Automation Co-Pilot for Business Users v.30 release

Review what's new and changed, and the fixes and limitations in Automation Co-Pilot for the v.30 release.

Note: Information about package updates (such as what's new, changed, fixes, and limitations) is available on package-specific pages. To access these pages, navigate to Package updates overview > <package-name> updates.

For a consolidated list of packages updated in this release, see Packages updated in v.30.

What's new

Approval task element added to Process Composer
The approval task is a new element in the Process Composer that dedicates a step to the process where a selected or default user must review and approve the process before completion. By adding an approval task, a single process can streamline contributions from multiple users and complex hand-offs (such as group approvals).
  • You can configure one or multiple users to approve a task. Add Approval Task to a process automation.
  • In Automation Co-Pilot, users receive relevant notifications as the status and assignment changes.
  • In Automation Co-Pilot, the improved task view displays the status and contributors of tasks to quickly filter and view requested and pending approvals.

Approvals in Automation Co-Pilot
New User group variable type

You can use the new User group variable type to configure a single role or team into a single global value.
Ability to start a process using input variables in Process Composer

As a Pro developer, you can create and add input variables to start a process without having to build a form as the point of entry. You define input variables directly within the process itself which is particularly useful if your process requires complex variable types such as a dictionary, table, or list.

Add input variables to a process automation

What's changed

When local desktop automations are run from Automation Co-Pilot, the progress bar on the activity page now displays an accurate completed percentage for the executing automation. Previously, an indeterminate progress indicator was used.
Improved form capabilities of the Automation Co-Pilot embedded widget

The Automation Co-Pilot embedded widget has been enhanced to allow data mapping for processes and attended task bots using Javascript PostMessage API to facilitate the communication.

The embedded widget transfers data as expected with the addition of referrerPolicy=”origin” in the iFrame tag. Previously, some HTTP requests were missing Referer header data that blocked data mapping.

Map host data to Automation Co-Pilot forms
Reference IDs available for all tasks

All tasks now have reference IDs that are visible in the URL which you can use to share the task with another user. The ID also allows users to access a task directly in a request, even if that task is already completed. Previously, only the last pending task of a request was accessible directly.

The Automation Co-Pilot Desktop experience now displays unattended and attended automation in the familiar interface. The style and experience is the same as the Automation Co-Pilot embedded widget, where interactive tasks, forms, and progress can be accessed in the convenient workspace.

For various users accessing Automation Co-Pilot Desktop, the following changes occur:
  • If the user has only an Automation Co-Pilot Business User license, then processes are visible.
  • If the user has only an Attended license, then bots are visible.
  • If the user has both Automation Co-Pilot Business User and Attended license, then both processes and bots are visible.
  • For other users, such as creators and unlicensed, an error will display. Log out and log in as a licensed user.
Fixes

Build 19659 (Cloud): All dependencies now show in the selected list for the exported process or bot during the Export process.

Service Cloud case ID: 02088776
Build 19669 (Cloud and Cloud-Sandbox): This build includes the following fixes (along with fixes from the previous builds):

Processes load in the Process Composer as expected. Previously when operating on Automation 360 version 30, only the load screen would display when opening a process that used a bot, form, or process containing external dependencies (ex. spreadsheet, file, etc.).

Service Cloud case ID: 02087219, 02087722, 02087795, 02087354, 02087749, 02087942, 02087591, 02087593, 02088270, 02088622, 02088698

Processes with a learning instance load as expected in the Process Composer. Previously, loading would not complete when trying to open a process with a learning instance.

Service Cloud case ID: 02087749, 02087795

Submitting a Form task behaves as expected in Automation Co-Pilot. Previously, some users operating on Automation 360 version 30 were unable to submit a request that included a form configured with validation rules.

Service Cloud case ID: 02086037, 02087396

The following are included with v.30.

Upon logging in to Automation Co-Pilot in Microsoft Teams, pop-ups close as expected. This is because of an added parameter in the URL used for setup of the embedded app. Previously, the pop-up would remain open, for some users, even after credentials were entered.

Integrate Automation Co-Pilot with Microsoft Teams

After saving a process in the Process Composer, check box options persist upon a page refresh. Previously upon refreshing, the check box option would not display in the Go To node when setting a check box input in the List of Options setting.
Adding a trigger to a multi-select drop-down element in Automation Co-Pilot on desktop works as expected. Previously, when the trigger was added the bot.execution.error would occur.
In multi-user deployments, trigger listener logs are now created for all bot deployments. Previously, the log was not capturing the multiple users activity.

When you deploy a bot, the initial start date and time of the bot show the correct date and time details. Previously, the correct date and time only displayed when the bot progressed.

Service Cloud case ID: 01982920

When running a process in Automation Co-Pilot the correct time displays in requests and end time. Previously, the time displayed inaccurately.

Service Cloud case ID: 01976950

PDF documents now render properly in forms. Previously in Automation 360 v.28 build 17566, when validating extracted information from Document Automation in Automation Co-Pilot the PDF did not display properly in a form.

Service Cloud case ID: 01981946

The file element is working as expected. Previously when using Automation Co-Pilot desktop, a file that had been uploaded in .xlsb format would be downloaded as a zipped file.

Service Cloud case ID: 01968194

For some processes, during the process editing phase in the Private space, the bot or form path breaks sometimes after importing or updating from a previous version. In such situations, we recommend using a workaround to reselect the path in case the path breaks, and save the process editor page before moving on.

Limitations

When selecting the Show only tasks assigned to me option, Automation Co-Pilot does not display a list of tasks. This is currently being fixed.
In Automation Co-Pilot desktop, the expected behavior for bot deployment triggers does not include an unattended user that has selected the setting Always create a new session for auto-log in.

After selecting Open in new window from the embedded widget and submitting a form, the pop-up window will close and the task in the main window will stay in the same initial step. This is being fixed.

Workaround: manually proceed by clicking on the next step in the task sequence.

Intermittently, the Automation Co-Pilot status does not synchronize with the back-end progress. Although the process moves forward when submit is clicked, the displayed interface stops responding still. If the user clicks Submit again, a message is displayed that The step has already been completed. Also, the Task Sequence displayed does not update. The user has no path forward but to exit the process and return to it from Activity History. Users can also refresh the page to update the display.

We recommend avoiding multiple browser tabs or windows open to other Automation 360 applications as it decreases the likelihood of this issue.

Badge notifications are not updated until Automation Co-Pilot is refreshed manually. Intermittently, tasks might be assigned, but the total items needing attention will not display accurately in the badge.
Intermittently during the importing of a process, the path of a form or bot breaks (path to forms or bots selected respectively in the imported Form and Bot Task). This issue is currently being fixed.

Upon opening the imported process, simply reselect the form or bot to correct the path.
In the Process Composer, sometimes the element name of a task, like form or bot, will not be correct after an attached process has been imported. In these circumstances, when a node has been clicked from one step to another step the element name displays inaccurately.

Workaround: In cases where element names have changed, exit the process without saving to avoid loss or corruption of data. To minimize this issue frequency, when the imported process opens immediately save before clicking nodes and continuing edits.
When the Control Room is deployed on an Oracle database, Automation Co-Pilot throws an Unknown error occurred message.
When validating a document in Automation Co-Pilot, using a display resolution smaller than 1400 x 770, the button to change views is lost.
When making changes to an existing process, the Save button does not enable if the title is the only change. This is being fixed.

Workaround: make a minor modification to the process and the Save button will enable.
When creating a new variable in the process and selecting use as input, the help text displayed in the Default value field is inaccurate: Only accepts existing variables in the process.

The input variable can also accept user-defined default values.
While running a task and using the backspace key to edit the time value in a form, the data first switches PM to AM (or AM to PM) then continues deleting. This behavior is being corrected.

The page might break in Automation Co-Pilot when clicking an option of a drop-down menu that is blank, during the task run.

Ensure any drop-down menu in a form always has at least a default value and are not set by an empty list variable.
An error occurs when attempting to sort by the User group column on the Requests tab, when logged in using the Automation Co-Pilot admin role in Automation Co-Pilot.

In Automation Co-Pilot on the document validation page, three Status chiclets are displayed when only one should display.
Ensure a compatible version of bot agent is configured with your device. If there are compatibility issues with bot agent service, the Automation Co-Pilot embedded page might not be available.
Users might experience the following: user logs in successfully, window appears for Automation Co-Pilot, though Log In window does not close and Automation Co-Pilot window displays spinner. This is because the embedded iFrame and Chrome extension are unable to communicate with Automation Co-Pilot due to the security token not being stored. Chrome is updating some security features and the admin that sets up the iFrame should be aware of these changes. See, Storage Partitioning - Chrome for Developers

Workaround: Customers should disable Chrome’s storage partitioning until a long term solution is identified.

Automation Co-Pilot for Business Users FAQ

In forms with row selection enabled, the first column is strictly boolean data type values. This is an expected behavior of row selection. Users that are passing data to tables should understand that Col0 = Boolean when row selection is enabled in the table.

Using the Table element

Service Cloud case ID: 01957725

Members of user-created role denied access to process

When a user-created role is added to an existing team, members of the role can launch a process assigned to the team, but proceeding tasks in the process are not accessible.

In Automation Co-Pilot for MS Teams and Automation Co-Pilot Desktop Assistant when viewing the Assigned tasks and My requests pages, only 30 requests load at a single time. Additionally when MS Teams is in full page view, a scroll bar for these large volume requests might not be present.

Workaround: Re-size the window for a scroll bar to appear and wait for the requests to load. You can also use the search bar to locate a specific request.

Service Cloud case ID: 02099633

Updates to the interface

See the following video for the updates in the interface for Automation 360 v.30 release:

Automation Co-Pilot
For desktop automations, the progress bar on the activity page now displays an accurate completed percentage for the executing automation. Progress indicator
The Task view has been improved to display contributors of approval tasks. Improved Task view
A task reference ID is displayed in the URL of each task. Task reference ID