Pega Robot Studio provides a platform for automating the controls of almost any technology. Pega’s library of translators makes the majority of controls immediately accessible for you to include in your automation. Translators are custom objects that talk directly to the native control and expose that control’s functionality to Pega. If, however, no translator is available for a control, your ability to work with the control is limited.

Beginning with Pega Robot Studio version 8.0.1053, you can access native controls without using translators. This build includes a new feature, the UI Connector, which uses a programming technique called Reflection. Many popular software technologies, such as .NET, provide a form of Reflection that lets you inspect and invoke objects at run time. By leveraging this technology, Robot Studio can communicate with native controls without the need for a custom translator.

In build 8.0.1053 and later, you can find fully-functional UI Connectors in the UI Connectors folder. These connectors include explanatory comments in the class files, which you can use as a guide for your use case.

Here is an example of where you will find this folder, assuming that you installed the build in the default location:

• 8.0 and 8.0 SP1: C:\Program Files (x86)\OpenSpan\OpenSpan Plug-in for Microsoft Visual Studio 2015\UI Connectors
• 19.1 and later: C:\Program Files (x86)\Pegasystems\Pega Robot Studio\UI Connectors

The folder contains examples for the following types of controls:

• DevExpress
• Infragistics
• QzSourceGrid

Use these examples as templates for creating your own controls by using the UI Connector.

For more information, see Creating UI Connectors.