log in as Administrator.
Secrets Vault web interface	Always running when Work.AI Developer starts.	https://localhost:18280/ui	Username and password to log in as Administrator.
Workspace application	Must be running so you can access it.	http://localhost:15280/workspace

Manage components

When Launcher starts, all server components are off by default.

Start components

Depending on your automation workflow, launch the required group of processes. For example, if you use RPA, start the RPA Worker Java21 or RPA Worker group.

To enable a component, choose one of the three options:

• Select the required process group and click the Start button on the right side of the screen.

• Choose your process group and click the Start button located directly on the group tab.

  

• Run any or all process groups from the tray menu by clicking Start.

note

• Once you enable Control Tower, the RPA Worker Java21 or RPA Worker group starts automatically, as it is a required dependency.
• Once you enable Workspace, the RPA Worker Java21 or RPA Worker and Control Tower groups also start.

Eventually, Launcher with all running component groups looks as follows:

When you initiate a process group, processes start gradually, with their statuses shown on the right side of the screen:

• Grey. The process is waiting for its turn to launch.
• Yellow outline. The launch is in progress.
• Green. The process is up and running.

A solid yellow color means that something is wrong with the component, or some action is needed. Hover over the status icon to see the warning tooltip:

tip

The Control Tower and Workspace group take the longest to launch. Machines with less than 16 GB RAM and several applications running can take 8-12 minutes to start. In this case, wait till the status icon turns green.

caution

Watch the console output. In case of any issues, look for exceptions. You can also open the log file directory to find all component logs to trace a problem in detail.

Stop components

To disable components, use one of the following methods:

• Select a running group and click the Stop button on the right side of the screen.

• Choose a running group and click the Stop button located directly on the group tab.

  

• Click Stop next to any process group or All Groups in the tray menu.

Fix performance issues

When you use the application for an extended period of time, the performance and connectivity of components might degrade. For example, a Business Process can execute slowly, or execution can fail when working with Secrets Vault, Data Stores, File Storage, and other components.

To resolve such issues, restart all component groups and the Launcher application periodically:

1. Before putting your workstation to sleep, stop all component groups and wait for indicators to show the shutdown status.
2. In the system tray, right-click the Launcher icon and click Exit in the context menu.
3. The next time you log into your workstation, start Work.AI Developer again and launch the required component groups.

info

MS SQL Express 2016 is required for Work.AI Developer. It is installed as a Windows service and starts automatically when your workstation starts. If you stopped MS SQL Express 2016 processes, restart the service. Open Microsoft Services, find the SQL Server (WFIACDEVELOPER) service, and click Start.

Modify credentials and OCR license key

Default credentials for accessing components and the OCR license key are set during the Work.AI Developer installation.

In modification mode, you can change your Administrator credentials and update your expired OCR license key:

1. Run IntelligentAutomationCloudDeveloperInstaller.exe.

   

   If you do not have the installer file, open Windows Settings > Apps > Installed apps, start entering the application name (WorkFusion Work.AI), and select the Modify option. Accept the security prompt by clicking Yes on the User Account Control screen.

   

2. In the installer window, select Modify and click Next.

   

3. Change your username or password and click Modify. When the modification process completes, use the updated credentials to access the components.

   

4. Enter a new OCR license key.

   

5. All Developer processes are stopped automatically. To continue, in the warning message window, click OK.

   

6. Wait until Work.AI Developer is modified. Click Finish to exit.

   

Use Nexus

Local Nexus is installed automatically as part of Work.AI Developer. Using it, you can avoid relying on the shared public Nexus and pull random Bot Config Bundles (BCBs) to your local Control Tower. Alternatively, you can use your company's hosted Nexus server.

For a local development environment, you can run all WorkFusion environment components within a single workstation.

Nexus automatically downloads all JAR files from the wf-machine-config-bundle repository to C:/IntelligentAutomationCloudDeveloper/machine-config-bundle. Then, Control Tower reads the JAR files from the directory and includes them into the Bot Task classpath.

To access the Nexus Repository Manager UI, in your browser, go to http://localhost:8081/nexus/ and log in with the default credentials:

• username: admin
• password: admin123

Apply Maven Archetype

All out-of-the-box ODF 2 Archetypes have a profile for building and deploying locally. The Archetype's root pom.xml file contains the configuration:

<bcb.repository.url>http://localhost:8081/nexus/service/local/repositories/wf-machine-config-bundle/content/</bcb.repository.url>

The user credentials for deploying to the out-of-the-box local Nexus are automatically configured in your local Maven's settings.xml file during the Work.AI Developer installation:

<server>
    <id>bcb-repository</id>
    <username>admin</username>
    <password>********</password>
</server>

Track logs

To resolve issues more quickly, Launcher displays logs for all main processes in real time as soon as the components start running.

To view logs, switch between groups. The log data is available in the center part of the Launcher window. Use the following options:

• To access log files, click Open directory. Your file explorer opens the corresponding folder.
• To view recent messages, click Scroll to end to automatically scroll to the latest records.
• To clear the output console, click the Clear button.
• To hide the horizontal scroll and wrap text within the visible window, select Wrap.
• To search for specific data, choose the Search option.

Search in logs

To search through logs, perform the following steps:

1. Click Search or press Ctrl + F.

2. In the Search field, enter your search parameter:

   

3. If needed, specify one of the search options:

   • Abc matches the case.
   • ABC matches the whole word.
   • ..* uses regular expressions.

4. Navigate through search results using the Find next and Find previous buttons.

5. To exit search mode, click Search again or click the Close button.