Groups and cycles

The Automation Center (Automations > Automation Center) is where automations run. It is organized into:

• Automation groups: the datasets that run together, such as "Portal regression" or "Billing robots";
• Cycles: the rounds of a group, such as a sprint, a system release, or a month of operation.

Each cycle holds the group's datasets and the result of each one in that round. When you open the Center, Proton takes you back to the last group and cycle you used; Automation Groups goes back to the list.

The group list

The list shows each group with its purpose (when Quality and Operation are both enabled), the number of automations and cycles, the creation date, and the status. The status filter starts at Open: closed groups stay hidden until you choose All or Closed.

Create a group

Add opens a two-step creation:

1. Group Name: the name (unique in the organization) and, when Quality and Operation are both enabled, what the group is for:
   • Test (QA): validates the system in cycles with a start and an end, before a change is released;
   • Operation (RPA): the robot does the day-to-day work, in production.
2. Select Automations: the datasets that go into the group (optional).

The group is created with its first cycle, Cycle #1, already set as the default cycle.

Create with AI

With the AI module, Create with AI creates the group from a description, such as "a group with the login and checkout automations tagged smoke". The AI picks the automations by name, description, tags, and components, and adds the most recent dataset of each one. It uses AI credits, even when it does not create the group.

Import from Xray or Zephyr

With the Xray or Zephyr integration, Import turns a Test Plan into an automation group. See Import a Test Plan.

Edit, close, and delete

• Edit: the name and the purpose.
• Close group: blocks new runs, including scheduled and recurring runs, which stop running. Reopen group allows them again. Runs in progress can still be stopped while the group is closed.
• Delete: removes the group for good, along with its cycles and their entire run history, its recurring runs, and its exceptions. The automations and datasets still exist.

warning

Deleting a group deletes its run history. To keep the history, close the group instead of deleting it.

The group dashboard

Cycles

The cycle button, at the top, shows the open cycle, the progress bar, and the dates. Its menu has:

• Create Cycle: the name, an External Id (for example, the sprint's Jira issue), Set as default cycle and, if you want, Copy automations from another cycle, which brings in the datasets with their status reset (No Run).
• Edit Cycle: the name, the External Id, and the default cycle; plus Close Cycle or Reopen Cycle.
• Clone Cycle: a new cycle with the same datasets, with their status reset.
• Show closed: shows the closed cycles, which are hidden otherwise.

The default cycle (the one with the star) receives the datasets when no cycle is chosen, for example when you add datasets to a group from the dataset list. A closed cycle does not run or receive new datasets.

Status and filters

• The counters show Total, No Run, Pending (submitted, waiting, or loading), Running, Passed, Failed, and Aborted (stopped or cancelled). Clicking a counter filters the table.
• The Where the failures and interruptions stopped strip shows the components where runs stopped most often; clicking a component filters by it.
• Filter by tags (the dataset must have all the chosen tags) and Last run (the period).
• Search has three modes: exact, whole word, and approximate.
• Remembered filters: Proton keeps the filters and the search of each cycle while the tab is open. Clear resets everything.
• Group Status shows the full breakdown by status.

The table

Each row is a dataset in the cycle: the automation, the version, the priority, the tags, the description, the last run, Stopped at (the step where the run stopped), and the status.

• Pin to top keeps the row at the top of the table, for everyone.
• The priority (low, medium, high, urgent) is saved in the cycle and goes along with each run.
• Clicking the status of a failure opens the failure drawer (below); for other statuses, it opens the dataset's runs.
• The row actions open the dataset and its runs, and remove the dataset from the group.

Add and remove datasets

• Add Automation (the +) opens the dataset picker: automations on the left, datasets on the right, with search, column filters, and Only selected. Datasets already in the cycle are shown but are not selected again.
• Paste list: paste a column of descriptions from Excel and Proton selects the matching datasets, pointing out the lines that matched more than one dataset and the ones that matched none.
• Remove: takes the dataset out of the group, in every cycle. Past runs remain.

Run, stop, and download

• Run: with datasets selected, opens the run wizard.
• Stop: stops the runs in progress for the selected datasets. Stop all active stops everything running in the cycle.
• Report: downloads a zip with the PDF report of the last run of each selected dataset.

An automation restricted to certain runners has to run on its own: Proton narrows the selection down to it.

History, scheduled runs, and recurring runs

• Execution History: the batches sent in this cycle, with who triggered them, the type (immediate, scheduled, recurring, rerun), the runner, whether the runner confirmed receipt, and the progress. Opening a batch shows its runs.
• Schedules & Recurrences: the group's scheduled and recurring runs, with the reason for the ones that did not run. You can cancel a scheduled run that has not gone out yet, and suspend or edit a recurring run. The view of the whole organization is in the Schedule.

Compact mode

Collapse header keeps only the essentials at the top (the cycle, the counters, and the failures), so you can see more rows of the table.

The failure drawer

Clicking the status of a run that failed, was stopped, or was cancelled opens the drawer on the right, without leaving the table:

• Stopped at: the step where the run stopped and the steps that did not run;
• the screenshot of the step at the moment it stopped;
• the Exception, ready to copy;
• the AI diagnosis, with the cause, the evidence, and what to do (with the AI module);
• Open full run and Run again (opens the run wizard with only this dataset).

When there is more than one failure, Previous and Next (or the arrow keys) move from one to the next.

Permissions

Action	Profile permission
View groups	Automation Group: view
Create a group, create with AI, import, add datasets	Automation Group: create
Edit, close, and reopen a group	Automation Group: edit
Delete a group, remove datasets	Automation Group: delete
Create and clone a cycle	Cycle: create
Edit, close, and reopen a cycle; priority and pinning	Cycle: edit
Run and stop	Automation Center: run

In a private automation, only people in a team with run access (or higher) see the dataset in the group and can run it.