Automation 360 v.23 Community Edition Release Notes

Release date: 30 December 2021

Review what's new in the Community Edition of the Automation 360 v.23 (Build 11524) release. Build 11524 replaces Build 11513.

Important: Build 11524 includes a fix for the issue of frequent device disconnections caused by either high load or the database being locked.

Automation Workspace

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.

What's new
Microsoft Edge (Chromium) supported for Control Room and Bot Agent

You can now perform Control Room operations, and install and register your Bot Agent device using the Microsoft Edge based on Chromium browser.

Browser requirements for Automation Workspace

Support to automate Microsoft Edge Chromium with Internet Explorer compatibility mode (Service Cloud case ID: 00767502, 00787186)

You can now automate web applications running on Microsoft Edge Chromium, by enabling the Internet Explorer compatibility mode, using the Universal Recorder where the objects are captured using HTML technology.

Record a task with the Universal Recorder

Support for cross-domain IFrames in Google Chrome and Microsoft Edge Chromium browsers (Service Cloud case ID: 00825656)

You can now capture and automate objects inside a cross-domain IFrame in Google Chrome and Microsoft Edge Chromium browsers by using Recorder > Capture or the Start recording option. After you capture an object inside a cross-domain IFrame, the path to the frame is stored in the FrameDOMXPath property, by default.

The new FrameDOMXPath property identifies the path to the frame in which the object is located. You must select this property to run the bot successfully to capture objects on a cross-domain IFrame.

Note: This feature is available for the bots you create using the 2.4.0-20211016-070100 version of the Recorder package starting from this release.

Recorder package

Support for Capture anchor in AISense Recorder

The AISense Recorder now supports the Capture Anchor option. When you run a bot to search for an object in an application in which the anchor changes frequently, you can use Capture anchor to override the default anchor and manually select an anchor to detect the object.

Edit a task recorded using AISense

Enhanced support when selecting Object property in Recorder package

After you capture an object using the Recorder > Capture action, you can now select a particular object property name from the list of available properties in order to retrieve the value of the object property using the Get property action. The list includes suggested property names from the search criteria in the Object Properties table.

Recorder package

File ID supported in Check permission action of Google Drive package (Service Cloud case ID: 00777716)

The Check permission action of the Google Drive package now supports the File ID option to refer to files available in the Shared with me folder of Google Drive. By providing the File ID, you can now verify the Read, Write, or Delete access granted to you in the Shared with me folder of the Google Drive files.

Google Drive package

New Credential package

You can now use the Assign action in the Credential package to assign an insecure string or a variable directly to the credential variable.

Credential package

Web Services security supported in SOAP Web Service package (Service Cloud case ID: 00481836)

As a Bot Creator, you can now provide credential variables in the raw data of the SOAP Web service action. You can create a credential variable, map the credential with a reference name in the credential mapper, and use the reference name in the raw data. Because this ensures that all security-related data can be defined in the Credential Vault and the credentials can be used in bots, you can safely deploy tasks without compromising security.

Example of using the SOAP web service action

New option in SOAP Web Service package

Use the Build Xpath option in the SOAP Web Service package to extract values from the SOAP response. You can now specify the Xpath expression or select the appropriate node from the response body and store the output in a variable.
Read email from shared mailbox in Microsoft Outlook (Service Cloud case ID: 00728579, 00831622)

To automate email-related tasks, you can now select a shared account in Microsoft Outlook so that email messages can be read from the shared mailbox.
New encoding types supported in the Write to file action of Data Table package (Service Cloud case ID: 00767158)
When you use the Write to file action to write data from a Table type variable to a CSV or TXT file, you can now use the following encoding types from the encoding list:
  • UTF-8: Works as UTF-8 without BOM
  • UTF-8 with BOM (called UTF-8 previously)
  • UTF-16LE
  • Shift-JIS (Japanese encoding)
Auto-save functionality in Bot editor
In the Bot editor, when you use actions to build an automation, when a bot is not manually saved, an auto-save is performed and the bot now automatically saves the changes for specific events.
Note: The auto-save functionality is currently available only for specific events.
Some of the events that support auto-save functionality are as follows:
  • Recorder: When you create a bot with certain actions and click Recorder, the event is saved, and when the recording is complete, the event is automatically saved.
  • Variable manager: When you create or edit a variable to insert it in an action, the changes are saved.
    Note: The auto-save functionality is not supported when you delete a variable or insert it by pressing F2 to open the variable list.
  • Actions menu (vertical ellipsis): When you select any action from this menu, for example Packages, the event is saved automatically. When you make any change to the Packages page and return to the Bot editor, the event is saved.
  • Find a file: When you click the Find a file icon, the bot is saved if it is not manually saved. Also, after you click the Add option, the bot is automatically saved.
  • Dialog boxes: When a dialog box is opened, it is automatically saved if any changes are made.
    Note: Auto-save is triggered only for top-level dialog boxes and not for nested dialog boxes.
  • Deleting variables: When you delete unused variables, the event is saved.
  • Bot name change: If you edit the name of a bot, the event is saved.
New option in FTP / SFTP package (Service Cloud case ID: 00792346)

Use the Credential option when you connect with the Secure FTP server type to automate a task. You can now use username and password for authentication.

Connect action

Enhancement to AISense Recorder

AISense Recorder now supports automation of applications that use Brazilian-Portuguese and a combination of Brazilian-Portuguese and English interfaces.

AISense for recording tasks from remote applications

Enhancements to Number package
  • In the Random action of the Number package, you can now specify and limit the number of decimal digits required in the random number generated in the output.
  • The existing Save the outcome to a number variable field is now renamed as Save the outcome to a variable.

Number package

Enhancements to Wait package
Use the new Capture region feature in the Wait for screen change action of the Wait package to capture a specific region on an application by drawing a rectangle around it so that the bot automatically captures the coordinates of this region. You can perform the following actions:
  • Capture a specific region on a Windows application.
  • Preview the captured image in the Preview window.
  • Recapture a region if the image in the Preview window is not per user requirement.
The coordinates are renamed as follows:
  • Left is now X
  • Top is now Y
  • Right is now Width
  • Bottom is now Height

Using Wait for screen change action

Enhancement to String package

In the Extract text action of the String package, you can now extract a substring from a specified source string that occurs more than 1000 times in a file and up to a maximum limit of 999999.
Enhancement to File conditions in If package

You can now use the new File extension condition from the Condition list in the If package to check the extensions of files and then execute actions based on the results.
Enhancement to Excel advanced package (Service Cloud case ID: 00799071)

Use the Open action of the Excel advanced package to open files with .ods, .htm, .html, .mht, .mhtml, .slk, and .pdf extensions.

Excel advanced package

Global session support for loop iterator based on Excel advanced

You can now use the Global session option when you loop through each row in an Excel advanced worksheet. Use the Global session option to share a Microsoft Excel session across multiple bots so that you can use the same Excel worksheet across these bots.

Using the Open action for Excel advanced

New APIs for devices
You can now allocate default devices by using the new APIs introduced in the v1/Devices section. Choose to set or not set a specific device as the default deployment device for a specified user by using the following APIs respectively:
  • /runasusers/default
  • /runasusers/default/unset

Automation Co-Pilot for Business Users

What's new
New query filter in Query Requests and Query Tasks actions

Use the new filter now available in the Query Requests and Query Tasks actions of the Process Composer package to filter query requests and tasks by team name in the Automation Co-Pilot web interface.
Team name filter

You can filter your tasks and requests by team name in the Task and Request pages in the web interface, respectively. Select the Team label from the filter and search by team name to view the teams assigned to a task or request.

Filter and search for a request | Filter and search for a task

Support for audit logs (Service Cloud case ID: 00801166)

You can now view the audit logs and refer to events relating to requests, teams, scheduler, process setups, bot setups, human tasks, and bot tasks that you have created, deleted, updated, submitted, or recovered.

Audit log

Enhancement to user task assignment in Human Task
In the process editor, the Auto-assign this task option in Human Task provides the following alternatives:
  • The user who created the request: The task is automatically assigned to the user creating the request in the web interface.
  • The user who opens this task: The task is automatically assigned to the user who opens the task in the web interface.
This feature helps to reduce conflicts in assigning a task to oneself, particularly in case of specialized users such as Validator for whom the action of opening a task is equivalent to assigning the task to oneself.
Enhancement to team setup
You can now simultaneously add multiple users with similar roles (custom role) to the Automation Co-Pilot team in the web interface. The custom role in the Control Room is now aligned with a team in the Automation Co-Pilot web interface, and the enhanced team setup works as follows:
  • The users added with the role are assigned a Member role in the team. The role cannot be changed to Owner or Admin.
  • You cannot view these users in the Users tab of the Team page.
  • If a user is both part of a role and added manually to the team, their role in the team will be the same as the role assigned to them manually. For example, if a user is a member, they will continue to have the Member role whereas if the user is an owner, they will be assigned the Owner role in the team.
  • If the user is no longer part of a role, the user will also not be a part of the team.

Also, the Team page is now enhanced with navigation options at the top so that you can navigate through the various tabs (General, Users, Roles, Processes, and Bots). Use the General, Users, and Roles tabs to create teams and add users to them. The Processes and Bots tabs display the processes and bots assigned to teams, respectively.

Team management | Create a team and assign roles to team members

Bot setup support

The Automation Co-Pilot Admin can use the Bot Setup page to view the bots that are assigned to a team, assign teams to a bot, and edit bots to remove or reassign teams. Attended Bot Runners who can view all the bots that are checked in to the Public workspace can now view the bots that are assigned to teams in Automation Co-Pilot Desktop Assistant.

Bot setup for Bot Runner users

Enhancement to the form logo

You can now use the Logos in footer field to select up to two separate logos that are displayed in the footer of the form during bot runtime.
Add rules to various form elements
When you are creating or editing a form in the form builder, you can now add rules to the following form elements by using the Form rules tab:
  • Checkbox
  • Date
  • Document
  • Dropdown
  • Label
  • Number
  • Password
  • Radio Button
  • Rich Text Editor
  • Text Area
  • Text Box
  • Time

For the Checkbox and Radio Button elements, the rules are triggered only if the corresponding presets are selected. For example, if a form has two mutually exclusive options, such as Yes and No, the rules associated with these options are triggered only when you select one of the two options.

Conditional actions, rules, and elements

Updates to triggers

The following triggers are now available to run a bot:

  • Process trigger: Starts a bot when the status of the specified process in Microsoft Windows meets one of the following preset conditions:
    • Starts
    • Stops

    Add a process trigger

  • Service trigger: Starts a bot when the status of the specified service in Microsoft Windows meets one of the following preset conditions:
    • Starts
    • Stops
    • Resumes
    • Pauses
    • Is running
    • Has stopped
    • Is paused

    Add a service trigger

  • Window trigger: Starts a bot when the specified application window meets one of the following preset conditions:
    • Opens
    • Closes

    Add a window trigger

Discovery Bot

What's new
Install Bot Agent seamlessly

If you have not already installed the Bot Agent, you are now prompted to install the Bot Agent from the Processes tab. Follow the screen instructions to install the Bot Agent. After the installation, you are prompted to enable a Chrome plug-in in order to proceed with your recording tasks.

Prerequisites for Discovery Bot

Enhancement to auto-generated opportunities

You can now begin reviewing an auto-generated opportunity from the Opportunities tab when at least one process recording is submitted for review. Review the auto-generated opportunity and choose to create a custom opportunity from an auto-generated opportunity, as required.

Review opportunities, convert to bot, and generate PDD

New recordings for review for custom opportunity

You can now review new recordings submitted by a Discovery Bot user for a custom opportunity. You can choose to accept or dismiss the recording updates as part of the custom opportunity work flow. This option allows you to quickly and easily review new recordings in real time as the recordings are submitted by the user for that process.

Review opportunities, convert to bot, and generate PDD

Enhancements to Opportunities page

The opportunities page is now updated to include an opportunities evolution map, along with other graphs, to help you review and analyze data for a potential opportunity for automation. Use the opportunities evolution map to help guide you on which opportunities to automate first.

Analyzing opportunities for automation

Download PDD document from the Recordings page

You can now download and export a PDD document from the Recordings page. After you submit a recording for an analyst to review, the PDD begins processing in the background automatically. When the PDD is generated, the field changes from Processing PDD to Download. You can now choose to download the document in Word format, PDF, or both. An email notification to the business user is also sent to the email address on file. The Download PDD for Word or PDF document is also available for a custom opportunity from the Opportunities list table.

Review opportunities, convert to bot, and generate PDD

Limitations
In the Community Edition and Free Trial version, if five processes are created by the user and then deleted, the auto-generated opportunity will fail when the recording is submitted for the sixth process.

Workaround: Create a new Community Edition and Free Trial user to create new processes and opportunities.

IQ Bot

What's new
Document Automation released in Community Edition

Community Edition now offers limited features from the Document Automation version. This version is integrated with the Community Control Room. When you create a learning instance, IQ Bot automatically creates RPA bots to extract and download the data and an Automation Co-Pilot process to manage the end-to-end process. Validation now takes place in Automation Co-Pilot tasks.

Use IQ Bot Community Edition to extract data from invoices in English.

Document Automation Community Edition

Classifier enhancements

You can now create custom document groups in a learning instance. This reduces the possibility of an OCR failing to detect fields in a document, which will cause the Classifier to create a document group unnecessarily or send the document to a wrong group.

About the Classifier