Community Edition A2019.17 Release Notes

Release date: 13 November 2020

Review the new features and supported packages in the Community Edition A2019.17 (Build 7103) release. IQ Bot is on Build 7082.

Community Edition A2019

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

New features
Connect to EWS server with OAuth authentication

A new authentication is available for the Exchange Web Services (EWS) protocol with OAuth. You can use the OAuth authentication and enable your EWS-managed API applications to access Exchange online in Office 365.

Using Connect action in Email package

VT220 terminal type supported in Terminal Emulator

To establish a connection and communicate with another machine, you can now use the VT220 terminal for sending and receiving text.

Using Connect action for Terminal Emulator

Enhancements to the Recorder
  • Record a task using the Universal Recorder or AISense Recorder from a single point of entry. Both recorders are now managed through a single package, which enables faster and more efficient updates.
  • You can now record tasks in a Microsoft Edge browser that runs on Chromium (versions 79 and later).
  • Use the AISense Recorder Define option to capture an object that is only visible when you hover the mouse over the object.
  • Use the Resize window option in the Recorder > Capture action to set the window width and height.

    This option delivers a more reliable bot. It resizes the window to the dimensions at which the task was recorded, thus increasing the likelihood that the bot identifies the target object.

Recorders | Universal Recorder supported applications and browsers | Using the Capture action

Use shared session in Terminal Emulator

Use the new Shared session option to pass the exact state of an application to a concurrently occurring Task Bot or MetaBot logic. For example, instead of connecting to the same application multiple times for different tasks, you can use the option to connect to the application using a single task, thus optimizing your automation logic in the long run.

Share session between Task Bot logic

Share an Excel session between bots

Use the Set session action from the Excel basic or Excel advanced package to assign an Excel session to a variable, and then pass that variable from a parent to a child bot. This enables the child bot to access the worksheet opened in the parent bot.

Excel basic package | Excel advanced workbook operations | Example for sharing an Excel session between bots

New option for Run Task

In the Task Bot package, you can now use the Run action with an option to repeat the selected task until you choose to stop it.
New search for roles in User Management API

Use the new Search for roles API in the User Management APIs in Swagger to obtain a list of all the roles or details for a specific role.
Capture response status of REST API

In the REST Web Service package, you can capture the response status of the REST API in the dictionary variable. The dictionary variable now shows the response key with its value.
New option for REST Web Service (Service Cloud case ID: 00489741, 00646436)

Use the Capture failure response action in the REST Web Service package to capture response details in the response body.
Use regular expressions in packages

You can use regular expressions (regex) in certain actions to support pattern-based search in a file, folder, or Windows title. Regular expressions are supported in the actions of the File and File and Folder packages such as Copy, Delete, Rename, Print Multiple files, and Zip.

You can also use regular expressions in some packages that support the wildcard character in their window titles.

The following packages and actions support regular expressions:

  • Wait
  • Image Recognition
  • Simulate keystrokes
  • Mouse > Click action
  • Legacy Automation > Manage windows control
  • OCR
  • Screen
  • Recorder > Capture
  • Run DLL > Run function (Legacy), Run function
  • Window: Activate, Close, Maximize, Minimize, Resize

Using Copy Desktop file action for file | Using the Capture action

Support for overloaded functions in DLL package

The DLL > Run function action can now handle .dll files that contain multiple functions of the same name. The action calls the function based on the number of parameters passed.

Using the Run function action

New actions for SAP captured objects

Use new actions that are available for Tree, Tab, and Label controls to perform operations for the various objects captured from an SAP application.

Recorder actions supported in various SAP versions

Store multiple lines of text in a string variable

You can use a string variable containing multiple lines of text in the following actions:

  • String > Assign
  • String > Extract text
  • String > Compare
  • String > Lowercase
  • String > Replace
  • String > Reverse
  • Log to file
  • Message box
  • The string condition in the If, Wait, and While actions
Arabic, Japanese, and Russian characters supported in variable names

You can now create variables with names containing Arabic or Russian characters, or Japanese double-byte numbers.

Unicode range supported in variables

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

New features
View previous selected tasks

Automation Co-Pilot users can now reference selected actions of their tasks. When they view a submitted task in request view, a check mark indicator is now displayed next to the buttons that are selected.

Run a process in private workspace

You can now run a process in your private workspace by using the Run option in the process editor. The bots in the process are then executed on the default device of the Bot Creator.

Process Composer

Use variables types

You can now use new variables in the process editor such as createdOn and updatedOn (DateTime), id (Number), and title (String). These variables are part of a data flow (workflow engine) that moves data between each step of a process and requires variable input for the process to run properly.

Supported variable types in Process Composer

Use the Data Privacy tag field

The Data Privacy tag enables users to generate hidden custom output in their process tasks (Start panel, Human Task, and Bot Task). Users can enter the variables for this field during runtime with values. In the web portal, the Automation Co-Pilot admin can use this tag to check for requests or tasks by using personal user data. The admin can also filter using this field.

Create a process automation in Process Composer | Filter and search for a request | Filter and search for a task

IQ Bot

New features
Support for Arabic language
When creating a learning instance, you can now choose the Arabic language from the Primary language of documents drop-down menu, with the following limitations:
  • Advance table extraction is not available.
  • Search field on the is not supported.
  • Arabic numerals are not supported.
    For example, if the document has date or time in Arabic language, it is extracted as text and validations can fail.
    Note: You can still use string-based validation checks (such as regular expressions) for Arabic numerals.
  • Arabic is only supported on ABBYY FineReader Engine 12.4.

Creating a learning instance

Default validations for a group

When editing a learning instance, you can now use the Select the default validations group drop-down menu to select an available group. This allows all the new group documents in production to be extracted based on the custom logic and validations defined in this selected group, before it goes to the Validator.

Edit a learning instance

Fixed features
Service Cloud case ID Description
- You can now create and edit a bot even if a document associated with a deleted bot appears in production. Previously, if a bot was deleted and a document associated with it appeared in production, you could not create a new bot.

Bot Insight

New features
New Automation Co-Pilot dashboard in Bot Insight

Use the Automation Co-Pilot dashboard to view various widgets that provide information about requests created from published processes in Automation Co-Pilot. The dashboard also provides statistics on the status of created requests.

Automation Co-Pilot dashboard

Supported packages

Package Version
Application 2.1.0-20200921-085720
App Integration 1.1.0-20201014-042506
Analyze 2.2.4-20200903-113949
Active Directory 2.1.0-20200921-085716
Boolean 2.1.0-20201014-042509
Bot Migration 2.5.0-20200902-045043
Browser 2.1.0-20201002-123733
Clipboard 2.1.0-20201014-042520
Comment 2.2.0-20201014-042520
CSV/TXT 2.3.0-20201014-082525
Database 2.2.0-20201013-052941
Data Table 2.3.0-20201030-143334
Datetime 2.2.0-20201014-042531
Delay 2.2.0-20201014-042532
Dictionary 3.2.0-20201014-042532
Run DLL 3.2.0-20201105-205159
Email 3.1.0-20201104-062204
Error handler 2.2.0-20201014-042541
Excel basic 2.3.0-20201027-160012
Excel advanced 5.1.0-20201027-155758
File 3.1.0-20201016-065515
File & folders 1.1.0-20201023-202725
Folder 3.0.0-20201016-065517
FTP / SFTP 2.1.0-20200921-085757
IF/ELSE 2.1.0-20200921-085758
Image Recognition 2.1.0-20201014-042552
Interactive forms 2.17.3-20201102-103733
IQ Bot 2.1.0-20201013-095304
JavaScript 2.3.0-20201104-062431
Simulate keystrokes 2.4.0-20201021-163833
Legacy Automation 3.2.0-20201104-062439

1.3.0-20201105-151906
List 2.2.0-20201014-042806
Log To File 2.2.0-20201014-042806
Loop 2.1.0-20201014-042808
Message Box 2.1.0-20201014-042808
Migration 2.7.0-20201106-072418
Mouse 2.1.0-20201014-042814
Number 2.1.0-20201014-042823
OCR 2.2.0-20201104-062503
Microsoft 365 Excel 2.2.0-20201104-062559
Microsoft 365 Calendar 2.1.0-20200921-085726
Microsoft 365 OneDrive 2.1.0-20201014-042924
PDF 2.5.0-20201014-042929
PGP 2.2.0-20201014-042931
Ping 2.1.0-20201014-042932
Printer 2.1.0-20200921-090131
Play Sound 2.1.0-20200921-090123
Prompt 2.1.0-20200918-081201
Python Script 2.3.0-20201105-204912
Recorder 2.0.9-20201105-164103
REST Web Service 3.1.0-20200928-231420
SAP 2.2.0-20200921-090209
Screen 2.1.0-20201014-043037
SNMP 2.1.0-20201014-043041
Service 3.0.0-20200921-090214
SOAP Web Service 3.1.0-20200921-090219
String 3.1.0-20201014-043052
System 3.0.0-20200921-090225
Task 2.0.1-20201023-202703
Terminal Emulator 3.4.0-20201028-021451
Trigger Email 1.1.0-20201105-152220
VBScript 2.3.0-20201105-205228
Wait 3.1.0-20201014-043117
Window 2.2.0-20201022-121649
Workload 2.3.0-20201105-205233
XML 2.1.0-20201014-043121