WinAutomation

CNET Editors' review

by: CNET Staff on November 06, 2008

The utility WinAutomation lets you create automatic system and file processes--or jobs--that can help you alleviate the pain of performing multiple menial tasks like renaming files, sending e-mails, and merging Excel files. The 30-day full-featured trial provides a generous opportunity for users to test-drive the app, create some sample jobs, and see whether WinAutomation can help with your common PC tasks.

WinAutomation includes decent in-program help, as well as additional support information on the publisher's Web site. Getting started will still be the biggest problem for new users, however, and the program could benefit with a more robust tutorial, especially one that includes sample jobs that users can edit and play with. Also, the program would benefit from tooltips or other integrated support that explicitly describe how each possible "action" works.

Once you get the feel of creating new jobs and defining parameters through the drag-and-drop interface of the job editor, it's easy to create basic processes, but there's still a steep learning curve before you'll be able to perform advanced automation tricks. One simple example of how WinAutomation can work--we created a job to track all of the file information about applicant resumes in a WinAutomation data table, then rename those files, and move them to a new folder. We were even able to display that file information in a pop-up window when the job runs.

All in all, WinAutomation is a powerful, well-organized application that advanced users who want to create their own PC macros will appreciate. The trial installed and uninstalled smoothly, with no artifacts left behind. As mentioned, the program requires a bit of a time investment to learn how to use it fully and could some more integrated help features, but those who stick it out will likely be pleased by the software's abilities.

 

WavePad

Record and edit sound files.

Download Now

Publisher's Description

From Softomotive:

With WinAutomation you can easily automate any repetitive task. You can create jobs to automate all kinds of operations such as file operations, FTP transfers, import/export data to Excel, send emails, connect to and query databases and much more, without having to write a single line of code. For the novice user, WinAutomation includes an intelligent Macro Recorder that allows you to record and replay mouse and keyboard actions at any speed. For more complex scenarios, WinAutomation features plenty of built-in actions that you can combine to build your jobs, along with support for variables and arrays, conditional logic, loops and more. WinAutomation also includes an integrated debugger, a job scheduler and triggers that monitor your computer and execute jobs as needed.

View larger image

 

GoToAssist Express

Fix tech problems instantly by controlling your customer’s computer

Download Now

See more CNET content tagged:

Previous Versions: