This is the first basic level that is enabled by default and works out of the box. When executing the "Check In" task, the current time and the calculated checkout times are recorded in your vault.json file. When doing a "Verify" task, the under or overtime worked for today, and the total cumulated under or overtime, over multiple days, are displayed. When executing the "Check Out" task, the check in time is reset and, cumulated over or undertime is updated.
Of course, having such information in a vault file is not very useful, that's why a tray icon is displayed and it will show all the above information as an easy to read tooltip. The calculated check out time is displayed as a text on the icon, so that you can easily keep track when the workday should end. In addition, you can also easily launch the specified tasks from the icon menu. More details in the following images:
Windows:
macOS:
"Verify" task message:
The following customizations from vault.json file are useful for this level:
"LEVEL_1_ACTIONS":
"SILENT_RUN": to enable or disable the "*Welcome*" and "*Goodbye*" messages
at the end of tasks execution.
"MY_DATA":
"STANDARD_WORKING_TIME": "8 hours 30 minutes" (e.g. this working time includes
by default the daily 30' lunch break)
Depending of the "APP_KEYWORDS" entry from devdata/env.json file, and thus the *keywords.robot file taken into use, on the second level the "Check In" and "Check Out" tasks will open either a web application either an excel file.
url-keywords.robot
If you are interested to open a web application, do the following:
- Open your vault.json file and enable
"LEVEL_2_ACTIONS":
"OPEN_CHECKIN_APP": true
"OPEN_CHECKOUT_APP": true
"OPEN_CUSTOM_APP": true
-
Execute any of the "Check in" or "Check out" tasks and test if the included sample mail.yahoo page is opened with the message that credentials are not found. This is as expected.
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Execute "Custom" task and test that the included sample weather application is opened.
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Optionally, if you want to continue the experiment with mail.yahoo, then add your username and password in your vault.json file and run the tasks to test if the credentials are automatically filled by the application level.
Open your vault.json file and edit the following under "MY_DATA", "CHECKIN" section:
"CHECKIN.SYSTEM": The name of the system is an arbitrary name used to store the credentials in the
corresponding system keyring service, depending on the operating system.
"CHECKIN.PASSWORD": Use temporary for test runs, then it is recommended that you switch to system
keyring service so that to avoid plaintext password in your vault file. When the password is empty,
the solution will assume the system keyring service will provide the password.
"CHECKIN.USER": You can keep the username in your vault file, but you can also save it in the system keyring
service, under the entry named "*username*" if you want to.
See this section for details about how to store the credentials in the specific system keyring service
- Optionally, if you want to open your own URLs instead of the default ones, then open your vault.json file and edit the following:
"MY_DATA":
"CHECKIN.URL": own checkin URL
"CUSTOM.URL": own custom URL
"CHECKIN.SYSTEM": Your_system
"CHECKIN.PASSWORD": ""
"CHECKIN.USER": ""
In this case, when executing any of the "Check in", "Check out" or "Custom" tasks, your defined web applications will be opened instead, but obviously without credential filling.
NOTE: The second level tasks execution can be also analized by opening output/log.html file and checking the result. If the task works correctly, the result is Pass, otherwise the cause of the error is reported.
xls-keywords.robot
If you are interested to open an excel file instead of a web application on step 2, edit "APP_KEYWORDS" to use xls-keywords.robot.
Then open your vault.json file and edit the following:
"MY_DATA":
"CHECKIN.URL": path to your excel file (e.g. "C:/Data/workday-tasks-time-control/devdata/my.xlsx"
or similar in Windows, but always use slash for the path. For macOS it might be "/Users/user/Data/workday-tasks-time-control/devdata/my.xlsx", or relative path, e.g. "devdata/my.xlsx".)
The file must be an empty excel file that you want to use to record checkin / checkout times. When actions level is enabled, these will be filled automatically in the excel file without starting the Excel application.
app-keywords-comp.robot
If you want to use a custom company keyword file that you have available, then edit "APP_KEYWORDS" to use this file and then do the same steps as above. This file should provide a particular custom checkin / checkout solution or similar for a particular company, or for certain internal system or application, case by case. This file will be usually accompanied by a custom vault-comp.json, which means also "VAULT_FILE" should be edited to use this file instead, e.g.:
"VAULT_FILE": "devdata/vault-comp.json",
"LOCALE": "de",
"APP_KEYWORDS": "devdata/app-keywords-comp.robot"
How to create and edit your own keywords.robot file
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Make a copy of the url-keywords.robot with the name url-keywords-my.robot or similar and then edit "APP_KEYWORDS" to use this file
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Install Visual Studio Code with the extensions Robocorp Code and Robot Framework Language Server (free for personal or commercial use): https://robocorp.com/docs/developer-tools/visual-studio-code/overview
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Open url-keywords-my.robot file, and edit the keyword Fill Checkin Credentials with own HTML selectors as needed by Selenium or Playwright libraries. Selenium is the default.
Depending on if you want to work with Selenium or Playwright libraries and environment, you can switch the environment by following the how to switch to Playwright library instructions. In this case, your copy should be from url-keywords-pw.robot file instead.
The third level might be a little bit more complex, and depending of the specific application might require more complex modifications on the keywords.robot file so that to be able to automatize the actual actions that otherwise are expected to be done manually on the second level.
However, using xls-keywords.robot works out of the box, and when this level is enabled, the checkin / checkout times will be filled automatically in the excel file without starting the Excel application.
- To enable this level, open your vault.json file and enable
"LEVEL_3_ACTIONS":
"DO_CHECKIN_ACTION": true
"DO_CHECKOUT_ACTION": true
"DO_CUSTOM_ACTION": true
- Execute any of the "Check in", "Check out" or "Custom" tasks, and for the web application you will get the message that the automatic action was not implemented. This is as expected. For excel application, the automatic action will be executed.
For web application, this means the actions level is useful either when you are using an app-keywords-comp.robot file, either when you created your own url-keywords-my.robot file on the previous level and then you want to continue the customization with your own actions, by editing the keywords Checkin App Task, Check Out App Task and Custom App Task, with own clicks on the HTML selectors, as needed by Selenium or Playwright libraries.
At the end all the required actions should be customized and implemented accordingly, so that the whole Check in / Check out experience happens without any user intervention other than launching the tasks.