Enterprise A2019.16 Release Notes

Release date: 28 September 2020

Review the new features, supported packages, changed features, fixed features, security fixes, and known limitations in the Enterprise A2019.16 (Build 6463) release. IQ Bot is on Build 6443.

Important: We have updated Enterprise A2019.16 to Build 6463 to include fixes for issues with checking in and checking out bots (Service Cloud case ID 00666880, 00670899, 00672441, 00670455, 00672346), and Universal Recorder (Service Cloud case ID 00664020). See the Fixed features section for more information.

Enterprise A2019

Note: Starting with this release, if you are installing the Control Room in Linux environment, ensure that Python 3.6 is installed.
Important: This release includes a required update to your Bot Agent. Ensure that you complete the update to continue with your automation activities when upgrading from a previous release to this release.

Automatically update the Bot Agent | Manually update the Bot Agent

To verify which Bot Agent version is compatible with this release, see Compatibility with release builds.

New features
Migration to Enterprise A2019 (currently available only to customers in the Migration Early Adopter Program)

Enterprise A2019

Migration to Enterprise A2019 is currently only available to select customers through our Migration Early Adopter Program. If you are interested in learning more about this program or a timeline for when migration will be available to all customers, contact your Automation Anywhere representative.

  • Enterprise 11 only
    • Migrate audit logs to Enterprise A2019.

      Migrate Enterprise 11 audit logs

    • Migrate bots that contain disabled commands that have validation errors.
    • Migrate bots that contain Delete, Delete All Messages, and Get All Messages commands to automate an email-related task on Exchange Web Services (EWS).
  • Enterprise 10 only

    Migrate user credentials to the Enterprise A2019 Credential Vault.

    How Enterprise 10 data is copied to Automation 360

  • Enterprise 11 and Enterprise 10
    • Migrate bots that contain the Variable Operation command, which re-initializes the row and column index of an array variable using a variable.
    • Migrate bots that run MetaBot Logic and return the values to a dictionary variable.
    • Migrate MetaBots that contain DLLs that use lists, values, arrays, and two-dimensional arrays as input and output.

      How MetaBots are migrated

    • Migrate bots that contain Send Email with Attach Variable option from the Error Handling command to the Enterprise A2019 Error handler package.

      Package mapping for migration

    • Migrate bots that contain the Image and Coordinates play modes from the Object Cloning command to the Recorder package in Enterprise A2019.

      Package mapping for migration

    • Migrate bots that contain credential variables in select commands such as Active Directory, Excel, REST Web Service, and Terminal Emulator to Enterprise A2019.

      For the complete list of commands, see Variable mapping for migration.

Support for using CSV and TXT files as databases

Enterprise A2019 and Community Edition

Use the actions from the Database package to connect with and perform create, read, and update operations on the file.

Using Connect action for database | Database package

Universal Recorder support for standard Microsoft controls in Microsoft Silverlight

Enterprise A2019 and Community Edition

The Universal Recorder can now capture calendars, buttons, check boxes, combo boxes, date pickers, labels, links, list views, radio buttons, sliders, tabs, tables, text boxes, and trees from applications running Microsoft Silverlight version 5.
Use variable to specify a child bot to run

Enterprise A2019

Use the Control Room path in the Run action of the Task Bot package to use a string variable to specify the child bot you want to run.

Task Bot package

Install Bot Agent in bulk using registration key (Service Cloud case ID: 00616591)

Enterprise A2019

As an Control Room administrator, you can generate a registration key from the Control Room settings to install Bot Agent in bulk on multiple devices. You can use the registration key in an installation script or as part of the Active Directory group policy for configuring the Control Room users.

Generate registration key to install Bot Agent in bulk

Automatically detect proxy settings for Bot Agent installation to support NTLM authentication (Service Cloud case ID: 00446932, 00639773)

Enterprise A2019 and Community Edition

The proxy settings for a Bot Agent are automatically detected if the Automatically detect settings option is selected in the LAN settings for a System user and Current user on the machine where the Bot Agent is installed. This allows Control Room users to be authenticated using NTLM.

Restrict network access to Cloud Control Room URL

Enterprise A2019

System administrators can restrict access to the Cloud Control Room URL from only those IP addresses within the corporate network for more granular security. The Automation Anywhere Control Room provides the ability to specify a list of IP addresses or IP subnets that are allowed for Cloud Control Room URL and API access. Enterprise A2019 users with Control Room administrator privileges, such as to access Administration > Settings, can view, add, or edit this list.

Add access public IP addresses

Add Elasticsearch credentials for enhanced monitoring and alerting

Enterprise A2019

An option to provide Elasticsearch credentials is now available in the installer because the updated Elasticsearch version 7.8 configured for Control Room uses Open Distro version 1.9.0. This feature enables the server to deploy an enhanced monitoring and alerting system.

Add OpenSearch credentials

Support for Chinese, Japanese, and Korean characters in variable names

Enterprise A2019 and Community Edition

You can now create variables with names containing Chinese, Japanese, or Korean characters. You can also migrate bots that contain variables named using these characters.

Unicode range supported in variables

Support for Chinese language for Terminal Emulator (Service Cloud case ID: 00500324)

Enterprise A2019

You can now use the simplified and traditional Chinese language with 5250E terminal DBCS models such as IBM 5555-C01 and IBM 5555-B01.

New Services package available

Enterprise A2019 and Community Edition

Use the new Services package to automate operations and application services. You can start, stop, pause, resume, or to get the status of a Windows or application service.

Service package

Enhancements to the Excel advanced package

Enterprise A2019 and Community Edition

In the Excel advanced package, you can now use Read value from a cell. You can choose the Read option to read either visible text or the value from the cell. The default option is set to Read visible text in cell.

For example, if the cell has $50 as the value, then the Read cell value option reads the value as 50, ignoring the currency format. The Read visible text option reads the content along with currency format as $50.

This option is available for the following actions:

  • Get single cell
  • Get multiple cells
  • Read row
  • Read column
  • Get worksheet as datatable
  • Loop

Cell operations in Excel advanced | Row and column operations in Excel advanced | Loop package

Automate a task on a range of cells in an Excel worksheet (Service Cloud case ID: 00651299)

Enterprise A2019 and Community Edition

In the Excel advanced package, you can perform operations on the range of cells for Go to cell and Set Cell actions.

Cell operations in Excel advanced

New condition in the If and Loop packages

Enterprise A2019 and Community Edition

Use the Service is running or Service is not running condition to execute actions based on whether a particular service is running or not. For example, when you send a mail using this condition, the bot can verify if the SMTP service is running or not.

If package | Loop package

Capture hidden objects using AISense Recorder

Enterprise A2019

Use AISense Recorder to capture hidden image buttons on the application screen.

Edit a task recorded using AISense

New operations on SAP captured objects

Enterprise A2019

Use new options that are available to perform operations such as Set Focus and Select item by key for the various objects captured form an SAP application.

Pass parameters of various types to a DLL function

Enterprise A2019

Use the new Run function action to pass parameters of various types to a DLL function. The Run function that was available in earlier versions is now renamed to Run function (Legacy) and enables you to pass only dictionary variable as parameter to a DLL function.

Using the Run function action | Using the Run function (Legacy) action

Form builder updates

Enterprise A2019

The form builder now includes the following new elements:
  • Rich text editor- Enables you to add a customizable element to the form.
  • Table- Enables you to add tables to a form.

Create a form

Enhancements to the form preview

Enterprise A2019

When you click the Preview option in the form builder screen, you can drag the form. The corresponding X and Y coordinates are updated automatically.

Enhancement to the Snapshot element

Enterprise A2019

You can now create a folder if the filepath is not available or change the destination folder of the snapshot file during bot runtime.

Using the Snapshot element

Update to the Interactive forms package

Enterprise A2019

Use the Validate form action to validate all the elements of a selected form.

Interactive forms package

New permission to view basic information about users and roles (Service Cloud case ID: 00491694)

Enterprise A2019

The View Users and Roles basic information permission enables you to view the names of users and roles when you are performing various tasks in the Control Room. For example, a user must have this permission to view the roles that can be assigned to a user when creating or editing that user. After you upgrade from an earlier version to this release, this permission is granted to all existing roles.

Securely pass values in header and parameters of calls to a REST or SOAP web service

Enterprise A2019 and Community Edition

Credential variables enable users to retrieve sensitive values from the Credential Vault and pass them to the web service. Use credential variables in the header or parameter fields of actions from the REST Web Service or SOAP Web Service package.

Credentials and credential variables in the Bot editor | REST Web Service package | SOAP Web Service package

Return system parameters of the device on which a bot is running

Enterprise A2019 and Community Edition

Use the Get environment variable action from the System package to return the system parameters, including HomePath, ProgramData, ProgramFiles, SystemRoot, and UserDomain.

Get environment variable action

Remove Git integration configuration (Service Cloud case ID: 00633948)

Enterprise A2019

You can now remove or disable a Git integration configuration from your Control Room when the bot information stored in your Control Room does not have to be synchronized with the remote Git host.

Remove Git integration configuration

Expanded data type support in DLL package

Enterprise A2019 and Community Edition

The DLL package now accepts table variables as input parameters or to hold action output.

Using the Run function (Legacy) action

Create variable within Dictionary > Assign and List > Assign actions

Enterprise A2019 and Community Edition

The Assign action from the Dictionary and List packages now offers users the option to create a new variable within the Select source variable field. Previously, users could only select a variable from a list of existing variables.

New API for license management

Enterprise A2019

The License API contains endpoints to retrieve Control Room license details (such as the expiration date and license mode) and to update the Control Room after license reallocation or renewals.

License API
New expression in the Legacy Automation package

Enterprise A2019

The List to table expression supports migrated bots containing a variable that has to be converted from a list type to a table type.

Legacy Automation package

Multi-user device sessions on terminal servers

Enterprise A2019

Multi-user device sessions are now supported on terminal servers. You can perform the following actions:
  • Set screen resolution at either the device or Control Room level.
  • Set a multi-user device as the default device for Bot Creator users and attended and unattended Bot Runner users.
  • As a licensed user (with a default device), set another device as your default device using the Make default device option from the device menu.
  • View and edit the device settings on the device landing page.

    The device landing page shows additional information about the user-provided device name (device nickname), device type, and the default user.

  • Convert an existing device to a multi-user device in order to share the same device between Bot Runner and Bot Creator users who can then coexist in different sessions simultaneously. (Service Cloud case ID: 00624046)

About multi-user devices | Convert an existing device to a multi-user device | Configure RDP-based deployment for multi-user devices

Supported packages
Package Version
Node Manager 14.1.7079
Application 2.1.0-20200819-064505
App Integration 1.1.0-20200825-070948
Analyze 2.2.4-20200903-113949
Active Directory 2.1.0-20200825-070945
Boolean 2.1.0-20200831-031000
Bot Migration 2.5.0-20200902-045043
Browser 2.1.0-20200825-071008
Clipboard 2.1.0-20200831-031014
Comment 2.1.0-20200831-031015
CSV/TXT 2.3.0-20200825-071131
Database 2.1.0-20200913-060112
Data Table 2.1.0-20200831-031946
Datetime 2.2.0-20200831-031025
Delay 2.2.0-20200831-031026
Dictionary 3.2.0-20200831-031027
Run DLL 3.0.0-20200831-110441
Email 3.0.0-20200901-105426
Error handler 2.1.0-20200831-031055
Excel basic 2.1.0-20200831-031843
Excel advanced 5.0.0-20200909-124042
File 2.2.0-20200831-031057
File & folders 1.1.0-20200907-073046
Folder 2.2.0-20200831-031100
FTP / SFTP 2.1.0-20200825-071155
IF/ELSE 2.1.0-20200825-071156
Image Recognition 2.1.0-20200825-071159
Interactive forms 2.16.0-20200914-151814
IQ Bot 2.1.0-20200901-105449
JavaScript 2.1.0-20200831-031525
Simulate keystrokes 2.3.0-20200901-093759
Legacy Automation 3.1.0-20200831-031532

1.1.0-20200825-071342

List 2.2.0-20200831-031539
Log To File 2.2.0-20200831-031539
Loop 2.1.0-20200831-031540
Message Box 2.1.0-20200831-031541
Migration 2.5.0-20200902-045043
Mouse 2.1.0-20200831-031542
Number 2.1.0-20200831-031551
OCR 2.2.0-20200825-071359
Microsoft 365 Excel 2.1.0-20200825-071452
Microsoft 365 Calendar 2.1.0-20200825-071013
Microsoft 365 OneDrive 2.1.0-20200825-071459
PDF 2.5.0-20200831-031836
PGP 2.2.0-20200831-031838
Ping 2.1.0-20200831-031839
Printer 2.1.0-20200825-071516
Play Sound 2.1.0-20200825-071509
Prompt 2.1.0-20200824-092056
Python Script 2.1.0-20200831-031850
Recorder 2.0.8-20201009-015051
REST Web Service 3.1.0-20200824-092129
SAP 2.2.0-20200825-071614
Screen 2.1.0-20200825-071618
SNMP 2.1.0-20200825-071620
Service 3.0.0-20200821-060952
SOAP Web Service 3.1.0-20200827-210959
String 3.1.0-20200831-031943
System 3.0.0-20200831-031944
Task 2.0.1-20200907-072949
Terminal Emulator 3.3.0-20200831-031950
Trigger Email 1.1.0-20200903-114514
VBScript 2.1.0-20200831-031953
Wait 3.1.0-20200831-031955
Window 2.1.0-20200813-181240
Workload 2.1.0-20200825-071644
XML 2.1.0-20200831-031958
Changed features
Enhanced Capture area action in OCR package

The Capture area action now captures text from the visible area of the screen even if the target area is below the visible screen. Previously, the bot showed an error when the captured area was below the visible screen.

Using Capture area action from OCR package

Bot Scanner update

The Bot Scanner now displays error messages for bots that cannot be migrated to Enterprise A2019 in the summary report.

Analyze Bot Scanner report for migration

Flow view update

A line number is now displayed for each action in the Flow view of the Bot editor.

CSV/TXT package update

The CSV/TXT package processes a space as character. For example, if your CSV or text file includes January, "March, April", then the output is displayed in the following format:

January

"March (space before the double quotation mark)

April"

If the CSV or text file contains the same information but without a space between January and March (for example, January,"March, April"), then the output is displayed in the following format:

January

March, April

Upgrade for resilient bot deployment
After you upgrade the Control Room and Bot Agent to Enterprise A2019.16, scheduled and queued bots are not terminated. This is part of the resiliency improvements where the Control Room and Bot Agent are set in a consistent state. As a result, the device reconnects to the Control Room if there are any network disruptions, and scheduled and queued bots are deployed.
Important: During the upgrade to Enterprise A2019.16, all bots that are running will be terminated. After the upgrade, if the system is in an inconsistent state, restart the Bot Agent so that the system is in a consistent state.
Internet Explorer waits for completion before initiating Recorder action

When you use the Recorder package, the bot now waits for the Internet Explorer browser to finish loading the page before executing any action. This enhances the reliability of the bot by preventing it from failing while the page is loading. For example, the Recorder does not try to search the object before the web page is fully loaded.

Using the Capture action

High availability enhancement

Starting from this release, configure the required minimum three Control Room nodes in an Enterprise A2019 data center cluster for high availability deployment.

High availability deployment

The following table lists the fixed features and the builds in which they were fixed (Build 6463 is the latest build, and Build 6453, and Build 6448 are previous builds). The fixes are cumulatively available in the latest build.
Fixed features
Build number Service Cloud case ID Description
6463 00644915 The Bot Agent now checks for additional SSL certificate from the Windows CERT_SYSTEM_STORE_LOCAL_MACHINE system stores in addition to the Java Credential Store. This allows the Bot Agent to be updated automatically from an earlier release to this release.
6463 00666880, 00670899, 00672441, 00670455, 00672346 Bot files or dependencies are no longer lost when you check in or check out a bot from the private or public workspace. Previously, an error occurred while either checking in or checking out a bot, and the bot files or dependencies were lost and could not be recovered.
6463 00664020 You can now successfully run a bot that contains the Capture action from the Recorder package with both the HTML InnerText and InnerHTML object properties selected.
6463 -- Fixed an issue where the Universal Recorder failed to perform a click, set text, or append text action on the correct control in Google Chrome when a debug window or download bar was open.
6453 00669040, 00669164, 00668923, 669332, 00669473,00671509, 00669178 The Automation Anywhere Elastic Search Service now restarts during the certificate retrieval process when you upgrade from Enterprise A2019.15 to Enterprise A2019.16.

However, if you encounter any issues with the Automation Anywhere Elastic Search Service during the restart, see Automation 360 v.16 upgrade error: Elasticsearch Service fail to start during certificate retrieval process (A-People login required).

6448 00573048 You can now preview table variables in debug mode and validate the bot logic. Previously, watch variables containing Japanese and Chinese characters did not display values in the table variable.
6448 00656475 The Bot Deploy API call now consecutively executes all the runAs users that are set in the runAsUserIds parameter.
6448 00569832, 00628474, 00656267 The device registration issue due to Bot Agent version extraction is now fixed. The exception of "for input string null" no longer occurs.
6448 00609073 You can now successfully integrate your Control Room with your remote Git repository without any error. Previously, the Git integration failed because of a 404 error.
6448 00632444, 00626829, 00667531 When you import a main task containing subtasks using the overwrite option, the dependent subtask references are no longer deleted for other existing main tasks that use the same subtasks. As a result, the execution of other main tasks containing the same dependent subtasks does not fail.
6448 00501208, 00572346 For the Create user event name, the audit log now properly displays the username who created that user in the Event Started By column. Previously, the same column did not display any value.
6448 00616202, 00637626, 00653919, 00664039, 00664744 When the debug log is enabled in logs configuration and you use the For each row in a SQL query dataset option from the Loop action to iterate each row, the iteration now completes without any error. Previously, the iteration failed because of a change in the debug log configuration.
6448 00653064 After the caching service is restarted, the bot execution no longer fails. The caching client instances are reconnected and reinitialized after the restart.
6448 00577612 In a bot with dependencies, if you check out and edit a child bot in your private workspace and later check out the parent bot, you will no longer lose the changes made to the checked-out child bot. Previously, changes made to the child bot were overwritten.
6448 00623154 When a Bot Creator that does not have create folder permission tries to check in a bot to the public workspace, an appropriate error message is now recorded in the audit log, indicating the specific reason for the failure. Previously, the audit log recorded an unexpected error occurred message.
6448 00622977 In the Edit role page, file permissions are now correctly aligned in Internet Explorer. Previously, the Delete from Public option was displayed below the Select all option. As a result, the folder and permissions were not placed next to each other.
6448 00615437 You can now migrate MetaBots that contain input and output type variables with a description containing unsupported characters such as quotation marks (") and forward slash (/).
6448 00636169 The Control Room now disables a user account when the number of consecutive failed login attempts specified in the Control Room settings is reached or exceeded.
6448 00530550 A variable now returns the correct value when the regional setting of the device is set to the Brazilian metric system.
6448 00604893 A bot no longer encounters an error when the system cannot finish pre-processing the bot due to an ignite cache issue.
6448 00578277 An error is no longer encountered when the Connect and Disconnect actions of the SAP package are used in a loop and the iteration is set to more than 500 times.
6448 00635890 The Bot Scanner now scans all the bots in a repository and displays the correct count of child bots.
6448 00634238 You can now use the form builder in Internet Explorer (version 11 or later) to add more items to the Checkbox and Radio Button elements without encountering any issues.
6448 -- For the Select file element, you can now upload a file with a dot (.) in the filename. For example, Sales.March.jpg.
6448 -- Software version notification for Cloud was not always displayed in the UI. This issue is now fixed.
6448 00633793 You can run a bot when the operational parameter is used in the SOAP Web Service action. Previously, the bot encountered errors when the operational parameter was used in the action and the corresponding wsdl file did not have the elementFormDefault attribute.
6448 00630975 Captured images in a nested If action are now retained when you check in a bot to the public repository. Previously, when using any action that used an image in a nested If action, the image nested was missing after the check-in.
6448 00630004 When loop is used to read all Unread emails, the emails are now marked as Read only after emails are read. Previously, all unread emails were marked as read when a Loop Break action was used.
6448 00612913 In Excel Advanced > Remove blank rows, when you select the Specific row option and set A1 as the beginning cell, an error is no longer encountered when you run the bot.
6448 00608265 In the CSV/TXT package, when you use Japanese OS ANSI (Shift-JIS) as encoding to read text file content, the Japanese Shift-JIS characters are now displayed correctly.
6448 00568718 Japanese language supported pop-up messages no longer appear truncated when multiple bots are deleted.
6448 00598023, 00611480 In the DLL package, Run function now works properly and does not display an error or show broken characters when the parameter includes Japanese characters.
6448 00638120 When you upgrade from an earlier version of Enterprise A2019 to a later version and change the If package version to the latest one, multiple conditions now appear in If/Else If after the If package is upgraded. Previously, some of the conditions did not show in the logic.
6448 00632228, 00649606 You can now use the Send Email action when the package version is different in the task and subtask. Previously, the Send Email action in the Email package had issues when the task and subtask had a different package version.
6448 00544219, 00635206 The Get cell action in Excel Advanced can now be used without any error. You can use the Read option to read visible data or the exact value of the cell.
6448 00646254, 00650712, 00653137, 00658122, 00666883 You can now change the package version of the If package. Previously, if there were multiple conditions in the If action, the system did not allow you to change the package version.
6448 00613453 Version 11.3 bots that used the Object Cloning command to find interface objects using coordinates or image recognition are now migrated to Enterprise A2019 with the Mouse > Click action, Simulate keystrokes action, OCR > Capture area action, or Image recognition > Find window in window action.
6448 -- When you run migrated bots that perform mathematical operations on values containing decimals or commas, the output from Enterprise A2019 now matches the output from Version 11.3.5. Previously, an operation that resulted in an output of 0.999 in Version 11.3 resulted in an output of 0.9899999 in Enterprise A2019.
6448 00467664 Fixed an issue where the Universal Recorder entered characters in a text box incorrectly when the user configured the Keystrokes field using a Japanese keyboard.
6448 00630545, 00631418, 00621875 You can now assign input values from a parent bot in the Task Bot > Run action. Previously, an issue caused input values to disappear when a bot containing more than two input values was saved.
6448 -- The Workload In progress activity page now displays the Workload bot name instead of the automation name.
6448 00635306 Fixed an issue where a red error screen appeared if a bot attempted to pass a file variable to another bot.
6448 00635326 You can now run bots built using Recorder package versions from earlier builds.
6448 00616261 You can now pass credential values to the main bot when you deploy it from the Run bot now page.
6448 00647135, 00647652, 00647665, 00647144, 00648742, 00646535, 00648883, 00648980, 00654937, 00657039, 00664049, 00663797, 00664138, 00667384 When you upgrade to the latest version of Enterprise A2019, bots in queued state now run without any issues because a new token is automatically generated when an existing session expires.
6448 00611109 Fixed an issue where the $System:CPUUsage$ system variable returned an inaccurate value.
6448 00647239 In the Data Table package, when you use the Merge action to merge two data tables, the data is now properly merged and the merged content stores the correct data in the result data table. Previously, the Merge action had issues when no header data in a table was extracted, resulting in incorrect data export to CSV file.
6448 00444907, 00556374, 00582469, 00628801, 00624681, 00632668 A bot launcher error for a user session is no longer displayed when you run a bot on a Bot Agent device registered to a user who is assigned developer privileges.
Security fixes
Service Cloud case ID Description
00552076 The vulnerabilities found in Elasticsearch in Enterprise A2019 are now addressed.
00631233 In the Database package, when you connect to the database, the username and password are no longer visible in the logs.
Known limitations
When you are upgrading from an earlier version of Enterprise A2019 to the current version, the system displays the error message Self Sign Certificate Failure, and the installation process is rolled back if both the following conditions occur:
  1. The earlier version was installed on a non-default installation path instead of the default path (C:\Program Files\Automation Anywhere\Enterprise). For example, the previous version was installed on D:\Program Files\Automation Anywhere\Enterprise.
  2. You also select Yes to retain the current installation parameters during upgrade in the message window that appears after the Welcome screen when the installation wizard detects an earlier version.

Workaround: Select No so that you can choose to enter the installation parameters during the upgrade.

Control Room upgrade fails with self signed certificate failure error (A-People login required)

Service Cloud case ID: 00672719, 00673048

When you are upgrading the Control Room to the current version, the installer uses an existing or creates a new Elasticsearch data folder in the default path (C:\ProgramData\AutomationAnywhere\elasticsearch\data) if the Elasticsearch data from the earlier version is saved to a non-default path. Therefore, the earlier Elasticsearch data and audit logs will not be available after the upgrade.

Workaround: Before upgrading to the current version, copy the existing Elasticsearch data from the non-default path to the default path.

When an Automation Anywhere package is manually uploaded using the Control Room interface, the Vendor column should show Automation Anywhere. Instead, the interface displays Unspecified. Automation Anywhere packages that are installed on a server as a part of an upgrade show the Vendor as Automation Anywhere, which is expected.
For existing device sessions, you cannot use the option to enforce the resolution set at either the device or Control Room level. The screen resolution set at these levels only work for new device sessions.
When attended and unattended Bot Runners are run concurrently, attended Bot Runner users are queued until the unattended Bot Runner session becomes available. This occurs even when the number of allowed concurrent sessions is not exceeded. For an attended Bot Runner user deployment, use a single user session to stop them from being queued.
When a user connects to a multi-user device and sets it as their default device, they are taken through the device registration wizard to enable the Google Chrome plug-in. During the registration process, users are allowed to select the device type and the concurrent sessions value. Users must ensure that they set the same value for the concurrent sessions as set by the administrator. If there is a difference in the value, other users will be impacted.
When a bot is deployed through RDP with a predefined screen resolution, the RDP resolution settings are not applied correctly during bot execution. The bot is executed with an interchanged resolution (the height and width pixels are interchanged). For example, if the resolution for bot deployment is set as 1366x768, the bot is deployed with the resolution 768x1366.

Workaround: For information about how to resolve this issue, see Automation 360 v.16 - RDP based deployment does not run bot with pre-defined set screen resolution (A-People login required).

The element label or text appears distorted during bot runtime when you add it in Japanese or any other non-English language, and the Font name is set to System default.

Service Cloud case ID: 00667210

In Excel advanced, you cannot use the Go to cell action if the Excel sheet does not have data or if an active cell is out of the worksheet range. This issue is encountered when you use the Go to cell action and choose the cell option as Active cell with the Beginning of the row, End of the row, Beginning of the column or End of the column option.

Workaround: Use the earlier version of the Excel advanced package 4.0.0-20200723-234413 released with Enterprise A2019.15.

HTTP authenticated proxy is not supported for On-Premises users.

Discovery Bot

New features
Discovery Bot installer integrated with Enterprise A2019 installer

Enterprise A2019

The Discovery Bot installer is now integrated with the Enterprise A2019 installer. No separate installation is required for Discovery Bot On-Premises users. Discovery Bot supports custom installation for Windows.

Prerequisites for Discovery Bot

Create multi-role users

Enterprise A2019

Combine up to three Discovery Bot system-generated roles and two process discovery licenses to provide additional functionality for your users.

Create multi-role users for Discovery Bot

Create custom role user

Enterprise A2019

Create a unique custom role using the permissions from the Discovery Bot standard user roles (Admin, Business user, or Analyst roles).

Create a custom role for Discovery Bot

Manual aggregated view integrated with Dashboard tab

Enterprise A2019

The Manual aggregated view is now integrated with the Dashboard tab. You can now select and display recordings and views from the Dashboard, Aggregated, and Comparison tabs, enabling you to make a change in one tab that will persist across all tabs. This feature enables a synchronized representation of your metadata for views and recordings.

Internalization, localization, and language support for Discovery Bot

Enterprise A2019

Internalization and localization is now supported for Discovery Bot. For example, you can automate and translate the UI for your region in French, Spanish, and Italian, among other languages supported.

Internationalization, localization, and language support

Fixed features
Service Cloud case ID Description
-- You can now sort on the recording ID. The recent recording (ID) created now displays at the beginning of the list in the Recordings table.
-- When editing the aggregated view, you can now move the endpoint upward in the path flow to change the selection of the steps. You can also move the branch endpoint lower in the path flow to include more than one step.
-- You can now select partial steps in a branch, and create and save an opportunity from the Opportunities tab.
-- The copy field now displays the correct view information from the view (view ID) that it is copied from.
00673381 If you are using an instance in an AWS special region, you can now view recordings for users that are successfully completed (not canceled by the user).
Known limitations
When manually editing an aggregated view, if you create a branch in the process flow where a step was deleted, the step will be missing on the left side of the branch. To add a step on the left side, you can drag the branch endpoint (small circle) down (below the next step) in the process flow to add a step back in the branch.

Missing step observed in aggregated view while using A2019.16 Discovery Bot (A-People login required)

When an opportunity is created with 300+ steps, exporting the opportunity to Microsoft Word will fail.
The Convert to Bot option fails when an opportunity contains 140 or more steps.

IQ Bot Community Edition

The IQ Bot Community Edition is available for this release and has feature parity with IQ Bot Version 11.3.4.2.

Automation 360 IQ Bot feature comparison matrix

Automation 360 IQ Bot version compatibility

Important: This new Community Edition includes a preview of IQ Bot with Auto-extraction.
Community Edition for IQ Bot is a special version of our product in the Cloud, available for all users who want to try RPA and IQ Bot at no cost. Users are not required to purchase a license, and there are no time limitations. However, there are some functionality constraints as follows:
  • Users can create learning instances using pre-trained Invoices in English only.
  • Users can create up to a maximum of 5 learning instances per user account.
  • In the Learning Instance list, users can see and access only those learning instances and data created by them.
  • Users can process up to a 100 pages per month for each user account.

Document Automation Community Edition

New features (using auto-extraction)
Create a learning instance

Use a pre-trained invoice (document type) to process and validate your documents in English (only).

Create a learning instance in Community Edition

Extract data from documents

Create a bot to extract data from documents using the learning instance you created.

Validate documents

Validate failed documents manually using the validator form.

Process documents in Community Edition

Bot Insight integration

View learning instance dashboard metrics that is integrated with Bot Insight.

Use the IQ Bot (Preview) package

Use the IQ Bot (Preview) package to process and validate documents using Enterprise A2019.

Changed features
For the Custom Logic feature, the identified list of Python libraries now includes an additional set of safe libraries for IQ Bot Community Edition. Go to Automation Anywhere support for a list of the safe libraries you can use.
Fixed features (using Auto-extraction)
Service Cloud case ID Description
00628958 The Task Bot now successfully processes all documents without displaying any error messages.
Known limitations (using Auto-extraction)
PDF documents with raster format or JBIG2 encoding are not supported.
Workaround: Convert such documents to one of the supported formats before processing your documents for data extraction.
Note: Digital PDFs, JPEG, JPG, and PNG are supported formats.
Rotated documents are not supported.

Workaround: Pre-process such documents to correct their orientation before data extraction.

Only a predefined set of form and table fields are supported. The table header does not support multiple fields in a single column.
During the validation process, if a user deletes all rows from a table, the user is unable to add a new row.
Workaround: Perform these steps:
  1. Cancel the validation user form and open the document again.
  2. Create a new row before deleting the unwanted rows.
Documents that are pending review from Enterprise A2019.15 cannot be validated in Enterprise A2019.16 using the Review documents option.

Workaround: Create a Task Bot using the IQ Bot Validation action in the Enterprise A2019.15 package, and validate the review pending documents.

IQ Bot

New features
Updates to IQ Bot Pre-processor package

On-Premises and Cloud

You can now perform the following tasks using the new actions in the IQ Bot package:

  • Link or combine two images using Concatenate image
  • Adjust the size of the selected image file using Edit image
  • Enhance the image resolution and other aspects using Enhance image
  • Change the image orientation such as angle using Orient image

IQ Bot Pre-processor package

IQ Bot [Local Device] package enhancements

The IQ Bot [Local Device] package now enables you to add custom logic (Python scripts) in the Designer to extend text extraction and validation capabilities.

Add custom logic in IQ Bot to improve extraction

Fixed features
Service Cloud case ID Description
00590165 You can now train the selected document because error messages are no longer displayed when you click Learning instances > See extractions for a group.
-- If you remove a bot (Delete a bot) associated with a document from the staging environment, you must create a group before uploading this document to the production environment. After deleting the bot from the staging environment, you can now create or edit the group when you upload the same document to the production environment.
00601840 You can now view a public bot without any errors when you click BOTS > My bots > PUBLIC in Enterprise A2019.
00672482 You can now validate documents with a large number of fields (more than 100) and navigate between multiple documents without any issues on the .
00648013, 00670191 You can now migrate, export, import, or download IQ Bot learning instance backup (.iqba) files of up to 1.4 GB. The previous limit was 600 MB.
Known limitations
Migration of learning instances does not get completed if the IQBA file size is more than 2 GB.

Workaround: Migration of learning instance is not getting completed if the IQBA is more than 2GB (A-People login required)

In the IQ Bot Designer, sometimes while training documents when the user clicks See extraction results, an error message appears and the user cannot proceed with the task.
You cannot access Cloud OCR through a proxy server in IQ Bot.
In IQ Bot Community Edition, when you click New instance to create a learning instance, the My learning instances page appears and then automatically reloads after a few seconds.

Workaround: Wait until the page reloads before you start entering the details to create a learning instance.

Bot Insight

New features
Power BI connector available as part of Microsoft Power BI desktop

Enterprise A2019 and Community Edition

The Automation Anywhere connector for Bot Insight is now certified and officially a part of the Microsoft Power BI Desktop August release.

Data connector for Power BI

Business analytics support for attended Bot Runners

Enterprise A2019 and Community Edition

Business analytics data is now logged when bots are run with attended Bot Runners licenses. Also, a new attribute User Name is available in the Business Dashboard in Transaction Data. This attribute shows the user who is running the bot.

Changed features
Convert bot duration metric to percentage

In the Device dashboard, when you select the metric as Bot Duration, you have an additional option to convert the bot duration to percentage. This option appears only if a selected group or subgroup is of date type variable.

Operations dashboard

Known limitations
Due to security reasons, you cannot access the following Bot Insight APIs and a 403 forbidden error is displayed.
GET/v2/botinsight/data/api/gettasklogdata
GET/v2/botinsight/data/api/gettaskvariableprofile
DELETE/data/api/deletetasklogdata
GET/data/api/getbotrundata
GET/data/api/getaudittraildata

Automation Co-Pilot for Business Users (Automation Co-Pilot)

Important: This Automation Co-Pilot version is available for all users starting from Enterprise A2019.16.
New features
Assign tasks

Enterprise A2019

Automation Co-Pilot managers and users can now assign tasks. Managers can assign and reassign tasks to any users from teams with an assigned process. Users can assign tasks to other users of the same team.

Assign or unassign a task

Filter and search tasks

Enterprise A2019

Automation Co-Pilot users can now perform the following tasks:

  • Filter, sort, and search tasks for quick results
  • Search task names using Search Title
  • Sort by completed, pending, and unassigned tasks using the Filter option
  • Configure results based on assignee or title using Advanced filter
  • Click a column to sort by ascending or descending orders

Filter and search for a task.

Summarized information of tasks

Enterprise A2019

The Tasks tab in the main page shows statistical insight for the numbers of completed, pending, and unassigned tasks.

Process package

Enterprise A2019

The Process package enables users to create a request inside a specified process from a bot.

Process package

Preview bot

Enterprise A2019

Human Tasks and Bot Tasks now include the Preview bot option, which enables users to quickly preview relevant bot or forms information.

Process editor metadata

Enterprise A2019

Human Tasks and Bot Tasks now accept username and email metadata. Users can enter the name and email values to their process workflow such as $Task.assignedTo{username}$ and $Task.assignedTo{email}$.

Enhancements to roles

Enterprise A2019

The Automation Co-Pilot admin can now assign a process to a team they created and become the manager assigned to that process. The admin can also assign a process to a team they did not create and the manager of that team is assigned to the process.

Administration permission

Enterprise A2019

The Automation Co-Pilot admin and manager are now assigned a new Administration permission by default called View Users and Roles basic information. The admin can now view the process management page to assign or unassign managers.

Changed features
Process management page

The process management page in Automation Co-Pilot on the web is now removed for managers.

Password field in request view

The Password element is now removed when viewed in the request tab.

Fixed features
Service Cloud case ID Description
-- A team name is no longer limited to 20 characters.
-- When you open many request tabs, the navigation bar now functions properly and allows you to navigate to your tabs by using the arrow icon.
-- When you view tasks in the request view, the request and task now show the correct status.
-- The manager can now be removed in the process management page.
-- The bot status in the request view is now represented as a progress bar.
-- The Element name field in the process editor now shows the correct error message when the field contains spaces.
-- When you select the Make field uneditable option for the Checkbox, Date, Dropdown, Number, Password, Radio Button, Text Area, and Text Box elements, the values can no longer be edited.
-- The team management page now shows the Owner column.
-- When number values are entered in a number field, such as a phone number box, the values are now accepted.
-- In the device pool configuration page, the Bot Runner users check box is now selected.
-- The Checkbox and Radio Button elements now support horizontal format.
-- The Document element can now access the Open the doc in browser link.
-- The Number element values are no longer limited to 8 characters and can now be rendered properly when the values contain trailing zeroes, commas, and decimals.
-- When you select the Insert a variable option in the process editor, the Variable field now shows specific variable names.
-- The redo functions now works properly in the process editor.
-- The Text Box element now accepts number-only inputs.
-- The timestamp of the closing step now shows the timestamp of the last step in request view.
-- When you access a public process, the existing variable in the field can no longer be changed.
-- The Masked data option is now fully supported for all elements.
-- When you edit a checked-out process that contains conditional steps with variables, you can now edit and save these conditional steps.
-- When a process is configured with two forms that contain a Dropdown element, the process creation shares the Dropdown element data between the forms. The Dropdown element in the second form now receives data from the first form.
-- The manager can now access their team without encountering any errors.
-- You can now update values in a prepopulated text field in request view.
-- When you create a request and encounter a preprocessing error, the request creation ends and the request view now shows the failed status.
-- The Go To option in the process editor now shows the Human Task or Bot Task name.
-- Users with the Automation Co-Pilot manager and user roles are now automatically redirected to the web interface when they access the Control Room URL.
Known limitations
When you provide your Bot Task and Human Task the same element name, an error occurs for the Go to element, but the process editor does not prompt an error.

Workaround: Create unique element names for your Bot Task and Human Task.

When you create a form that contains a Document element and access your Human Task in the process editor, you cannot assign your variable because the Add element option is not available.
The Display message field in the If/Else pair action does not function correctly when displaying a message in request view.
The titles (Title field) of completed requests in Automation Co-Pilot on the web are replaced by endpoint display names.
When you create a form that contains a Number field set to a 10-character limit and you enter 1234567890 in the number field in request view, the number values are not accepted.
When you create a process with a form that contains a Date element, the Condition option in the If/Else pair action does not allow you to enter a variable.