IBM CoScripter: Automate Web Processes
CoScripter is a Firefox plug-in created by IBM Research, with the aim of automating web processes. CoScripter is described as a "system for recording, automating, and sharing processes performed in a web browser such as printing photos online, requesting a vacation hold for postal mail, or checking flight arrival times." In effect it is a plug-in that automates the browsing process for certain tasks, through the use of scripts. You don't need to be a programmer to create scripts - just go through the normal browsing processes and CoScripter records it for you. Alternatively you can simply select and use a script that someone else has built.
We recently spoke to Stefan Nusser, Senior Manager of User Systems and Experience Research at IBM Research, to find out more about CoScripter.
First let's look at how CoScripter works. Handily, there's a "Getting started with CoScripter" script. It shows that to execute a script, you can run it in an automated function (by clicking "Run") and/or execute it in a step-by-step process (by clicking "Step") -- typically a combination of both, as many web processes require human input (e.g. in forms). CoScripter works by popping up a sidebar in your browser, in which you can see the steps as they execute. In addition to the script, there is a step-by-step textual explanation of the process.
As of now CoScripter has around 4000 scripts. A script which shows the potential usefulness of CoScripter in real-life scenarios is one for adding your phone number to the U.S. national do not call list. This is an example of a multi-step process which to many people is a pain to carry out. Using this script, the user is taken through the first couple of Web pages automatically, then it stops at the point where the user needs to enter their area code. Then the user is guided step-by-step through the rest of the process.
Granted, well-designed websites will make it easy for their users to work through processes. But we all know that not all websites are easy to navigate, so CoScripter comes in handy in those circumstances. Not to mention that some processes are just very long and tiresome - e.g. the request a vacation hold for postal mail script is 14 steps long.
For all its usefulness, there's a sense that CoScripter is still too geeky for mainstream people. We found that using the 'Run' and 'Step' links wasn't entirely intuitive.
However we can certainly see the potential for automating web processes. One of the trends of the current era of the Web is for computers to do more of the 'heavy lifting' of our daily tasks - whether that be aggregating content, filtering it, or automating it. CoScripter clearly aims to do the latter. With a bit more spit and polish, CoScripter could eventually become a handy tool to help your everyday web browsing.
We asked IBM's Stefan Nusser what kind of uses he foresees for CoScripter. He mentioned that it will be useful within enterprises, where there are typically many processes that would benefit from automation. He also mentioned a beta product called Play-by-Play, a product built on top of CoScripter and which uses instant messaging for collaborative browsing tasks such as customer support and search.
CoScripter comes from the same team behind IBM's next-generation browser platform Blue Spruce, which was used to create an online "radiology theater" product. IBM is focusing a lot on extending the browser these days - and CoScripter is another example of that. Check it out and let us know what you think in the comments. For the geekier inclined, you can also incorporate CoScripter into your own products.
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With good exception handling, this could be a great little tests automation tool - an alternative to the much more ambitious Selenium IDE, with a narrower scope but with a much lower barrier to entry. With easy script creation and easy script sharing between users, adoption could soon surprise us. I'm going to give it a try next time I have to test yet another Web forms workflow.
This almost certainly is too geeky for mainstream users (although I love the idea). But it's only a matter of time before this kind of thing becomes more accessible - and it could theoretically open up some of the more esoteric parts of the web, allowing geekier users to make sites more accessible to less geeky users.
It's very interesting that IBM are spending so much time and energy on the browser. I need to check out Blue Spruce.
This looks pretty hot to me. I gotta take some time to think about processes I'd like automated - I'm sure there are some!
Guys, iMacro. We reviewed this a year or two ago and found it lacked production capabilities.
-OT
Someone should make a Coscripter script for signing up for an IBM Developerworks Account.
I just signed up and wow that was painful.
Chris, haha great point. I too found the IBM signup process awkward and painful.
I am going to give it a try to create some exercises to guide our product's new users. Right now we are using youtube embeded videos with captions like this one
http://nevant.metocube.com/mc/element/view-web/metoCube+exercise+-+Creating+a+process+directly+in+metoCube)
but this seems to be a better solution
I've always found IBM painful to work with. Big lumbering monolithic conglomerate that it is.
Curious about this app though. Wondering what keeps it safe from the script kiddies getting their hands on it to wreak havoc across the Internet?
I guess the first thing I would try is to see if it can be used for populating accounts with friends from various social circles.
Automating the population of friends is valuable for marketing companies of course, as much as I hate to say it.
Viewed from the right angle, this could be huge.
If you take a typical monlith system like SAP R/3, it boils down to a huge collection of multi-step processes of input, wait, output, e.g. "register vacations timings", "review open support issues" etc.
With this, you could basically deploy cross-domain userscripts, or just cloud-based workflows.
Imagine getting something akin to an opml file or rss feed for all the regular tasks you have to perform as a "data entry person", streamed to your browser.
If you combine this with something similar to an EPC or BPMN editor (http://bpt.hpi.uni-potsdam.de/Oryx) or Sketch Flow (see MS Expression Blend 3) for defining tasks, this could be indeed huge.
Basically cross-domain web service orchestration.
cool stuff.
Now this I gotta play with. Could be useful for automating many of the websites I use!
I'd be happy to deal with the painful registration process, but have you tried to get to CoScripter lately? Every link to it yields a 404 error or a repeated 'Connected Interrupted' message. I tried to email IBM about this, through their 'submit inquiry' form, giving them the URLs that didn't work and the error messages received. They replied by asking what URLs I used and what error messages I received. Corporate much?