Blue Prism Solution Designer flashcards

34 cards. Read the term and the definition here. The deck at the top of this page is optional.

PDD

Process Definition Document. The business-owned specification of a process: steps, inputs, outputs, business rules, exceptions, and volumes. It is the design authority for business logic.

SDD

Solution Design Document. The technical specification describing process and object architecture, work queue design, exception strategy, environment variables, and non-functional requirements for a solution.

Process inventory

The catalogue of candidate processes assessed for automation, each classified by feasibility, complexity, volume, and business value before design work is committed.

Work queue key fields

The data fields chosen to uniquely identify a queue item so the same case can be re-queried and duplicate items detected. Poor key choice causes duplicate processing.

Environment variable

A named configuration value stored outside process logic, holding environment-specific data such as URLs, file paths, and credentials, so the same release runs in every environment.

Three exception levels

Recoverable exceptions are retried; business exceptions are marked and processing continues; system exceptions stop the process and raise an alert to operations.

Concurrency sizing

Runtime resource count is derived by dividing expected case volume by the acceptable cycle time per case, then adjusting for peak load and licence availability.

Stage and page

A process is built from stages, each stage being a page that performs one logical unit of work and can be tested independently of the rest of the process.

Queue item states

Work queue items progress through Pending, In Progress, Exceptioned, and Completed. Deferred items carry a retry date and return to Pending when that date passes.

Retry limit

The maximum number of attempts configured per queue item. When the final attempt fails, the item is marked as an exception for human review rather than retried indefinitely.

Idempotent process

A process designed so that re-running the same case does not duplicate downstream transactions, typically by checking a reference key before committing work.

Loop termination condition

Every collection loop must define when it ends and carry an iteration cap, preventing infinite loops when the underlying data never reaches the expected state.

Local versus global data

Local data items exist only within a page; global data items persist across page transitions. Promote to global only when a value must survive navigation.

Configuration lookup table

A data table or collection holding business rules that change frequently, allowing rule updates without rebuilding process logic or redeploying the release.

Exception page

A dedicated page that handles business exceptions by recording the reason, marking the queue item, and returning control to the main flow without halting the process.

Recovery block

A process section that runs after a system exception to clean up: close application sessions, detach from targets, reset data, and log diagnostic detail before the process stops.

Application modeller

The object component that defines how Blue Prism connects to and identifies elements within a target application, including launch parameters and spy mode selection.

Business object action

A single-purpose operation exposed by an object to the process layer, returning a success flag, output data, and exception detail so callers can handle failure.

Spy mode selection

HTML mode for web pages, Win32 or UIA for thick clients, Accessibility for Java applications, and Region mode only for targets that expose no usable element attributes.

Match attribute priority

Element identification prefers path and stable attributes such as ID or name; position and index are used only when no stable attribute exists, because they break on layout change.

Wait stage requirement

A wait stage must precede any read or write on an element that may not be immediately present. Fixed sleeps are a design defect because they fail under variable load.

Credential manager

The secure store from which objects retrieve passwords at runtime. Credentials must never appear in data items, logs, or exported release files.

Attach and detach lifecycle

Objects attach to an application once per case where possible and detach in a recovery block, preventing orphaned sessions from consuming resources and licences.

Object interface hygiene

Objects expose clean actions to processes; UI-specific data items and screen coordinates stay inside the object, and conversions happen before returning results.

Unit testing

Testing each page and object action in isolation against defined inputs and expected outputs, performed before integration testing and gated on SDD sign-off.

Integration testing

Testing that process and object layers work together against a representative environment with realistic data volumes, proving the interfaces and queue handling behave as designed.

UAT

User acceptance testing executed by business owners against acceptance criteria recorded in the PDD; defects are triaged by severity before go-live approval.

Release file

The packaged export of a solution containing processes, objects, and configuration, with an incremented release number recorded against the associated change ticket.

Rollback plan

A documented procedure naming the prior release version, the database backup point, and the authorised owner who can trigger rollback if go-live fails.

Hypercare

A post-go-live period, typically two to four weeks, with daily queue health checks, exception rate monitoring, and a tracked defect log.

Deployment checklist

The pre-go-live verification list: environment variables set per environment, credentials present, schedules enabled, queues defined, and logging level configured.

Design authority

The review body that approves solution designs against standards. It gates the transition from design to build and from test to production release.

Role separation

The control that the developer who builds a change cannot also be the sole tester and the sole production approver, preventing undetected defects and unauthorised release.

Exception rate threshold

The agreed maximum proportion of queue items ending in exception. A sustained breach triggers a root-cause review of the process or the target application.