Automation 360 v.21 Release Notes

Release date: 09 June 2021

Review what's new and changed, and the fixes and limitations in the Automation 360 v.21 release. Automation 360 (Cloud and On-Premises) is on Build 9664. Automation 360 IQ Bot Cloud is on Build 9664 and On-Premises is on Build 9642.

Patch release updates

We have updated Automation 360 Build 9664 (Cloud and On-Premises) for the following fixes:
  • Process deployments containing forms with empty table, check box, or text box are failing after the Automation Co-Pilot Cloud build is updated from the previous release to this current release (Service Cloud case ID 00788255).
  • The layout of the request view page changes when another language other than English is selected (Service Cloud case ID 00772925).
  • Warning messages in the process editors render garbled characters due to missing UTF-8 encoding (Service Cloud case ID 00781891, 00784947).
  • Users (with the attended license) are not redirected to the Automation Co-Pilot Desktop Assistant application due to users (without the attended license) trying to connect to the Automation Co-Pilot Desktop Assistant application beforehand on the same device.
  • Not able to capture keystroke actions on an application using the Universal recorder (Service Cloud case ID 00785310).
  • Files were missing from the embedded resource folder, causing issues in using the Recorder package (Service Cloud case ID 00767315, 00777786, 00775209, 00788523, 00797261, 00795511, 00785246).
  • Bot deployments are getting stuck in a queue after Automation 360 Cloud is updated from the previous release to this release (Service Cloud case ID 00784333, 00784890, 00784382, 00784338).
  • Cloned bots are losing their dependency when they are checked-in (Service Cloud case ID 00780756).
  • The recording duration was not updated correctly under Process Cycle on the process card, and the recorded steps were not captured by the recorder (Service Cloud case ID 00790884, 00781022).

Updating to this release

You can update the Automation 360 v.21 release from the previous three releases (that is, from n−3 releases, where n refers to the latest release). The following previous releases are certified for update to this release:

  • v.20 (Build 8815)
  • v.19 (Builds 8147, 8145, 8122, 8098)
  • v.18 (Build 7560)

You can directly update to v.21 from any of these builds. For details on how to update, see Update Automation 360 to latest version.

Note: If you are not on an n−3 release, update Automation 360 to one of the three certified releases before updating to this release.
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.

Enhancements to browser extensions: The Automation 360 extensions for Google Chrome (version 1.2.0.0), Microsoft Edge (version 1.2.0.0), and Mozilla Firefox (version 1.2.0.2) now include the following enhancements:
  • Support for HTML buttons and text actions in Interface trigger
  • Enhancements to the default search criteria for text boxes and check boxes using Recorder package.
  • Fixes for capturing objects with characters not valid in XML using the Recorder package.
  • Fixes to the Discovery Bot recorder with default browser (Google Chrome) search page.

Migration features

Enterprise 11 and Enterprise 10 features
New system role to perform migration

Assign the AAE_Bot Migration Admin system role to the user who will perform migration. This role contains all the permissions required to view and manage the bot migration process. Using this role eliminates the manual effort of creating custom roles, selecting the required permissions, and assigning them to the users who perform the migration.
Enhanced bot runtime window

When you migrate bots using the Bot Migration Wizard, the bot runtime window now shows the name of the Enterprise 11 or Enterprise 10 bot file that is currently migrated.
You can now migrate bots with the Open webpage in a new window and Open a webpage in an existing window settings.
You can now migrate Enterprise 11 and Enterprise 10 bots with multiple versions of a DLL.
Enterprise 11 only features
MetaBot screens: Custom objects and play mode enhancements
  • Custom objects within the Image play mode are now fully supported.
  • Linked objects are now captured.
Enhanced Hide/Show option in Control Room

For bots available in the Control Room (the My bots folder), a filter is available to hide or show older .mbot and .atmx files displayed in the window.
Global values for SAP

The migration process creates the JcoDllPath and JcoJarPath global values of type string to support migration of SAP BAPI.
Enhanced Database action functionality

The Database action now supports connecting to Oracle databases using SID and or Service_name. In previous releases, only connecting with SID was supported.
New email variable strings

New email sent and received string variables are available for the Loop, Import DataSet, and Export Dataset actions to insert sent values for date and time.
Enhanced Microsoft Exchange Web Services support

The Send function in the Email package supports EWS OAuth2.0, improving backward-compatibility.
Enterprise 10 only features
Migrate MetaBots screen with Password type variable

You can now migrate Enterprise 10 bots based on the MetaBot screen, which uses the Password type variable. During the migration, the logic (.logic file) in the .mbot file is migrated as a new Task Bot within the MetaBot folder. Also, the Password type variable is migrated as a credential variable and is assigned to a predefined locker.
Migrate Task Bots based on MetaBot Screen and DLL assets without using Logic

You can now migrate a Task Bot that references the Run MetaBot action for the MetaBot Screen and DLL assets directly, without using the MetaBot Logic. So you can migrate a Task Bot that contains MetaBot Screen and DLL assets.

Automation Workspace

What's new
Automation 360 navigation enhancements

We have enhanced the overall readability and accessibility of the Automation 360 interface. To make navigation easier, menus and views are organized based on frequently used features and related tasks.

The interface includes the following updates:
  • The Device, Profile, and Help icons are now located at the bottom of the navigation menu, consolidating all controls on the left for easy access.

    When you click these icons, flyout panels of content and actions are shown.

  • The side navigation menu can be collapsed to a slim bar to maximize the main workspace area.

    You can continue to use the side navigation in collapsed mode, with flyouts for each section.

Automation 360 navigation updates

Authenticate database connection with Microsoft Azure Active Directory credentials (Service Cloud case ID 00676448)

You can now authenticate the Control Room database connection using Microsoft Azure Active Directory credentials when you install the Control Room on Microsoft Azure.

Configure Microsoft database type and server

External Key Vault enhancements

External Key Vault support for AWS Secrets Manager and CyberArk for Auto-login and Automation credentials has been added to Automation 360. Auto-login credentials and Automation credentials (credentials used by bots) can now be retrieved from the configured external key vault.

Integrate external key vaults

Deploy workload automation on a multi-user Windows terminal server

To optimize workload automation and multi-user devices, you can deploy workload automations on a multi-user Windows terminal server so that a single device can process multiple work items concurrently.

About multi-user devices | About device pools

Control Room and Bot Agent compatibility checks for automation

To manage the lifecycle of your automation, you can view dependency information about minimum compatible Control Room and Bot Agent versions when you create and deploy automations. You can then update your automation and reduce runtime errors caused by an incompatible Control Room or Bot Agent version.

Actions to build automations

New actions in the SAP BAPI package

Use the following new actions:

  • Run standard workflow: Runs a standard workflow in SAP BAPI.
  • Run custom workflow: Runs a custom workflow in SAP BAPI.

SAP BAPI package

New actions in File package

Use the following new actions:

  • Get name: Reads a file name and stores it to a string.
  • Get path: Reads the path of the file and stores it to a string.

File package

Common table expression supported in Database package

You can now use common table expression (CTE) in the Read from action using the WITH keyword in SQL-compliant databases such as Oracle and MySQL. Use CTE statements within a SQL query to simplify complex joins and subqueries.

Using the Read from action

Support for large numbers in Number package (Service Cloud case ID:00557619)

You can now perform mathematical operations for large numbers with more precision in the Number package.

Number package

Snowflake database support using OBDC driver (Service Cloud case ID:00761695)

Snowflake OBDC driver is now supported in the Database package. You can connect to the Snowflake database using ODBC-based client applications.

The following actions support this feature:

  • Connect
  • Disconnect
  • Read from
  • Export to data table
  • Insert/Update/Delete
Variables: new features and enhancements (Service Cloud Case ID:00740585)
  • Edit the variable name after the variable is created.
  • Delete all or a specific selection of unused variables from a bot.
Universal Recorder new features and enhancements
  • Record object interactions in applications built on the Electron framework.
  • Perform double-click in all supported applications and browsers.
Limit credential attribute use to password fields only (Service Cloud Case ID:00740585)

When you create or edit a credential attribute, ensure that bots input the attribute value only in fields that are identified as password fields by selecting the Set this attribute as a password option.
Organize device pools to check for available devices in a preferred order

If you select multiple device pools (either in the Run now or Schedule window), you can now arrange the device pools in the order of preference. When a bot is deployed, the Control Room selects the first available device based on the order in which you organized the device pools. If none of the devices are available at the time of deployment, the bot is queued.
Default names for output variables

When you configure an output variable for the actions in the Error handler and Python Script packages, the Control Room automatically generates a descriptive default variable name. If you create more than one output variable for an action, the subsequent variable names are appended with a -1, -2, -3, and so on to avoid a variable name conflict.
New string action to support nested variables

Use the String > Evaluate value action to compare a user-specified string variable with the string variables in the bot. If a match is found, the action returns the value of the matching variable.

String package

Delete Global values

A user with the AAE_Admin role can delete a global value from the All global values page.

Global values

String package enhancement

A new option to support local numbering styles is now available in the String package. You can now select your local format, represented by ISO-3166.
Dependent files and package information in Export package audit details

In the Audit details of an exported package, you can now view the list of dependent files and packages associated with the exported package. This feature enables you to analyze what the exported package contains and identify any discrepancies. If you chose to include packages during an export, then only the package information is included in the audit details.
ODBC driver support for all connection strings (Service Cloud Case ID: 00748887, 00777676)

An Open Database Connectivity (ODBC) driver is now available to support all the ODBC connection strings in the same way it was used in the Enterprise 11 version. Using SQL as a standard for accessing and managing data, you can connect to MySQL, Google BigQuery, Snowflake, and other databases using the ODBC driver.
Share a DLL session

You can now share a DLL session between bots.
New CredentialAllowPassword annotation

Use the new CredentialAllowPassword annotation in the package SDK to allow the selection of a credential attribute marked as a password. You can use this annotation when creating a new SDK package or when modifying an existing one.

Configure and use credential allow password annotation

Enhancements to check-in, check-out, and cloning permissions (Service Cloud Case ID: 00645904, 00720237, 00752197, 00760306, 00764684)
  • When performing a check-in, you can now choose the dependencies to check in along with the bot. Directly referenced dependencies will be automatically checked in with the bot.
  • When a bot is checked in along with a cloned bot and there are no other bots dependent on the clone, the cloned bot is now deleted.
  • When performing a check-out, you can now choose the dependencies you want to check out with the bot. The dependencies that are not selected during the check-out are now cloned.
  • During check-out, you can now overwrite or replace a cloned bot.
Bot Agent installer includes shortcut for Automation Co-Pilot Desktop Assistant

A shortcut to access Automation Co-Pilot Desktop Assistant easily is added on the desktop and Windows menu when you install a Bot Agent.

Install Bot Agent and register device

What's changed
Bot Scanner shows invalid bots in "cannot be migrated" list

The Bot Scanner is updated to show invalid bots as blocked from migration because these invalid bots were failing before and after migration. For example, Enterprise 11 or Enterprise 10 bots that referenced non-existent variables failed. So some bots will no longer be shown in the can be migrated list of bots but will instead be shown in the cannot be migrated list in the output report. This can decrease the number of bots that can be migrated to Automation 360.
Change in names of file locations and folders

File locations and folder names are now updated for the change in product name (from Enterprise A2019 to Automation 360). For example, the file location for the default installation path is changed from C:\Program Files\Automation Anywhere\Enterprise\ to C:\Program Files\Automation Anywhere\Automation360. We will be updating these locations and names on our documentation pages soon.

Source string is optional in Split action (Service Cloud case ID: 000687257, 00702258)

In bots (including bots migrated from Enterprise 11), when you use the Split action in the String package, the Source string field is now optional. You can run the bot without providing a source string value. Migrated bots that contain empty input strings now execute successfully.
Mandatory prerequisites validation before migrating bot

When you migrate bots using the Migrate bots option in the Bot Migration Wizard, a prerequisite validation message appears with a checklist of all the validation items. The system now validates these prerequisites automatically to ensure that all prerequisites are met before you start the bot migration. Previously, validating prerequisites was optional.

If the prerequisite validations are completed with a failure, a validation report appears with the list of items for which validation failed. If the prerequisite validations are completed without any failure, the bot migration is started.
Change in default Control Room database name

The default Control Room database name is now changed from AAE-Database to Automation360-Database.

If you are updating from an earlier release to this release, enter your existing Control Room database name to preserve your data.
Microsoft SQL Server clustering for high availability

You can now use Microsoft SQL Server clustering for automatic and graceful failover of high availability deployments in Control Room clusters.

Database requirements

Bot Agent nickname is hidden

The nickname of a Bot Agent (added during installation) is now hidden when you switch the registration of a user device from one Control Room instance to another.
User interface change in the Open action of Excel packages

In the Excel basic and Excel advanced packages, the Sheet contains header check box now appears below the Select file field.
User interface change in the Variables palette
  • The User-defined variables list is now named Your variables
  • System, String, and Clipboard variables are organized within Predefined variables
Digits with comma considered a valid number (Service Cloud case ID: 00623458)

In migrated bots, a set of digits that uses a comma is now considered a valid number. This change enables you to successfully verify mathematical operations and If, ElseIf, and Loop variable conditions containing various operators.
Date comparison works with dates in different formats (Service Cloud case ID: 00723479)

Date condition actions are now successfully migrated to the equivalent date conditions in On-Premises. The date condition now works with multiple subformats of the main format (MM/dd/yyyy). Therefore, you do not have to manually change the date format per the source format of the migrated bots that contain date strings.
Use string value with numeric operators

Migrated bots that contain If or While actions that use string values or a variable containing a string value with <, <=, >, and >= numeric operators now run successfully.

Enhancement to Extract field action in PDF package

Use the PDF viewer in the Extract field action to extract all the form field data and selected text, and store the form data to variables.

Using the Extract field action

Connect automatically to SQL server for Windows authentication (Service Cloud case ID: 00691554)

When you update the Bot Agent, you no longer have to add dll files manually to connect to the Microsoft SQL Server using Windows authentication.

Previously, users had to manually add dll files to configure devices and use the Connect action from the Database package to connect to the Microsoft SQL Server with Windows NT authentication.
Enhancement to Active Directory mapping

You can now create AD groups using commas in the naming on the AD server side and the Control Room side. Previously, this caused an error.
Enhancement to the Split action of String package

Migrated bots now run successfully when the Split action is used to split a string available in an input variable and that variable is empty.
The following table lists the fixes and the builds in which they were fixed. Build 9664 is the latest build for Cloud and includes fixes from the previous builds. On-Premises is on Build 9664.
Fixes
Build Service Cloud case ID Description
9664 00803314 The following issues are fixed in the latest version of the Cloud Migration Utility:
  • The utility checks the current version of your Enterprise 11 Control Room and proceeds only if that version is supported for migration to Automation 360.
  • The utility displays the target tenant information on the successful validation screen when you navigate to the migration code screen.
  • An error is no longer encountered when access is provided to: https://aws.amazon.com and https://aa-provsvc.globalservices.automationanywhere.digital/
  • The utility uploads all the required data to Automation 360 Cloud.
9664 00790884, 00781022 The recording duration for a process is now correctly displayed under Process Cycle on the process card. Previously, you were not able to view the recording duration because of a delay in the network connectivity. You can now view all recorded steps captured by the recorder from the Recordings page.
9664 00785310 You no longer encounter any issue when you use Universal Recorder to record keyboard actions on an application. The Universal Recorder now captures the value of keystrokes properly. Previously, the Universal Recorder captured only the first value of the keystroke.
9664 00767315, 00777786, 00775209, 00787736, 00797261, 00795511, 00796245, 007956217, 00798533, 00795084 You no longer face issues because of global cache expiry and partially deleted files in the embedded-resources folder (C:\ProgramData\AutomationAnywhere\GlobalCache\embedded-resources) when you install a Bot Agent for this release and capture objects in Google Chrome using the Recorder package.

Note that, if the Bot Agent device has embedded resources folder partially deleted, you must first delete the global cache and update the Bot Agent.
9664 00796598 When you run workload bots with queue on Bot Runner devices, the bots do not fail intermittently after Automation 360 Cloud is updated from the previous release to this release.
9642 -- Control Room instances configured with Active Directory for authentication with the retrieval of credentials from an external key vault were unsuccessful due to incorrectly prepending domain names in object names (CyberArk) and secret names (AWS) and caused authentication to fail. This issue is now fixed and object names (CyberArk) and secret names (AWS) are now properly formatted.
9637 00784333, 00784890, 00784382, 00784338, 00780635, 00791587, 00795559, 00795632, 00797130, 00797113, 00791783 Bot deployments are no longer stuck in a queue after Automation 360 Cloud is updated from the previous release to this release.
9637 00780756 You can now check in bots that have a shared dependency with other bots successfully. Previously, check-in failed because of an issue with the cloned bots losing the dependency during check-in, irrespective of their existing parent bots.
9595 00733638, 00756399 Bots that use a variable to specify the child bot to run no longer encounter an error because the variablized path contains a backslash.
9595 00711390 The retry mechanism now enables you to migrate large .atmx files. Previously, when a large .atmx file was migrated, the connection with the Control Room became stale or unauthenticated, resulting in a NoHttpResponseException error. With the retry mechanism, the Migration utility attempts to build a connection with the Control Room 5 times until the connection is successfully rebuilt.
9595 00730369, 00747866 Recorder actions now work properly, which enable you to run the migrated bot without any delay. Previously, it took a longer time to run the bot due to a long delay.
9595 00733383, 00754559 The Loop counter variable now works properly for migrated bots. The variable is now migrated as part of the XML and the Data Table commands.
9595 -- When updating the SQL queries on a migrated bot using the Read from and the Insert/Update/Delete actions of the Database package, the existing format of the query is no longer automatically modified. Previously, when editing the SQL queries on a migrated bot, the characters were being misplaced.
9595 00721238 You can now use the Browser action to access a URL with parameters using the Microsoft Edge browser. Previously, when a URL with parameters through the Browser action was accessed using Microsoft Edge, the URL parameters were truncated from the & (ampersand) character after the bot was run.
9595 00721488 Enterprise 11 bots that use the Get multiple nodes command no longer provide a different output after migration. Previously, the migrated bot returned output per the structure of the XML file, while the Enterprise 11 bot provided output in a single line.
9595 -- You no longer encounter an issue when you run bots migrated from Enterprise 11 that use identical names for variables differentiated by a hyphen or an underscore (for example, L-Lower and L_Lower). The variable name that contains a hyphen is now appended with some keywords (for example, variable Arr-val is updated to Arr-val-MIG-SPL-25). Previously, bots failed to execute after migration.
9595 00729931 After migration, when the bot file is generated, the correct DOMXPath is now migrated. Previously, an incorrect DOMXPath was migrated.
9595 00738643 The If and Loop conditions when used in a combination of multiple AND or OR conditions now works properly. Previously, using the If and the Loop conditions with multiple conditions resulted in a bot logic error.
9595 00743808, 00754554 Migrated bots that use the If command with a variable in the HH:MM format now work properly and no longer encounter any issue.
9595 00678059 You can now download exported packages if the bot name contains Japanese characters and an underscore (_). Previously, if the name contained such characters, an unexpected error occurred that restricted the user from downloading the package.
9595 -- When you run a migrated bot that contains the Excel Advanced > Find action, the found cell is now active and subsequent actions can perform operations on that active cell.
9595 00731512 You can no longer edit a bot and change the bot repository file path from the public to private folder by updating the Control Room URL and repository path in the browser.
9595 00734059 INFO type messages are no longer duplicated in the Control Room WebCR.log file.
9595 -- When you install a Bot Agent at the user level, the user device is now registered as admin.
9595 00744663, 00747831, 00737488, 00752613 You can now successfully export a bot that contains the Recorder package.
9595 00726433 Fixed an issue with Microsoft Graph APIs that caused errors when a bot downloaded files from OneDrive. Bots can now successfully run the Office 365 OneDrive > Download file action.
9595 00703553 When a new user is created, the Audit API now returns the correct values for the eventDescription and userName parameters.
9595 00729563 The atmx file extension is no longer case-sensitive. You can now migrate tasks that include uppercase or lowercase letters in their file extensions. Previously, tasks with uppercase letters in their file extensions were not migrated by the Bot Migration Wizard.
9595 00740548 Bot status is now correctly displayed after a process is executed. Previously, scheduled bots were occasionally mislabeled as In progress activity even though the bot had completed the process.
9595 00731508 You can now enter Nordic characters in the credential attribute and credential variable values.
9595 00695176, 00692676 Newly copied bots containing an event trigger now run when the triggering event occurs.
9595 00759742 When you insert a variable in a text string, the variable is now inserted at the cursor position. Previously, the variable was inserted at the end of the string and not at the cursor position.
9595 -- You can now successfully deploy bots from the Bot editor. Previously, when the Bot Creator or Bot Runner (attended or unattended) user logged in to the Control Room and if the package download option was enabled, the package download took priority and bot deployment had to wait until the package download was completed.
9595 00730211 When you use the Recorder package > Get property action to extract the path property of the object, the recorder now retrieves the value of the height and path attributes of the captured object. Previously, the height and path attributes of the recorded object were not retrieved by the bot.
9595 00716793 An issue is no longer encountered when you execute a bot using the SOAP Web Service package with unformatted input parameters. Previously, bot execution failed with an error because the unformatted input parameters were not formatted in XML format by the bot.
9595 00706709 In the Email package, when you use the Outlook connection to retrieve emails with the date filter, all emails are now retrieved correctly. Previously, all the emails were not retrieved from the application when the date filter was applied.
9595 00714292 To support double backslashes (\\) in the file location for actions that use file input, you must now set the Bot compatibility version as 2 in the Advanced settings page of the Bot editor. Previously, the bot execution failed because the double backslash (\\) in the file location was replaced with a forward slash when you select a network path using Browse option.
9595 00697460 When you select the recorder in the If condition, the recorder now locates the object in the Oracle EBS application and captures the correct object properties without any error. Previously, the recorder failed to find the object when captured in the If condition.
9595 -- In Microsoft Edge or Firefox, when a bot opens a website inside a loop, the Recorder Capture action now works properly after the launch website operation is executed. Previously, the action failed after launch website was executed.
9595 00710257 In the Recorder package, the Capture action now works without encountering any issues. Previously, the Recorder failed with a timeout error because the network proxy details were not retrieved.
9595 00735480 A Task Bot now performs better when you use the Loop action to execute a bot. Previously, the Task Bot took a long time to complete execution.
9595 00559868 When you use Datetime package > Assign action to convert a DateTime variable using the custom format dd-MMM-yyyy, the bot now executes without any errors. Previously, the bot execution failed due to case-sensitive characters in the DateTime format.
9595 -- Migration of PaaS database (Azure SQL) connection strings by using an ODBC driver is now supported.
9595 00733651 You can now view the average time spent to create a Task Bot metric in the Control Room on different pages when you click a page number.
9595 00742305 When you turn off one node on a three-node cluster and log in to the Control Room, the following error is no longer displayed: Cluster group is empty.
9595 00712190, 00698197, 00700574 When you deploy a bot with string values that exceed the allowed limit of 2 - 4 MB, the Control Room recognizes it as an exception and now shows the following error message: 400 Bad Request.
9595 00754585, 00755448 When you run a bot, dependencies including the child bots are now downloaded. The bot no longer shows an unknown status and session as expired.
9595 -- When you now migrate the Database command, no additional configuration is required.
9595 00745046 You can now check in your bots without encountering any issues. Previously, bot check-in failed because the Git repository was corrupted intermittently.
9595 00677638 When you add a user device as the default device in the Control Room, the Devices page now automatically displays it as the default device. You no longer have to re-log in to the Control Room or refresh the Control Room page.
9595 00733370 Users signed in to temporary (non-persistent) shared devices can now sign in to the Control Room after a previous session on the temporary device is deleted by the Control Room administrator.
9595 00736950 MetaBots using Japanese characters (double-byte string) as the output variable can now be successfully saved and executed after the MetaBots are migrated to On-Premises using the migration wizard.
9595 00723924 The Terminal Emulator type ANSI now accepts a password that contains braces or {}. Previously, when braces were used in the password, an invalid username and password error message was shown in the terminal screen.
Limitations
(Service Cloud Case ID: 00797199) If multiple instances of Bot Agent in Google Chrome browser are displayed and multiple Google profiles (accounts) are open in the browsers, you might not be able to use the Recorder > Capture command. You might see an error message that informs you that the Google Chrome plug-in not installed.

Workaround: Automation 360 supports only a single profile for automation. Therefore, we recommend that you either configure a single Google profile in Google Chrome or, if you are using multiple profiles simultaneously in Google Chrome and want to automate one profile, enable the Automation 360 extension for Chrome on only one of the Google profiles.
(Service Cloud Case ID: 01071731) When you open a CSV or TXT file, read data from that file, and write the data from a Table type variable to the file, the bot fails with an error if the CSV or TXT file contains large data sets. Also, Create folders/files if it doesn't exist and Override existing file check boxes are selected in the Write to file action.
Workaround: Perform one of the following:
  • In the task, when you use the Open action for a CSV or TXT file, select the Contains header check box to prevent your bot from failing.
  • Use the Excel advanced Open action to open a CSV file and then use the Write from data table action to write data into the file.
(Service Cloud case ID: 00793818) If you edit a large number of schedules simultaneously (for example, more than 40) in the Control Room from the Scheduled activity page, the schedules will not be activated.

Recommendation: Use the edit option for each schedule to avoid overwhelming the scheduler.
(Service Cloud case ID: 00805571) When the Bot Agent is automatically updated for Cloud deployments, the status of the Bot Agent flickers (changes) between Connected and Updating on the Devices page. The Bot Agent logs indicate that the auto-update process is initiated, but the device does not connect to the WebSocket server.

Workaround: Delete the local database file AA-DB.mv.db from C:\Windows\System32\config\systemprofile\AppData\Local\AutomationAnywhere and restart the Bot Agent service. If auto-update is enabled in the Control Room settings, the Bot Agent will be updated automatically. Note that if the setting is disabled, you have to update the Bot Agent manually.

If a device or Bot Agent service restarts when you are running bots, the bots are shown as Active in the Activity page instead of Failed because of response schema changes in the product.

Workaround: Delete the AA-DB.mv.db file from C:\Windows\System32\config\systemprofile\AppData\Local\AutomationAnywhere and restart the Bot Agent service. The deployments stuck in Active state will be moved to the Historical page and will be marked as Failed so that subsequent deployments can continue to run.
Intermittent issues occur with the execution of scheduled bots where some existing schedules behave inconsistently or some newly created schedules disappear. The new feature to set the priority to High has been reverted to address this occurrence. For users who have used this feature in Build 9637 or earlier and have updated to Build 9664, the schedules work without the relevance of the priority setting.

Workaround: If you encounter these issues, split large scheduled automation to smaller schedules of 2 hours each to run throughout the day. For example, reconfigure an automation that is scheduled for a 12-hour period such as 9 AM to 9 PM daily to two-hour intervals such as 9 AM to 10:59 AM, 11:00 AM to 12:59 PM, and 1:00 PM to 2:59 PM. We strongly recommend that you use 2-hour intervals in such deployments. Further recommendations for schedules and time intervals: any schedules with a lower time frequency ( < 10 minutes) should be spaced out to at least 10 minutes (Service Cloud case ID 00792385, 00785679, 00795915, 00793147, 00794555).
Known behavior for configured ports on multiple instances

When you install the Control Room and configure the database, the ports for multiple instances should match the TCP ports configured in TCP/IP properties. For example, for the first instance if the configured TCP port is 1434 and for the second instance the configured TCP port is 1435, ensure you add 1434 as the port for the first instance and 1435 as the port for the second instance during Control Room installation.
The Universal Recorder has the following limitations when capturing objects in Electron apps:
  • The Check action in a check box is not currently supported.

    Workaround: Use Toggle, Click, or Left click instead.

  • The Universal Recorder cannot capture tabular data.

    Workaround: When the Universal Recorder captures an object control of Client, select the GetAllChildrenNames action and store the data to a list variable.

  • The Universal Recorder might capture the window containing Microsoft Teams as a Client technology, instead of the intended object.

    Workaround: Close and reopen Microsoft Teams.

  • The Universal Recorder only supports object capture from Electron apps in a computer that has the display scale configured to 100% or has a DPI awareness setting.
If the maximum number of allowed activeMQ connections is exceeded, an AMQ failure can occur when running a RunTask automation that is looped 5 times, with each loop running 20+ bots after the fourth loop.
External key vault

The Create/Edit User configure options still include the field permitting the administrator to enter the device credentials for the user. When auto-login is configured for the external key vault, these fields are still viewable and appear editable; however, the credentials added have no effect on the auto-login credential retrieval from the external vault.
You might observe an increase in CPU usage by about 10 percentage when the Control Room is in an idle state (Service Cloud case ID 00801733).
When you update the Control Room on Linux from Automation 360 v.19 or v.20 to Automation 360 v.21, the Control Room continues to display the interface from the previous version.

Workaround: Refresh the browser to load the user interface in the new version.

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

What's new
Automation Co-Pilot Desktop Assistant for attended Bot Runners

The Automation Co-Pilot Desktop Assistant application enables users with the attended Bot Runner license to access their bots without logging in to the Control Room. Automation Co-Pilot web users can use the Automation Co-Pilot Desktop Assistant when the attended Bot Runner license is enabled along with their Automation Co-Pilot User license without impacting their existing functionality.

Automation Co-Pilot Desktop Assistant

Download, delete, or view files in browser in initial forms or tasks

Users can now use the Select File element to download files that are uploaded to the initial forms or tasks, and they can also delete files or access the hyperlink file to view the file in within the browser. The uploaded file can be accessed as a hyperlink, and new icons are available for download and delete.

Enhancement to team roles

The Automation Co-Pilot team consists of three roles:

  • Member: Can create, view, and delete their own requests. All the tasks are automatically assigned to the member when they create the request in a private team. In a shared team, the member can assign tasks to other members.
  • Owner: Can create, view, delete, and assign all the requests from the members in the team.
  • Admin: Can create, view delete, and assign all the requests from the members in the team. The admin can also modify the team.

An Automation Co-Pilot admin or manager can edit their teams and update their team members' roles. They also have the option to add or remove team members. The Automation Co-Pilot manager is the team admin by default when they create a team.
Enhancement to creating requests

A request can now be created either by a user or by a bot in the Edit Process page.

  • Choose the by user option to view the process in the Processes page.
  • Choose the by bot option so that the request is created either by a bot or by another process using the Process Task.

    You cannot view the process or create a request with this option. Because the request is created from within a team, specify the default team in the Default team to take the bot created request field in the Edit Process page.

Assign a team to a process

Assign to me feature in tasks

When a task is unassigned and users access the tasks, use the Assign to me option to allow the tasks to be assigned to the current user so that they can immediately access the form.

Assign or unassign a task

New Bot page

When Automation Co-Pilot team members with attended Bot Runner licenses access the web interface, they are automatically redirected to Automation Co-Pilot Desktop Assistant. Users can view all the bots created by them on this page. They can also pin, search, and sort their assigned bots.
New team reference in Request and Process pages

The user can now reference the team from which a request is created by referring to the new Team column in the Request page or the team name added in the process tile in the Process page, to help guide their team assignment.

New Request Visibility field (Service Cloud case ID: 00718119)

Request visibility enables users to allow or restrict access to a request they created to other team members. When the Request Visibility field is set to Shared, all the requests are accessible by all members, owners, and team admins. If the field is set to Private, the requests are available only to the user who has created the request, owner, and the team admin.
Enhancement to the Processes page

The following enhancements are available on the Processes page:

  • Sort the processes by name, in ascending or descending order.
  • Toggle the pinning of a process.
  • Use the responsive view to adjust the display to the screen size.
Cloud storage usage

Based on the maximum file and storage sizes, users who upload files can use cloud storage. The quota for storage is as follows:

  • The size of the file uploaded using the Select File element cannot exceed 25 MB.
  • By default, the storage can store a maximum of 100 MB of data.
  • It is extended to an additional 1 GB for every Automation Co-Pilot user license allocated.
Copy process to URI feature

The Automation Co-Pilot admin can use the new Copy process to uri to clipboard feature in the Process setup page to obtain the URI data and share with team members as reference when they enter the URI data to the Create a Request action.

Process Composer package

Add rows from header row context menu

Only the header row is displayed when a form that has a table is launched during bot runtime. Use one of the following methods to add new rows to the table:
Support for interface triggers on Google Chrome

Interface triggers are now supported on the Google Chrome browser for the following actions during bot runtime:

  • When you click a button element in a form
  • For Got focus and Lost focus actions in a text box
  • When a preconfigured hot key is used with the Got focus action in a text box

Add an interface trigger

What's changed
Changes to teams and processes

For users who had access to processes, when they update to the latest Automation 360 version, their existing teams remain the same but is now set to a shared team type, regardless of their existing team assignment. Automation Co-Pilot users and managers are now converted to member and admin team roles, respectively. While any existing processes assigned to your team are shown as Team Migrated for Process after the update.

For Automation Co-Pilot managers (process manager) who could create requests without assigning process to teams. After the update, the Automation Co-Pilot managers must create teams, ask the Automation Co-Pilot admin to assign teams to a process in order to create new requests.

Processes have the by user option set by default for teams to view a process. You must choose the by bot option to have request be created by bots or another process.

Automation Co-Pilot for Business Users on the web interface | Assign a team to a process

Update to Auto Assign feature
  • In the Human Task, you can no longer use the auto-assign feature to assign the task automatically to the manager. You can auto-assign the task to the user who created the request.
  • The option to assign the target task to the manager is now removed from the Go to element.

    You can now override the previous auto-assign setting by selecting the Override task assignment setting option in the Go to panel by either unassigning the task or assigning the task to the user who created the request.
The following table lists the fixes and the builds in which they were fixed. Build 9664 is the latest build for Cloud and includes fixes from the previous builds (including Build 9604). On-Premises is on Build 9664.
Fixes
Build Service Cloud case ID Description
9664 00788255 After updating from v.19 to this release version, processes containing forms with the Table, Checkbox, or Text Box element now execute successfully. Previously, if the process contained a form with an empty table, check box, or text box, it failed during execution if no changes were made in the form.
9664 00772925 The layout of the request view page no longer changes when the user selects a language other than English.
9664 00781891, 00784947 Warning texts in the process editor now render correctly with UTF-8 encoding.
9664 -- Users with the attended license are now correctly redirected to the Automation Co-Pilot Desktop Assistant application when they log in from the same device where a user without the attended licenses tried to access the application beforehand.
9604 00765406 When you enter more than four number values with a comma in a Number element field in the initial forms or tasks, the field can now accept the large number value without issues.
9595 00719862 In the Team Setup page, you can now view the members of your team and check if the member count is consistent with the number of team members.
9595 00738934 Users can now view, upload, download, or delete their files when they add the Select File element to forms to complete tasks in the web interface.
9595 00767008 When you upload a file with the Select File element in your tasks, the bot now downloads your file through the Get Storage file action without issues.
9595 -- Long text for the label name of Radio button and Checkbox elements in a form is now displayed completely.
Limitations
(Service Cloud case ID: 00831376) When you use the storage service to upload or download files from the web interface, the download is redirected to an AWS and GCP presigned URL. You will not be able to download files unless you add the AWS and GCP URLs to the trusted list.
Workaround: You must add the following URLs to the trusted list in order to download:
  • AWS: https://<bucket-name>.s3.<region>.amazonaws.com/
  • GCP: https://storage.googleapis.com/<bucket-name>/
(Service Cloud case ID 00789181) When a bot is deployed in Automation Co-Pilot and the deployment is not completed even after an hour, the bot fails and the status changes to failed in Automation Co-Pilot. However the same bot still executes in the Control Room.

Workaround:

Choose one or both of the following options:

  • Define an adequate duration for your bot execution.
  • Increase the size of your device pool.
For On-Premises, when you log in to Automation Co-Pilot Desktop Assistant application as a non-attended user, it shows an error as expected. However if you use that same credentials, or credentials from another non-attended user, and log in again to the application, it takes you to the web interface page.
Workaround:
  1. Log in to the Automation Co-Pilot Desktop Assistant application as an attended user.
  2. First, log in to the web interface (aari/#/assistant URL) then log out without changing anything in the browser. Second, navigate to the Automation Co-Pilot Desktop Assistant application on your desktop and log in as an attended user.
The Teams column in the Process setup page is not automatically updated when the Automation Co-Pilot admin adds or removes their team in a process.

Workarounds: Use the following options on the Process setup page:

  • Click the Refresh the list option.
  • Click the browser's refresh option to reload the page.
  • Navigate to another tab then return to this page.
When you use the Process Task in the process editor, you cannot use the Public folder option in the Select process file field because adding a public process as a dependency to the private process is not supported.
When users use the Image element to render images, the images does not render external images in the request view when users run their tasks.

Discovery Bot

What's new
Sort for a process tile from the Processes page

You can now use the sort field to help you locate a process tile quickly. From the Processes page, use the drop-down menu to sort on a process tile based on the process name in alphabetical order. Alternatively, you can sort in the order of the newest process created to the oldest process and vice versa.

Create a Discovery Bot process

Enhancements to opportunities

You can now review and analyze automatically generated (or system-generated) opportunities immediately from the Opportunities page. Auto-generated opportunities are created when at least two recordings are approved by the user. You can create a custom opportunity from an auto-generated opportunity and apply the Model and Filter options to target a specific opportunity for automation.

You can now prioritize opportunities based on a simple formula for all recordings in a process. From the Opportunities table, you can view the cost without automation and savings for an opportunity. The system automatically calculates the cost and potential savings for each opportunity generated. You can customize these metrics based on your organization's model for cost and savings.

Review opportunities and convert to bot

Generated PDD files are available on your local server

The generated PDD file for an opportunity is now stored locally on your server for On-Premises deployments. The existing PDD files are automatically moved to the new location and are not deleted when a re-installation or update is performed in the Control Room.

Prerequisites for Discovery Bot

Fixes
Service Cloud case ID Description
-- Double-click, drag-drop, click and hold, and text select are now supported when you are recording a business process.
-- When you record a process with more than 1000 steps, the Recordings page now displays the process without any delay. Previously, the Recordings page took some time to load.
Limitations
The Control Room installer for Red Hat Enterprise Linux (version 7.7 or 7.9) does not include the Discovery Bot package.

Workaround: Log in to the Control Room as an admin, select Manage > Package > Upload and upload the Discovery Bot package. The package is included in the list of default packages.
  • Cloud users: When an opportunity is created with 50 steps, the Download PDD option is disabled and the PDD is not available for download.
  • On-Premises users: When an opportunity is created with 100 steps, the Download PDD option is disabled and the PDD is not available for download.

IQ Bot

What's new
IQ Bot standard forms
Create learning instances using the standard forms, which use an existing pretrained model and classification for extracting a large number of data fields from structured documents that typically have less or no variations in the layout.
Note: Standard forms are currently available only as a beta feature.

Using IQ Bot for standard forms

Additional learning instances for IQ Bot Process documents action

Use the new Azure 3.2 and japanese_Tegaki learning instances for the IQ Bot Process documents action in the IQ Bot Extraction package.

Using IQ Bot Process documents action

What's changed
IQ Bot file paths
File locations and folder names are updated to use the new product name. For example:
  • The default installation path is changed from C:\Program Files (x86)\Automation Anywhere IQ Bot A2019\ to C:\Program Files (x86)\Automation 360 IQ Bot\.
  • The default log path is changed from C:\Users\Public\Documents\Automation Anywhere IQ Bot A2019 to C:\Users\Public\Documents\Automation 360 IQBot Platform.
Provider column on Learning Instances page updated

The Provider column in the Learning Instances > My learning instances page is now updated to display a list of all available OCR engines associated with the corresponding learning instance.
Enhancements to IQ Bot Extraction package

IQ Bot Extraction package now supports the following OCR engines:

  • Microsoft Azure Computer Vision OCR engine 3.2

    This significantly improves the OCR extraction from Chinese language documents.

  • Tegaki API OCR engine

IQ Bot Extraction package

Enhancement to IQ Bot security (Service Cloud Case ID: 00677507)

You can now further improve security in IQ Bot by configuring RabbitMQ v3.8.18 communication through a secure SSL/TLS channel. Set secureRabbitMQCommunication = true in the system.properties file and then restart all IQ Bot services, including RabbitMQ v3.8.18. By default, this flag is set to false.

This enhancement also fixes an issue that caused a RabbitMQ v3.8.18 security vulnerability.
Reuse the name of a deleted learning instance | Automation 360 IQ Bot On-Premises

While creating or editing a new learning instance, you can now reuse the name of a learning instance that was deleted. Ensure you backup the documents in your Output folder before deleting a learning instance. You can then clear the documents of the Output folder before creating or editing a new learning instance with the same name.

If you have not cleared the documents from the Output folder for the deleted learning instance, you cannot download the contents. However, you can download only the documents processed by the new learning instance.
Support for Microsoft Azure SMB

IQ Bot now supports Microsoft Azure files storage system using the SMB (Server Message Block) protocol. You can now also install IQ Bot using the shared folder configured with SMB and access the output files from the same directory.
Switch between databases without re-installing IQ Bot

You can now switch between configured databases without re-installing IQ Bot using the SwitchDBServer.bat utility.

To use this utility, perform the following steps:

  1. Download and extract the SwitchDBServer.bat utility from the <IQBot installation Dir>\Configurations folder, and then open the command prompt in this directory.
  2. Run the batch (.bat) file with an IP address or hostname of the destination DB server.

    Example: SwitchDBServer 171.xx.xx.11

The following table lists the fixes and the builds in which they were fixed. Build 9642 is the latest build for On-Premises and includes fixes from the previous build.

Fixes
Build Service Cloud case ID Description
9596 00777932, 00766332 While you update to this IQ Bot release, the output path from the previous version is now retained during installation.
9595 00686444 When exporting learning instances from one environment to another, IQ Bot now updates the visionBotId in the exported data. So you can now edit bots in the destination environment without any errors.
9595 -- Duplicate table row entries in the Validator are now significantly reduced due to the improved table extraction logic.
9595 00651057 IQ Bot can now connect to Control Room Ignite cache without any errors. This fixes an issue where all learning instances were not displayed.
9595 00616038 When you update or restart Control Room, error messages are no longer displayed when you use the link or click Explore IQ Bot to open IQ Bot.
9595 00668412, 00644948, 00717414 When you now upload a document in production, deadlocks no longer occur in the system and documents are correctly sent to the Validator.
9595 00651572, 00650959 If no files are available in the Output\Successful folder and you click the Download all documents action, IQ Bot now displays the correct error message.

9595 -- Documents in Chinese (Simplified) language are now processed successfully without any issues.
9595 -- If you add a blocked library to a custom Python logic and click Test Run for any field, an error message is no longer displayed on the Designer page.
9595 -- The Enterprise 11 IQ Bot command can now be migrated to the Upload Documents action in Automation 360 IQ Bot. Therefore, you no longer have to manually create bots when you migrate the learning instances.
Limitations
IQ Bot Cloud: If you do not access IQ Bot within the configured Ideal time out value set on the IQ Bot server:
  • A message to restart IQ Bot is displayed.
  • Bots using IQ Bot APIs fail when the server is restarted.

Refresh the IQ Bot web page after some time (more than 5 minutes) to log in to IQ Bot.
When you create a learning instance, if the PDF that you upload contains small fonts, the document is classified as an image. If you use the PDFBox OCR to create a learning instance for a multipage document, the segments are not displayed.

Workaround: Turn off the PDFBox OCR.

For a standard forms learning instance, when you try to download output files and at the same time send frequent API requests to that database, the system might stop responding.

Recommended: When using the standard forms learning instance, wait for the files to be downloaded. After the download, ensure you allow some time (> 60 seconds) between the API requests.
If an incorrect configuration is used to create the providerVersion file of a standard forms learning instance, an error message is displayed when you move this learning instance to production.
Note: Ensure you use valid configurations.
If you use a bot associated with a standard forms learning instance to upload a large number of documents, some of the documents are not processed.

Workaround: Because this issue might be caused due to a timeout, try to upload the documents after some time.

If you have used an earlier version of IQ Bot (11.x) to move documents to the Validator, you cannot download these documents when you migrate to this Automation 360 IQ Bot version.

Workaround: If you are migrate to this version, ensure you clear all the documents in Validator.
When you use the Download all documents or Upload Document actions from the IQ Bot package, the upload and download can fail as the proxy settings specified in the Control Room are not used.
If you manually delete any .csv file from the Success folder, other files in the folder might not be downloaded when you use the Download option.

Ensure you do not manually delete any files from the Success folder.
Only SQL authentication is supported when you use the Migration Assistant tool to migrate from IQ Bot 11.x to Automation 360 IQ Bot.
If you have a document with a large number of pages (> 100), an error message is displayed intermittently when you click See extraction results for an existing learning instance.
The unclassified documents count in Staging results and Production results in the Summary tab of a learning instance might be displayed incorrectly.
On the Validator screen, if incorrect values are used to update a field on which you have applied validations, an alert is not displayed when the focus is lost from that field.
If any of the available number fields include parenthesis or (), the selected system identified region (SIR) on the document panel changes to a hyphen (-) when you click the extracted value.
If you use the name of a deleted learning instance when creating a new learning instance, both the instances are listed in the Learning instance name drop-down menu of the Upload document action when a bot is created.

Workaround: Click the new learning instance to remove the old learning instance from the list.

If you use the Tesseract4 OCR during IQ Bot Extraction package updates, there is a delay in the document processing time and throughput results.
For a learning instance created with standard forms, if the extraction is not successful for the Field options > Optional field, the value set in Default value is not assigned to that form field.

Workaround: Use Python script from the Logic tab to set the value that must be assigned as the Default field.
(Service Cloud case ID: 00601790) For documents processed using the IQ Bot Extraction package, document details such as Documents processed and Pages uploaded are not displayed correctly in the Dashboard page.
As the Preview2 version of the Microsoft Azure 3.2 is deprecated, if you have used the Microsoft Azure 3.2-Preview2 OCR engine to create a learning instance, the documents will be unclassified.
Workaround: Ensure that you replace all occurrences of Microsoft Azure 3.2-Preview2 with Microsoft Azure 3.2:
  • In Azure3OCREngineSettings.json file, change Version: v3.2-preview.2 to Version: v3.2. You can then update the OCR engine version by uploading this file to database using API

    How to change OCR Settings in IQ Bot (A-People login required)

  • In the IQ Bot Installation > Configurations folder, update Azure3ContainerOCREngineSettings with Microsoft Azure 3.2. This is for the containerized deployment of Microsoft Azure 3.2 OCR engine.
(Service Cloud case ID: 00799842) When you process vector-based PDF documents in IQ Bot, the OCR results are sometimes inaccurate. For instance, in some cases, spaces between words are missed in the extracted data.This might happen because of reasons related to the document that you uploaded or the tool that you used to generate the PDF file.
Workaround: To process your vector-based PDF document successfully, perform either of the following steps:
  1. Convert your vector-based PDF document again to a vector-based PDF document by using a tools such as Adobe Acrobat.
  2. Convert your vector-based PDF documents to a raster file format, such as TIFF.
Important: For information about the packages supported with this release, see Packages available in Automation 360.