Join the robotics revolution

G1ANT, founded in April 2016 and headquartered in London and Warsaw is RPA software provider with unique automation tool & scripting language.

Over the past 2 years, we’ve interviewed many users of RPA. From developers to Heads of Departments to Board members. We listened to the Voice of Customer carefully in order to understand Customers’ previous experience with RPA – what worked and what didn’t and what are their expectations of RPA – not just from the product itself but also from the vendor. We heard about the good, the bad and the ugly. The most frequent points raised were that Customers were not prepared to invest in mandatory bulk purchase, expensive annual licenses for light automation needs or tools which are closed and impossible to extend/customize and those that are not developer friendly due to amount of clicking or no programming involved.

To summarize the needs, Customers’ wish list was around:

• Flexibility around licensing models and costs
• Openness and extendibility of the platform
• Developer friendly tool

This is how G1ANT.Studio was born. Thanks to our unique philosophy and disruptive licensing model, we prefer to call ourselves challengers in the RPA space.

As RPA is a growing trend, there is an increasing number of RPA tools on the market. What makes us different? While some of the leading vendors focused on building heavy and expensive platforms, we are revolutionising the industry by bringing in simplicity, flexibility, openness and affordability.

1. ‘Pay As you Go’ Robots - We are the first RPA software provider offering Robots per minute model. We believe that anyone, regardless of size and budget should be able to use RPA without the need for significant investment and we are proud to have lowered the entry barrier. Our flexible and variable model allows Customers to get into RPA without committing to hefty license costs and allows rapid scalability. For instance, installing robots on 200 machines, instead of having to purchase 200 licenses, the overall software cost is the overall time (while a large number of processes can run simultaneously achieving large scale). It’s almost like hiring 200 employees at fraction of the cost

2. Free developer studio license – We very much believe in building a strong community. We do that by offering free studio licenses with full rights to create, test and demonstrate robots, which means that anyone can learn and start building robots today. This license also gives full right to extend the functionality with user’s own plug-ins/addons, which our user can commercialize through our Robot Marketplace.

3. Flexible licensing plans - Our Customers have an opportunity to achieve fast ROI in fully flexible way. With our freemium model, Customers can create and test robots for free, trial the robots in production for agreed period of time and then decide between the Pay as You Go model or annual licence for 24/7 robot. Also if Customer start with the PAYG model and wishes to switch to annual license, they can do that at any time.

4. Simplicity – With G1ANT, there is no need for heavy and multicomponent installation. G1ANT.Studio is one executable file which runs on Standard User Account, making it easy to begin your automation journey – with minimal resource, expertise and no payment required. Also, our platform takes small amount of space (less than 150MB), which makes it a lightweight approach to Enterprise level needs.

5. Openness and Extendibility – We are the most open platform with the majority of it being Open Source. Gone are the days when RPA tools are closed box. Thanks to our open SDK (Software Development Kit), G1ANT.Studio allows users to extend our language with own add-ons (consisting of Structures, Triggers, Studio UI extensions e.g. panels and wizards) and Libraries, which allow them to customise and integrate the robot rapidly with specific systems. We believe in creativity. Thanks to the fact that existing plug-ins/add-ons are Open Source, anyone anywhere can take part in growing the most open and flexible RPA tool.

6. Developer friendly tool – As our Founder likes to say: “I didn’t become a developer to click all day”. His idea of inventing G1ANT.Studio was to allow experienced developers utilize their existing programming knowledge. G1ANT’s intuitive scripting language allows injections of powerful C#, Java and Jquery snippets, adding RPA to the experience and allowing developers to continue what they love - coding.

7. Powerful Hardware – We are the first RPA vendor to introduce Hardware for automations, allowing G1ANT to automate systems which are impossible to robotise using traditional RPA Software. Think Bios, Win 3.11 or old factory machines with built-in computerised systems. Not only that, our robot can also make coffee! All you need is a coffee machine with VGA or PS/2 port.

But don’t just take our word for it. Meet the team behind G1ANT to find out more about putting the Robot into action. Join the Robotics Revolution with G1ANT today.

G1ANT.Studio is Robotic Process Automation (RPA) software. It can automate any repeatable business process on computer, any application, any operating system by emulating human behavior. It can also perform rule-based decision making. The Robot is designed to perform both 100% automation (unattended) and partial automation (attended) depending on requirements.

Please visit manual.g1ant.com. You can find full documentation with script examples, as well as information about technical requirements, installation process and so on.

The main engine (core) is a desktop application in a form of one executable file (EXE). This core takes less than 150MB, which contains common default commands allowing to create automations using mouse or keyboard. It also contains commands to access local files and directories as well as common triggers such as file, schedule or email. The core’s function is to read, parse and execute automation scripts created in G1ANT.Language as well as load external add-ons e.g. IBM Watson, OCR, Selenium. Its structure (core with add-ons) and open architecture provides very efficient and customisable solution for automation projects.

G1ANT.Language is a simple and intuitive scripting/automation language used to create accelerated automations. It is easier than the Visual Basic language, easy to learn not only by RPA developers but also by analysts. G1ANT.Language allows a developer to directly embed some powerful snippets: C# and JavaScript in case of need of more advanced expression or access to some objects.

G1ANT.Studio can automate any repetitive, rule & logic-based activities on a computer. Below are some common examples.

G1ANT.Studio can automate across variety of functions, e.g.: Software Testing, Systems’ Integration, Data Migration, Reporting, Audit, Customer Onboarding and Verification.

Example tasks include: data capturing, data validation, data entry, filling out document templates, rule-based decision making, mailbox monitoring, document downloading & attaching, sending personalized emails, image classification & voice recognition, creating a new contact in CRM, opening an account, performing credit check, extracting information from scanned documents, automated billing & invoicing, reconciliations.

G1ANT.Studio can automate processes using various methods: User Interface (UI), i.e. screen scraping, web scrapping, by communication with API/REST, Remote (RDP/VNC/G1ANT.Hardware), OCR (Optical Character Recognition) – we can match words/characters with the ones on the screen or image recognition and extract required text/numbers from scanned documents, AI - IBM Watson for speech and image recognition. Thanks to this G1ANT.Studio can support business on very wide spectrum of automation, from typical Microsoft Windows automation, by web, MacOS, iOS, Android, to AS/400, old Windows 3.11, or even BIOS automation (the last two using our very own G1ANT.Hardware).

G1ANT.Studio can automate any type of applications. Recommendations of automation methods depending on the type of application as well as examples of systems are listed below. OCR & UI Automation methods can be used on each type of application. Please note that the list is not exhaustive and is meant to be a guidance only.

Add-on – additional functionality attachable to G1ANT.Studio that extends it functionality. There is a number of addons available as standard pre-configured part of G1ANT.Studio installation such as IE, MS Office (Word, Excel, Outlook), OCR (Abby Fine Reader, Tesseract, Google OCR), IBM Watson, Selenium, Google Sheets, PDF etc.

Automation script – a text script with commands written in G1ANT.Language intended to automate business processes on a computer. In G1ANT.Studio Developer Studio such script is a file with extension *.robot and it is a text file format which can be edited in any other editor (Notepad, Notepad++, JetBrains IDE, etc.).

G1ANT.Language – please refer to General Questions section.

G1ANT.Studio Add-on SDK – A set of preconfigured templates for Microsoft Visual Studio, created for developers interested in creating own customised add-ons.

G1ANT.Studio Developer Studio – Windows application to create and execute automation scripts written in G1ANT.Language.

Process – automated end-to-end business process broken down into Tasks and Triggers. Processes as such can be configured and controlled by G1ANT.Orchestrator.

Robot – or more precisely G1ANT.Studio – is a running Windows application that can execute automation scripts.

Task – an automation script being executed by G1ANT.Studio. Actually, one tasks is defined by at least one thing: an automation script. Tasks can be executed according to various conditions. The first and most obvious is starting to execute a task by user when it is launched using G1ANT.Studio Developer Studio. There are other ways to launch a task: by trigger, by Orchestrator, or by another task. So, one task might be defined as a bundle of: automation script and triggers/configuration that start a task.

Trigger – a set of external events, which launch a Task/Process. For example: time, file or email trigger. A process can be triggered at particular time every day, or a new file appears/disappears/changes in folder or email appears in Mailbox. New triggers can also be created within an add-on using G1ANT.Studio SDK.

G1ANT is proud to offer a number of various RPA products along with flexible licensing model, which has been designed to meet individual needs and budgetary requirements.

G1ANT.Studio licenses are currently granted for each machine individually which has the robot installed. One workstation = one license key. With the Pay as You Go model, the robot can be installed on unlimited number of machines with collective time gathered. For any queries relating to licenses, please email info@g1ant.com.

G1ANT.Studio Developer Studio is a free application to build, test and demonstrate robots. When you start running robots in production environment, i.e. if automation script is executed using G1ANT.Studio it is a paid license. We offer a FREE 30-day trial of G1ANT.Studio Runtime license, which allows to test capabilities of implemented automations.

G1ANT.Studio consists of G1ANT.Engine and Add-ons/Plug ins. All pre-configured add-ons are available Open Source and the platform is open to extend and create new add-ons.

G1ANT.Studio can run on physical desktop workstations, Virtual Machines and on VMs in the Cloud.

All G1ANT Software belongs to G1ANT Ltd. If a User creates own add-on to G1ANT.Studio, IP rights belong to the creator of the add-on. Please refer to EULA for full license terms.

At G1ANT, we treat IT Security and Data Protection at highest priority. To ensure full security to our Users, G1ANT implemented the following procedures:

• G1ANT is subject to the Windows Privacy Policy and the Microsoft Firewall
• G1ANT.Studio is limited to Standard User Account and Privileges – whatever the user (machine/workstation) is permitted to do, G1ANT.Studio is only restricted to those privileges and nothing beyond
• G1ANT.Studio has built-in Credentials Container, which stores fully encrypted passwords if Robot is required to access any systems or websites requiring log in details
• Fully encrypted Robot’s Script Files - to ensure that the process/robots running in production are not disturbed in any way by unauthorised users
• G1ANT.Studio does not require to store or send any data

G1ANT.Studio does not store any data. Should the User require for files to be stored as part of the process, they can be saved in the User’s Operating System, outside of G1ANT.Studio.

Script files are fully encrypted to prevent those with unauthorized access right from disrupting robots. Only those with admin permissions will have the permission to make any changes to robots or access another user’s working robot, if required.

G1ANT.Language is simpler than Visual Basic. It consists of various structures common for any programming language such as variables or procedures.

There is a set of features in G1ANT.Studio Developer making automations really fast to create: simple built-in commands, triggers, Intelligent code completion, openness to inject powerful C# snippets and bespoke add-ons tailored to individual systems to automate even faster.

Learning G1ANT.Studio takes only a few days to learn due to simplicity of the language. Below is an example script. Let’s say you’d like to launch Microsoft Excel, read some data from the spreadsheet, launch MS Outlook and sent attachment to dedicated email. The robot script will look like this:

open excel document “My documents/List of orders.xlsx” collect list of order numbers

open outlook

send e-mail message with list of orders to john@smith.com

And here is the G1ANT source code for such robot:

excel.open path ‴C:\List of orders.xlsx‴

excel.getcolumn index ‴1‴ result ordlist

outlook.open

outlook.newmessage to ‴john@smith.com‴ subject ‴Orders list‴ body ordlist

outlook.send

By default, G1ANT.Studio has integration with Microsoft Windows OS, Office and Internet Explorer browser as well as additional (pre-configured) add-ons for OCR, Google Spreadsheets, IBM Watson etc.

G1ANT’s Architecture is ready to work with custom add-ons created by users. It makes it easy to adapt even to own, fully customised systems. For example, if a user needs to automate a process with AI elements (Machine Learning, or Deep Learning), a bespoke add-on can be created using C#, which will then become a common command in G1ANT.Studio.

G1ANT.Language is simple to learn, yet powerful because of its unique characteristic. A developer programming in G1ANT.Language can use expressions in C# or JavaScript to do more complex automations. Additionally, if some advanced algorithm needs to be implemented, a developer can create own add-on using C# and Visual Studio. Such algorithm can be attached to G1ANT.Studio as DLL library, and then simply called as any other command in automation scripts.

Please visit https://manual.g1ant.com.

Yes and the process is very straightforward. When you start it for the first time, there will be a dedicated application that will guide you step by step by activation process.

First run the EXE file that will activate the software. There is a step by step installation wizard that helps User to activate G1ANT.Studio. Once the robot is activated, it starts automatically during first running of G1ANT.Studio.

(1) Hardware: 1Ghz CPU, 512 MB RAM, 4.5 GB free space on HDD; (2) Software: Microsoft Windows Vista SP1, 7 SP1, 8, 8.1, 10 or newer, Microsoft .NET Framework 4.5.2 or above.

No, G1ANT.Studio does not require admin privileges as it works on Standard User Account. The user can just install the robot and launch it as it will preserve the rights of the user’s machine that it’s installed on.

User can customize G1ANT.Studio by editing G1ANT.Studio.ini file directly or by dedicated tool available in G1ANT.Studio Developer Studio. There are various sections for customization available: UI parameters, database connections, e-mail mailbox accounts, global variables to be used across various automation scripts, and triggers. Additionally, with G1ANT.Studio Developer Studio UI, user can customize layout of IDE by dragging them.

Please refer to manual.g1ant.com, which contains all available commands, arguments etc with a number of examples.

Yes, user can run as many processes as one robot/machine can handle sequentially in 24-hour day.

G1ANT.Studio can process various processes on one machine in a way that if one process has paused as e.g. it’s waiting for human to perform some task, the robot can already pick up a different process from the queue. Users can set triggers and different schedules.

There is no limit to the number of processes that one machine can handle. In terms of the capacity, the number will depend on speed and capacity of User’s individual machines, systems and network. One working G1ANT.Studio takes c.a. 150MB of RAM, however it is important to consider that one automation script can run various applications simultaneously (spreadsheets, web browsers, and others) so a load on a given workstation can vary.

G1ANT.Studio can process human-assisted automations. For example, a particular process will be triggered once user performed a certain task which the robot waits for and confirms with a certain action. Similarly, the robot can communicate with the user once it completed certain task and waiting for the user’s action e.g. approval before proceeding further. Also, any communication can be done in various formats, e.g. a dialog window, an email.

G1ANT.Studio license is allocated per machine. One machine can be accessed by a number of users.

Yes, it can. It requires increasing user rights to admin rights.

Yes. For example, an incoming e-mail in Microsoft Outlook or file appearing in a certain application. Also, any other system can trigger G1ANT.Studio via RESTFUL API.

Yes, G1ANT.Studio can do this as part of one process – e.g. one process may require downloading a pdf form using REST and filling it out using UI.

Yes, there are plenty of built-in add-ons, e.g. Internet Explorer, MS Word, Excel, Outlook, Selenium, IBM Watson, Google OCR, Abby Fine Reader, Google Sheets.

If you have downloaded or created custom add-on, all you need to do is to place a DLL file with add-on in one of three places: an installation folder of G1ANT.Studio Developer Studio, a dedicated folder in %USERPROFILE%\My Documents or in a folder specified in G1ANT.Studio settings INI file.

There is no API to access G1ANT.Studio but there is API in place which allows to create customised add-ons to extend the functionality of G1ANT.Studio.

In order to report a bug, please click Help Report a Bug available in G1ANT.Studio.

In Tools menu of G1ANT.Studio, there is Program Log and Robot Log available. These logs provide detailed information of executed commands and – if applicable – exactly when and where any errors occurred.

If the process stops due to power failure, all information will be stored in SQL server and will be available real-time. Developers can program the system to be transactional and to be able to perform specified rollback operations. The robots will be able to re-do the process and pick up unfinished tasks with triggering mechanism.

Upgrades take place usually every few months with system enhancements. Unless the User wishes to upgrade to a newer version, there is no requirement to upgrade the system for active robots/processes.

Go to top right corner in G1ANT.Studio, click on License My Account. You will be able to download the latest version of G1ANT.Studio.

At G1ANT, we prevent any task errors during system upgrades by using loop invariants in our code. Those invariants test correctness of tasks’ and processes’ progresses. Those same invariants check which platform version is currently running, and which version is required. Any upgrade will require testing before the release to ensure that current robots are working correctly on the new version. If required, we can roll back to the previous version. Backward compatibility is essential for G1ANT.

To rollback automated script, developer can implement rollback mechanism through exception handling.

At G1ANT, we have a comprehensive and flexible solution to handle exceptions, tailored to User’s individual procedures. E.g. robot can go into exceptions mode in an event when it comes across non-standard logic such as incomplete data, unstructured data, wrong data format, change in internal systems, document formats not recognized by robot, power failure.

Once G1ANT.Studio came across non-standard situation, it assigns it into exceptions queue and moves onto next task. Exception handling can be provided in a format or method as per User’s requirements e.g.: report sent to dedicated mailbox, spreadsheet (filled out with information of discrepancies/gaps/process status), dialog window.

Initial phase of G1ANT.Studio configuration process should be made by IT Administrator with privileges to grant additional access to the processed files, if necessary. Common usage of G1ANT.Studio can be controlled by standard user (non-administrator).

Traditionally, with any change to a process, humans need to be trained to learn new process/procedure. Similar applies to software robot, which with any change may need to be re-configured.