Automation Workspace v.31 release

Review what's new and changed, and the fixes and limitations in Automation Workspace for the v.31 release.

What's new

Control Room, devices, and Bot Agent
Support for Microsoft Windows Server 2022

You can now install the Control Room on Microsoft Windows Server 2022 as it is supported for Microsoft Azure virtual machines.

Operating system, environment, and platform supported for Control Room

Change global cache expiry period

Control Room administrators can now change the default expiry period (30 days) of the global cache.

Configure global cache settings

Note: This feature requires the Enterprise Platform license. Contact your Automation Anywhere account representative for more information about this license.
Customize email template (Service Cloud case ID: 01823034)
As a Control Room administrator, you can customize email templates to send email report notifications to a user's registered email address. The following capabilities are provided when you customize an email template:
  • You can add a logo (image of the company logo) in the email body.
  • Use the option to turn off the email footer with Automation Anywhere social media links.
After applying these changes, you can preview the email template updates by sending a test email. Additionally, you can view and edit any email template you have previously customized.

Manage notification channels

Automatically purge historical activities (Service Cloud case ID: 01255033, 01753613, 01764385, 01907781, 01951958, 02004210)

Configure your Control Room settings to automatically purge (delete) historical activities that are older than a specified period.

  • Cloud: By default, the historical activities are set to be deleted after 90 days and this option is always enabled.
  • On-Premises: By default, this option is set to Do not purge when you update from a previous release to v.31 or later releases, or when you directly set up v.31 or later releases. When you set this option to Purge, the historical activities are set to be deleted after 365 days by default.

Configure Settings

Code analysis supported for API Tasks

As an administrator, you can now establish coding best practices by setting a code analysis policy and improve your team's code quality for the new API Tasks. Professional and Citizen Developers can receive feedback on the status of their automations and on what needs to be fixed, thus improving their code quality.

Code analysis supports policies with rules for both Task Bot as well as API Task files and supports integration with policy manager, Bot editor, and Assistant for both file types.

Note: This feature requires the Enterprise Platform license. Contact your Automation Anywhere account representative for more information about this license.

Configure and assign code analysis policy

API Task Analytics

As an administrator, you can view the most used API Tasks in the ACC dashboard. The API Task widget displays information about the top 5 most frequently used API Tasks. You can also view a detailed dashboard with additional information such as the name, file path, total calls, max concurrency, run-as-user, and modified by details.

Note: This feature requires the Enterprise Platform license. Contact your Automation Anywhere account representative for more information about this license.

ACC home page for administrators

Packages, actions, and Bot editor
Improved usability of the Assistant utility

The Bot editor, API editor, and the Template editor are now enhanced to remember the last position of the Assistant utility before you exit the editor. This improves the usability of the Assistant as you no longer have to move the Assistant to the right of the editor to view the Actions panel each time you open the bot within the editor.

Debugging your automations

Building and running bots
Export Automations dashboard data
Control Room administrator or user with View operations data (Export operations details and View operations details) permissions can use the Export option on the Automations dashboard to export automation data to analyze and make informed decisions backed by insights. You can export a maximum of 10,000 records in a CSV file.
Note: This feature requires the Enterprise Platform license. Contact your Automation Anywhere account representative for more information about this license.

Export Automation data

Enhanced Devices dashboard

We have introduced a new Device utilization details widget on the ACC home page to provide information about the utilization of each device registered with the Control Room for the selected date range.

APIs and integrations
Authentication API

The v1/authenticationand v1/authentication/token APIs are deprecated and are replaced with v2/authentication and v2/authentication/token APIs.

Delete Workitems API

The Swagger documentation is corrected to show POST /v3/wlm/queues/{id}/workitems/delete API instead of DELETE v3/wlm/queues/{id}/workitems/delete API.

Migration APIs
  1. The v2/migration APIs are removed.
  2. The v3/migration APIs are deprecated and are replaced with v4/migration APIs.
User Management APIs

To accommodate a wider range of IDs the User Management endpoints are updated to use int64 data types. As a result of this update the v1/usermanagement APIs are deprecated and are replaced with v2/usermanagement APIs.

What's changed

Control Room, devices, and Bot Agent
Audit log improvement for troubleshooting unsuccessful events (Service Cloud case ID: 01950866)

You can now view the Results field for unsuccessful audit log entries on the audit log page. When you export such entries to an Excel sheet, you can view the results in the Results column.

Audit log

The autoregistration.properties file is not auto-deleted (Service Cloud case ID: 01793789)
When you update to Automation 360 v.31, the autoregistration.properties file is no longer removed automatically:
  • Even when the AA_DELAY_REGISTRATION_UNTIL_LOGIN parameter is set to True or False
  • When you update Bot Agent to the corresponding version
Note that the autoregistration.properties file is deleted when you uninstall the Bot Agent.

Configure General settings | Bulk install Bot Agent on devices

Enhancement to new user registration link

The user registration link provided in the user registration email is now set to expire after 24 hours to enhance the security of the registration process.

Disable email notification for locker consumers

You now have the option to disable email notifications when a locker administrator adds or removes consumers from lockers.

Edit email notifications

Enhanced options for editing scheduled activity (Service Cloud case ID: 00803430, 01835976)
You can now use the following enhancements to edit a scheduled activity:
  • Move up the Start date and Start time.

    An alert is displayed if you select a Start date or Start time that is earlier than your device time.

  • Add or delete device pools.
  • Change the selected Run-as user.

Edit a scheduled activity

Changes in the Automation Command Center dashboard

When you navigate to the Automation and Devices tab on the Automation Command Center (ACC) homepage, the Date Range menu is now moved to the left side of the page.

Notifications for your Document Automation license consumption

If you have enabled notifications, you will receive a notification for your Document Automation license consumption when 80% of your licenses is consumed.

You can use this feature to plan for additional licenses.

Understanding licenses in Document Automation

Improved error message for variablized child bot

When a parent bot calls a child bot, and if the parent bot sends an input parameter with an incorrect data type, the bot fails with an error, and the following error message is displayed: Could not map the value of parent bot “<bot name>” with variable “<variable-name>” of child bot “<bot name>.

Note: Set Bot compatibility version to 5 to get the advantages of all cumulative features of previous versions.
Identify users who stopped bots (Service Cloud case ID: 01940890, 01952731)

You can now identify users who stopped bots in the audit logs and historical activities.

  • Audit log: The Username field in the Run bot stopped audit log identifies the user who stopped the bot.
  • Historical activity: The Modified by field on the Historical activity page identifies the user who stopped the bot.

Audit log | Historical activity

Pop-up handling available by default

After updating to this release, Pop-up handling that is part of the Resiliency Settingsis enabled by default for Cloud and On-Premises users.

Configure pop-up handling

Fixes

Build 21094: This build includes the following fixes (along with fixes from the previous builds):
You can now successfully check out the bot for a second time, even if it includes an additional image file (PNG) added after the initial check-in.

Previously, attempting a second check-out would fail if the bot had extra recorder images.

Service Cloud case ID: 02094656, 02098708

Build 21072: This build includes the following fixes (along with fixes from the previous builds):
In the Control Room, when you navigate to the Policies > Create policy page for code analysis, the note description is now consistent for both English and non-English languages.

Previously, the text description differed for English and non-English languages.

The Enterprise Platform - Plus license name will be displayed correctly on the license page.

Previously, the license name was displayed incorrectly.

If you have enabled single sign-on (SSO) on your Control Room and when you sign out of the Control Room, you will be able to successfully sign out of the Control Room.

Previously, you were unable to sign out of the Control Room in certain scenarios.

Service Cloud case ID: 02005687

Build 20926: This build includes the following fixes:
The ACC homepage now displays the correct data for the total number of running bots. The total number of Running bot count on the ACC homepage matches with the total number of bots that are on the In progress activity page

Previously, the total number of running bot count on the ACC homepage did not match with the number on the In progress activity page.

Service Cloud case ID: 01997191, 02004769, 02082824, 02093459

A device deletion job is now completed successfully even if you had created a device pool with a temporary (disconnected) device. Also, the deleted device is no longer displayed in the Audit log or on the Device list page.
The user now receives email notifications without any issues.

Previously, if the administrator changed the Secondary email language to None in the Settings > Notification channels, an email notification was not sent to users irrespective of the Primary email language set as English.

The alert summary report now displays the correct start and end date and time.
The total notification count is now displayed correctly in the alert summary report. The total notification count now matches the sum of attention needed and information notification counts.
When you connect to the Oracle database, you can now save the subscription data with no logo name in the Notification channel additional details table in the database.

Previously, an error was displayed when you tried saving the subscription data with no logo name.

You no longer observe login delays during intense repository activity.

Previously, intense repository activities could lead to delays or blocks for other users attempting to log in to the Control Room. This fix ensures smooth login experiences even during periods of high repository usage.
When you create a List variable with the File subtype in a bot, select the value as a Control Room file, and if you use the List package to assign value to the list variable, the bot now runs successfully.

The debugger no longer shows incorrect values when you run the bot consisting of Record type variable in Debug mode.

Service Cloud case ID: 01999649, 02005939, 02049121

Sensitive data is no longer logged in the Control Room logs.

Service Cloud case ID: 01981351

You no longer observe issues while performing bulk updates for any package.

Previously, an error message was displayed while performing bulk updates for any package.

Service Cloud case ID: 01962784, 01999625, 02003091, 02000434, 02005592, 02081914, 02089595

The Create User audit log entry page will no longer display license information.

Previously, license information was displayed on such audit log entry page.

Available event triggers are no longer deleted if there are any Control Room connectivity issues. Previously, some of the associated event triggers were deleted.

Service Cloud case ID: 01978574, 01979241, 01979619

The Debug tool no longer encounters an issue when you open the bot in Debug mode and keep the Debug tool inactive for a few minutes.

Service Cloud case ID: 01972733, 02094537, 02095109

You will no longer see duplicate active bot entries for a device on the In progress activity page.

Previously, duplicate active bot entries were displayed for a device.

Service Cloud case ID: 02084299

If you search for audit log entries using invalid characters, an appropriate message is now displayed to indicate the valid characters that you can use in your search.

Previously, a generic message was displayed.

Service Cloud case ID: 01977481

You will no longer see multiple DEFAULT_DEVICE_UNSET event type entries on the Audit log page when the following conditions are met:
  • A default device is not set in the Control Room.
  • The Bot Agent is not installed on your local device.
  • The Clear the user’s existing bot running device if the bot agent is not present on the local device option is not selected in the general devices settings.

Previously, multiple DEFAULT_DEVICE_UNSET event type entries in such a scenario.

Service Cloud case ID: 01991901

When you run a bot that is using a child bot, the progress bar on the In progress activity page now displays the correct line numbers.

Previously, incorrect line numbers were displayed.

Service Cloud case ID: 01994423, 02005566

When a bot run is timed out, the Started on and Ended on values on the Historical activity page now display the correct start and end timestamps.

Previously, the Started on and Ended on values displayed the same timestamps.

Fixed security vulnerability issues. For more information, click the release download link and view the Security & Compliance reports at A-People Downloads page (Login required).

Service Cloud case ID: 01986857, 01988493, 01986581, 01957781, 01977037

When you update to Automation 360 v.29 or later versions and deploy a queue on an existing device pool, the queue now deploys successfully.

Previously, sometimes, the queue had to be deployed on a newly created device pool to run successfully.

Service Cloud case ID: 01993651, 01993714, 01994355, 01994555

When you add work items through a CSV with just a header row and no records, you can still delete the queue successfully.

Previously, the queue with pending work order and empty work items list could not be deleted.

Service Cloud case ID: 01903605

You can now successfully use SSH authentication to configure a remote Git repository integration.

Previously, Git integration would fail with an invalid authentication error if SSH authentication was used.

Service Cloud case ID: 01973857

You can successfully export your production label bots that contain dependencies like .dll, .xlsx, .txt, and so on without any issues.

Previously, export of few production label bots failed with an error due to data migration issues.

Service Cloud case ID: 01979699

You can now edit a bot that contain dependencies while the check-in is in progress without any issues.

Previously, if the check-in was in progress, the bot would take a long time to open in the Bot editor.

Service Cloud case ID: 02095424

The URLs of your Cloud Control Room instances are now displayed correctly in the ACC dashboard.

Previously, the values displayed were incorrect.

Service Cloud case ID: 02094113

You can now successfully import bots even if the Upload folder is present in the server repository.

Previously, bot imports failed, and the Upload folder had to be deleted for a successful import.

Service Cloud case ID: 02086022, 02098210

You can now successfully perform the cancel check out operation with the AAE_Admin role.

Previously, administrators were not able to cancel the checked out bots.

Service Cloud case ID: 02084985

During On-Premises Control Room installation, the Control Room is no longer flagged as a third party tool during security scan and is installed successfully.

Previously, during the security scan, the Control Roomwas flagged as a third-party tool. This issue occurred because the nssm.exe was not signed in.

Service Cloud case ID: 01996711

After logging in to Automation Anywhere, the files and folders in the Public or Private workspace are now displayed in an alphabetical order.

Service Cloud Case ID: 02106069, 02106738, 02107430

The Bot compatibility version > 5 is now available to handle number division operations for numbers that are longer than nine digits, including decimals.

Service Cloud Case ID: 01971902

In WLM automations, the auto retry count is now working as expected, and the retries attempted column displays the correct number of retry counts.

Previously, when the queue had only one work item, auto retry count was not incrementing correctly.

Service Cloud Case ID: 02102054, 01983463

Limitations

When you import a bot from the Bot Store to the Control Room and if the size of the bot file is greater than 900 MB, the bot import fails with an error.
On the In progress activity page, the Activity type filter displays the following behaviors:
  • The Schedule Bot activity type is not listed in the Activity type drop-down even when there are such entries listed in the table.
  • When you select the Run Bot activity type from the Activity type drop-down, the table does not display entries even when such entries are available.

Workaround: Sort the Activity type column in the table to view the Schedule Bot and Run Bot activity types.

If you have not purchased an Enterprise Platform license, you will see an Enterprise Platform - undefined license type listed in the Products section on the Licenses page. This license type represents the Enterprise Platform - Plus license. The license name will be displayed appropriately in an upcoming Automation 360 release.
When you use Auto registration API to switch device registration from one Control Room to another, the device is de-registered from the first Control Room. However, the device registration will not revert to the previously registered or first Control Room if it fails after de-registering.

Workaround: Ensure that you use the registration token from the autoregistration.properties file to register the device in the specified Control Room.

When you create a bot, use a table variable with column type as Datetime and no values defined in the Datetime column, the bot fails with an error on execution.
When you update to Automation 360 v.31, if handling unexpected pop-ups feature is enabled in an active WLM automation, and you add work items to an active queue, the flag value to manage unexpected pop-ops is not retained.

Workaround: Pause and resume the queue before adding the add work items to the queue.

When a bot has more than two versions and you assign production label to an earlier version of the bot and export it, the metadata associated with the latest version of the bot is exported instead of the metadata associated with the production version.

When code analysis is enabled and a policy including variable name pattern API Task rule is applied to a folder, the default variables generated during the creation of new API Tasks do not comply with this rule.
When a Bot Creator user clones a bot and then makes some updates to the parent bot using actions that involve image previews (such as Recorder > Capture or Image Recognition > Find image in window), the changes are not replicated on the cloned bot.

Workaround: After you have completed your updates on the parent bot, ensure you re-clone it.